|
question for the video editor folks
I have several videos I've transferred over from VHS to digital. All
are in MPEG2 format. I need to cut and edit some of them, but I'm having trouble finding a free editor that does so without re-encoding. Suggestions for freeware that would allow this without a re-encode would be welcome. Thank you. |
question for the video editor folks
"JBI" wrote
|I have several videos I've transferred over from VHS to digital. All | are in MPEG2 format. I need to cut and edit some of them, but I'm | having trouble finding a free editor that does so without re-encoding. | Suggestions for freeware that would allow this without a re-encode would | be welcome. Thank you. I don't know enough to know the implications of "re-encoding" issues, but I've had good luck with Avidemux for my limited needs. It's basically a graphic editor fort video, providing basic functions like crop, resize, rotate, color adjustment, borders, etc. I spent most of a day at one point looking through various options and Avidemux was by far the best. However, I haven't tried anything like splicing or minor snipping. The only cutting I've done has been on the ends. |
question for the video editor folks
On 10/09/2018 10:26 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"JBI" wrote |I have several videos I've transferred over from VHS to digital. All | are in MPEG2 format. I need to cut and edit some of them, but I'm | having trouble finding a free editor that does so without re-encoding. | Suggestions for freeware that would allow this without a re-encode would | be welcome. Thank you. I don't know enough to know the implications of "re-encoding" issues, but I've had good luck with Avidemux for my limited needs. It's basically a graphic editor fort video, providing basic functions like crop, resize, rotate, color adjustment, borders, etc. I spent most of a day at one point looking through various options and Avidemux was by far the best. However, I haven't tried anything like splicing or minor snipping. The only cutting I've done has been on the ends. Hi, yes, I use Avidemux fairly regularly. In fact, I have it working on an edited video right now that is being re-encoded because I want to share on the web. However, I don't think there's any way to edit without re-encoding. There is a "copy" option, but I don't see any way to keep the format without some sort of re-encode. Looked for tutorials/ instructions, but no luck. |
question for the video editor folks
"Mayayana" schreef in bericht
... "JBI" wrote |I have several videos I've transferred over from VHS to digital. All | are in MPEG2 format. I need to cut and edit some of them, but I'm | having trouble finding a free editor that does so without re-encoding. | Suggestions for freeware that would allow this without a re-encode would | be welcome. Thank you. I don't know enough to know the implications of "re-encoding" issues, Unneccesary loss of video quality and time. BTW I do use a utility for cutting mp3 files without recoding (for the same reason), mp3direct cut. But I don't have an answer to your question. -- |\ /| | \/ |@rk \../ \/os |
question for the video editor folks
"Mayayana" wrote in message
... "JBI" wrote |I have several videos I've transferred over from VHS to digital. All | are in MPEG2 format. I need to cut and edit some of them, but I'm | having trouble finding a free editor that does so without re-encoding. | Suggestions for freeware that would allow this without a re-encode would | be welcome. Thank you. I don't know enough to know the implications of "re-encoding" issues, but I've had good luck with Avidemux for my limited needs. It's basically a graphic editor for video, providing basic functions like crop, resize, rotate, color adjustment, borders, etc. If you do any of those functions (crop, resize, rotate, color adjustment, borders) with any package, you will always have to re-encode because you are actually changing the data. Cutting out frames is essentially selectively copying from source to destination, with a bit of re-encoding around each join. I spent most of a day at one point looking through various options and Avidemux was by far the best. However, I haven't tried anything like splicing or minor snipping. The only cutting I've done has been on the ends. I use VideoReDo on Windows and it works perfectly. However it's not free. I tried Avidemux on Linux Ubuntu as an alternative to VRD (which hasn't been ported to Linux) but it doesn't always make perfect seamless edits. Depending where you make the cuts in the sequence of P frames (full picture) and I frames (differences from that reference P frame) you may hit on a case where the join goes pixellated. VRD gets round that problem