HomePage 2 of 3: Removing Opaque Logos
Removing Opaque Logos
This section shows you how to remove opaque (non transparent) logos. Alpha-blended (transparent) logos can be removed this way as well, but the result won't look as good - skip to the next page to find out another method for removing alpha-blended logos.
Start VirtualDub. Load in the video file that has the logo/watermark you want to remove.
From the "Video" menu, select "Filters". In the window that opens, press the "Add" button and select the "DeLogo 1.3.2" filter, press "OK" to load the filter.
The "DeLogo" filter setup screen should now show up. Press the "Show Preview" button down at the bottom to launch the "Filter Preview" window. Use the slider controls in the preview window to skip to a section of the video where the logo (to be removed) is most visible. For example, in the screenshot below, the logo I want to remove is the "PREMIERE LIVE" logo in the top right corner.
Going back to the main DeLogo window, press the "Save Frame" button (circled below) and save the frame as a BMP file.
Now open the newly saved BMP file in your paint/bitmap editor (leaving VirtualDub still open). What we need to do is to paint over the logo using the red color. First, select the proper red color, the RGB value should be R:255, G:0, B:0 (HTML color code should be #FF0000). Now paint over the logo, you might want to paint some part just around the logo too. For example, the screenshot below shows the "PREMIERE LIVE" logo painted over. Save this BMP as another file (you can save over the original, but let's keep it just in case we need to re-do the logo painting later on).
Going back to VirtualDub's DeLogo window, load the BMP file that has the logo painted in red, using the "Load" button in the "Repair" section (circled in the screenshot below).
Press the "Show Preview" button again, and this time, you should see the logo has been "blurred" out.
You can adjust the properties of the repair mask by adjusting the "Repair parameters" shown on the main DeLogo window.
You can select the "Repair" radio button in the "Preview" section of the DeLogo window to help you see the repair mask more clearly, when adjusting the repair parameters (select the "Standard" radio button to return to the normal preview):
Depths: This is the yellow border around the red repair mask - increasing the depth increases the width of this yellow border.
Power: The lower the power, the more blurred the result.
Interlaced: Enable this when your input video is interlaced, which can improve the processing effect.
Pixel aspect: This specifies the pixel aspect ratio, can be adjusted when the pixel aspect ratio isn't 1:1 - changing this setting affects the border size and shape too.
When you're happy with the results, press the "Close" button to close the DeLogo window. Press "OK" to close the "Filters" window and then re-encode your video, now minus the logo. This guide will not cover the video re-encoding instructions, but you can read a quick reminder of how it's done in our VirtualDub: Two Pass Encoding short guide.
The next page of this guide deals with a method to remove alpha-blended logos.