be re-encoding the video from the cut point to the next P frame (typically about 10 frames) so as to give a perfect sequence. Apparently older versions of Avidemux used to be able to make flawless joins but later ones can't always - sounds like one hell of a regression, and not one that should have been allowed out of the door without being fixed. VRD has the advantage that you see a time line of thumbail images of all the frames either side of the frame that is currently displayed, which makes it easier to see when a transition (eg from programme to advert "break bumper" image) is coming up. It can also play the video at various speeds as you are shuttling through to get the exact in and out points: I find I can locate the correct frames more quickly than with Avidemux where it's basically full speed or frame by frame. I'm not sure whether there are other packages that do as good a job as VRD but which are free. |
question for the video editor folks
JBI wrote:
I have several videos I've transferred over from VHS to digital. All are in MPEG2 format. I need to cut and edit some of them, but I'm having trouble finding a free editor that does so without re-encoding. Suggestions for freeware that would allow this without a re-encode would be welcome. Thank you. I did a search on the Internet and found some (using "free video cutter" as the search phrase). The first one that came up was Fast MPEG Cut, bu there were some others. https://free-fast-mpeg-cut.en.uptodown.com/windows Here is another one: https://filehippo.com/download_free_...cutter_joiner/ |
question for the video editor folks
NY wrote:
If you do any of those functions (crop, resize, rotate, color adjustment, borders) with any package, you will always have to re-encode because you are actually changing the data. Cutting out frames is essentially selectively copying from source to destination, with a bit of re-encoding around each join. It's the "cutting out frames" case which can be done without re-encoding. You have to cut on GOP boundaries to make it work. And at least one video standard, there's a software that allows cutting any frame, and just the current GOP needs to be re-worked to meld the ends properly. You can use FFMPEG to join videos on GOP boundaries. I've done that with Cinepak encoded content. Being careful to make each segment a multiple of the GOP size. (I.e. a 12 frame GOP, a 12000 frame segment, so one movie chunk has 1000 GOPs in it.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_pictures "I picture or I frame (intra coded picture) – a picture that is coded independently of all other pictures." Those take up more space than the other frames, but they're also the secret to lossless editing (on roughly half-second boundaries). This isn't sufficiently accurate editing for most people - you'd need some generous fade-to-blacks to work that way. I've studied the data rate of videos, using ffprobe, and having it dump packets to an output file. And you can post-process the file and get size info, to show the size of an I-frame, versus the others. You'll easily be able to see the cadence. (Media info tools will tell you the GOP value, without doing all of that. But this is part of the fun of studying stuff.) The largest GOP value is around 600 frames. And that's not a popular value to try either. Using that is for bar bets (ugliest, least responsive video). Paul |
question for the video editor folks
JBI wrote on 10/10/2018 1:19 AM:
I have several videos I've transferred over from VHS to digital.Â* All are in MPEG2 format.Â* I need to cut and edit some of them, but I'm having trouble finding a free editor that does so without re-encoding. Suggestions for freeware that would allow this without a re-encode would be welcome.Â* Thank you. Can I add a related question, please?? After copying many VHS tapes to digital, when I edit the Digital files, cutting out unwanted bits, I would want to add Date/Occurrence "slides" to the edit, e.g. Dora's 21st Birthday First of April, 1999 Central Park, New York Or, maybe ... Wedding of Dick and Dora St Patrick's Church Sydney, Australia 21/12/1995 That type of thing ... at the start of, or between scenes for, say fifteen seconds. Is this possible and, if so, which program would you recommend?? TIA -- Daniel |
question for the video editor folks
In message , Paul
writes: [] It's the "cutting out frames" case which can be done without re-encoding. You have to cut on GOP boundaries to make it work. And at least one video standard, Do you know which one? there's a software that allows cutting any frame, and just the current GOP needs to be re-worked to meld the ends properly. Which software - or is it (your beloved) FFMPEG as you describe below? You can use FFMPEG to join videos on GOP boundaries. I've done that with Cinepak encoded content. Being careful to make each segment a multiple of the GOP size. (I.e. a 12 frame GOP, a 12000 frame segment, so one movie chunk has 1000 GOPs in it.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_pictures [] The largest GOP value is around 600 frames. And that's (Wow, 20 seconds for NTSC!) not a popular value to try either. Using that is for bar bets (ugliest, least responsive video). [] I've looked at the Wikipedia article (after at first reading about the Grand Old Party! [Which I was fascinated to read was originally liberal!!]), and it gives the impression that the GOP size is generally fixed; that surprised me - I'd always assumed they varied with content (e. g. a scene cut requiring a new I frame, a static picture not needing any after the first). -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf User Error: Replace user, hit any key to continue. |
question for the video editor folks
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
... I've looked at the Wikipedia article and it gives the impression that the GOP size is generally fixed; that surprised me - I'd always assumed they varied with content (e. g. a scene cut requiring a new I frame, a static picture not needing any after the first). Yes, my understanding is that GOPs are normally a fixed spacing, especially on DVDs, but they are a *maximum* number of intermediate differential frames before the next full frame, and that it makes a lot of sense to put a new full frame at every shot change, to avoid having huuuuge difference frames between the last full one and the current frame of a new shot. Broadcast TV seems to be more tolerate of larger GOPs than DVDs which impose a smaller maximum GOP size: when I've been encoding recordings of home movies to put on DVD, I've seen a message "GOP size too high - will need partial recoding" in VideoRedo. As I understand it, you can cut on any frame boundary, even joining two unrelated differential frames, as long as your software generates new full frames (by taking the last full one in the second clip and applying all the subsequent differences up to the "out" cut point) and then calculates brand new difference frames from that point to the next full frame. AIUI that's how Video Redo makes seamless edits which don't have to be on GOP boundaries. You can even see on the status dialogue, it says "copying frames" and then briefly, at each edit point "recoding frames". I presume it is this re-encoding around the edit point that Avidemux and other FFMPEG-based software doesn't do properly. VRD even has a setting which allows you to vary the bit rate of the generated frames. I noticed when I was removing the commercials from low-bitrate, low-resolution (544x576) recordings on Yesterday, Drama etc, I sometimes got a lot of compression noise at the join. I was advised by VRD support to set a per-recording value of minimum bitrate which is ignored for the majority of the recording when you are just copying source to destination, but is used when any full and difference frames have to be generated. (Note that I use terms "full" and "difference" because I can never remember which of those are termed I and which are termed P or B! I'd thought it was P for picture (full) and I for intermediate, but from comments up-thread I think I may be wrong.) |
question for the video editor folks
"Daniel60" wrote in message
... JBI wrote on 10/10/2018 1:19 AM: I have several videos I've transferred over from VHS to digital. All are in MPEG2 format. I need to cut and edit some of them, but I'm having trouble finding a free editor that does so without re-encoding. Suggestions for freeware that would allow this without a re-encode would be welcome. Thank you. Can I add a related question, please?? After copying many VHS tapes to digital, when I edit the Digital files, cutting out unwanted bits, I would want to add Date/Occurrence "slides" to the edit, e.g. Dora's 21st Birthday First of April, 1999 Central Park, New York Or, maybe ... Wedding of Dick and Dora St Patrick's Church Sydney, Australia 21/12/1995 That type of thing ... at the start of, or between scenes for, say fifteen seconds. Is this possible and, if so, which program would you recommend?? Hmm. You could use something like Adobe Premiere for inserting the still captions (either between clips or overlaid on the start of a new sequence) and just take the performance hit of having to re-encode the whole project. Or you could use FFMPEG to generate a short MPEG clips consisting of sequence of stills (which are all the same), and then insert that between the existing clips. I've done the latter with a DVD that I made for someone. I may actually have used Premiere to generate the caption segments, rather than using FFMPEG, but I still joined those to the video clips with VideRedo. To make an MPEG from a sequence of stills, you use "ffmpeg -f image2 -i image*d.png -pix_fmt yuv420p caption.mpeg" where the caption stills are called image1.png, image2.png etc. The "-f image2" says "the input files are PNG" and the "-pixfmt yuv420p" tells FFMPEG to force the output frames to be YUV (luminance and two colour difference) when the input stills are RGB (PNG stores pictures as RGB). If your stills are JPEG, you may get away without either of those extra parameters. You *may* get away with using AVIdemux instead of VideoRedo, but you may fall foul of AVIdemuxe's rather naive way of joining video which doesn't recode frames around the edit point and so may lead to brief pixellation if the separate sections are not on full-frame boundaries and are instead difference-from-the-last-full frames. |
question for the video editor folks
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes: [] It's the "cutting out frames" case which can be done without re-encoding. You have to cut on GOP boundaries to make it work. And at least one video standard, Do you know which one? there's a software that allows cutting any frame, and just the current GOP needs to be re-worked to meld the ends properly. Which software - or is it (your beloved) FFMPEG as you describe below? You can use FFMPEG to join videos on GOP boundaries. I've done that with Cinepak encoded content. Being careful to make each segment a multiple of the GOP size. (I.e. a 12 frame GOP, a 12000 frame segment, so one movie chunk has 1000 GOPs in it.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_pictures [] The largest GOP value is around 600 frames. And that's (Wow, 20 seconds for NTSC!) not a popular value to try either. Using that is for bar bets (ugliest, least responsive video). [] I've looked at the Wikipedia article (after at first reading about the Grand Old Party! [Which I was fascinated to read was originally liberal!!]), and it gives the impression that the GOP size is generally fixed; that surprised me - I'd always assumed they varied with content (e. g. a scene cut requiring a new I frame, a static picture not needing any after the first). -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf User Error: Replace user, hit any key to continue. I'll throw out two likely candidates, but I didn't check for sure, and Paul may know. SolveigMM Video Splitter VideoReDoPlus |
question for the video editor folks
NY wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message ... I've looked at the Wikipedia article and it gives the impression that the GOP size is generally fixed; that surprised me - I'd always assumed they varied with content (e. g. a scene cut requiring a new I frame, a static picture not needing any after the first). Yes, my understanding is that GOPs are normally a fixed spacing, especially on DVDs, but they are a *maximum* number of intermediate differential frames before the next full frame, and that it makes a lot of sense to put a new full frame at every shot change, to avoid having huuuuge difference frames between the last full one and the current Broadcast TV seems to be more tolerate of larger GOPs than DVDs which impose a smaller maximum GOP size. If you look at two pass encoding using VBR (variable bit rate) for DVDs, there is an "imaginary" 2MB RAM buffer on the DVD reader, to avoid starvation when reading at the 1X rate a set top box player would use. Imaginary in that they could easily use a larger chip in 2018. It might be hard to find one small enough to be a joke like that. Computers don't have such a limitation, because the player could be made to run at 4X or 8X if necessary. But set top players constrain what is allowed in encoding. The set top player will refuse to break stride and speed up a little bit to refill the buffer. You want to prepare content which plays "anywhere", including the standalone Sony DVD player your grandma has. ******* I copied the following info from here (a ref from my notes file). This is an example of two-pass encoding, where way too many parameters have been specified (to scare people :-) ). The output file is "NUL" in the first command, because this is Windows, and the first pass doesn't actually keep the MPG file produced. The first pass makes an (unnamed) map file. http://todayiwantedtoprogram.tumblr....vd-actually-do ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v mpeg2video -f dvd -s 720x576 -r 25 -pix_fmt yuv420p -g 15 -b:v 4100k -maxrate 8000000 -minrate 0 -bufsize 1835008 -packetsize 2048 -pass 1 -an -y NUL ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v mpeg2video -c:a ac3 -f dvd -s 720x576 -r 25 -pix_fmt yuv420p -g 15 -b:v 4100k -maxrate 8000000 -minrate 0 -bufsize 1835008 -packetsize 2048 -muxrate 10080000 -b:a 448000 -ar 48000 -pass 2 output.mpg The bufsize of "1835008" is a 2MB RAM chip minus space for other things. That value is some sort of standard of sorts, so the Sony standalone player will work properly, without underruns and dropped frames or something. The first command exists, to generate a "map" of the datarate requirements. The second pass, the encoder takes advantage of the map file, to figure out when it can turn the Q up or down, without a buffer problem (1835008). This leads to a higher Quality setting for quiet scenes, and sufficient buffer draining before an explosion happens in the movie. The second-pass encoder can adjust the rate dynamically. Two-pass encoding gives the second pass a "heads up" on what state the buffer is in. That's all it's for. It allows precise trimming of the Q value. And you'll notice the first pass, doesn't process audio at all. Only the second pass does. Weird. Paul (who is not a video expert!) |
question for the video editor folks
"JBI" wrote in message ... I have several videos I've transferred over from VHS to digital. All are in MPEG2 format. I need to cut and edit some of them, but I'm having trouble finding a free editor that does so without re-encoding. Suggestions for freeware that would allow this without a re-encode would be welcome. Thank you. I've used VideoPad Video Editor for a few years now. There is a free, non commercial, home-use one. It just asks you each time you open it to certify that you are using it for home use: https://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/index.html A little bit under the picture is the line "Get it free." That's the one. I still use an older version (4.14), and it looks like they're up 6.24 now. I have had no problems with the older version, so have not felt the need to update what's already working just fine. As with most free programs, be careful what you click during the installation or it will probably try to install a bunch of other crap. -- SC Tom |
question for the video editor folks
NY wrote on 10/10/2018 8:48 PM:
"Daniel60" wrote in message ... JBI wrote on 10/10/2018 1:19 AM: I have several videos I've transferred over from VHS to digital.Â* All are in MPEG2 format.Â* I need to cut and edit some of them, but I'm having trouble finding a free editor that does so without re-encoding. Suggestions for freeware that would allow this without a re-encode would be welcome.Â* Thank you. Can I add a related question, please?? After copying many VHS tapes to digital, when I edit the Digital files, cutting out unwanted bits, I would want to add Date/Occurrence "slides" to the edit, e.g. Dora's 21st Birthday First of April, 1999 Central Park, New York Or, maybe ... Wedding of Dick and Dora St Patrick's Church Sydney, Australia 21/12/1995 That type of thing ... at the start of, or between scenes for, say fifteen seconds. Is this possible and, if so, which program would you recommend?? Hmm. You could use something like Adobe Premiere for inserting the still captions (either between clips or overlaid on the start of a new sequence) and just take the performance hit of having to re-encode the whole project. Or you could use FFMPEG to generate a short MPEG clips consisting of sequence of stills (which are all the same), and then insert that between the existing clips. I've done the latter with a DVD that I made for someone. I may actually have used Premiere to generate the caption segments, rather than using FFMPEG, but I still joined those to the video clips with VideRedo. To make an MPEG from a sequence of stills, you use "ffmpeg -f image2 -i image*d.png -pix_fmt yuv420p caption.mpeg" where the caption stills are called image1.png, image2.png etc. The "-f image2" says "the input files are PNG" and the "-pixfmt yuv420p" tells FFMPEG to force the output frames to be YUV (luminance and two colour difference) when the input stills are RGB (PNG stores pictures as RGB). If your stills are JPEG, you may get away without either of those extra parameters. You *may* get away with using AVIdemux instead of VideoRedo, but you may fall foul of AVIdemuxe's rather naive way of joining video which doesn't recode frames around the edit point and so may lead to brief pixellation if the separate sections are not on full-frame boundaries and are instead difference-from-the-last-full frames. Thanks for that, NY. At least you've shown it is possible. -- Daniel |
All times are GMT +1. The time now is 08:38 PM. |
|
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © 2004 - 2006 PCbanter
Comments are property of their posters