Video Editing Software?

[MisterTee]

Is there anyone out there that can recommend a good video editing application. I would like to take the mpeg2 videos that I have created using gbpvr and edit them. I don't need to do much really. I just would like the ability to cut out portions of it to make it suitible for dvd. Every program I have tried doesn't seem to keep the quality of the original video.

If the program has the ability to convert to divx or xvid it would be a plus but its not required since I own a copy of DIVX Creator.

[pcostanza]

I'm a big fan of VideReDo and it's plus version. TMPGEnc Mpeg Editor is good to. I think they have a trial version too. Neither of these re-encode and both are fast. I can cut out commercials in a 1 hour tv show in less than 5 minutes.

[MisterTee]

pcostanza, can you point me in the right direction to download videoredo? I can't seem to find it.

It looks like there is no trial for TMPGEnc. Can you point me in the direction to download a trial for this?

[Mister Slimm]

I use this setup: TMPGEnc and Cuttermaran.

The free version of TMPGEnc includes a demuxer under the menu item File->MPEG Tools, then select Simple Demultiplex. This produces two files containing the video and audio separately.

I then use Cuttermaran to edit the file. Cuttermaran simply cuts the files, it does not re-encode. When it has finished cutting, it can mux the cut video and audio files back together. (I think it's the third tab when you click "Cut Video / Audio"). There is no quality loss because there is no de-encoding and re-encoding undertaken.

Important point regarding Cuttermaran:
While it might just be me, I could not run Cuttermaran v1.66. It has a significantly re-designed user-interface from v1.65 (not for the better particularly). I use v1.65 which retains a simple interface for cutting and doesn't crash on me either! You can download old versions of Cuttermaran from their Download page.

Further note:
You do need a lot of free disk space to run these programs. During the process 5 large files are created taking up three times as much space as the original recording. Also, temporary files of about the size of the original recording are also created. So, if you have a 1Gb recording, you'll need significantly more than 3Gb free space on that drive and more the 1Gb free space on your system drive.

Also, video muxing and de-muxing is very processor intensive.

Links:
TMPGEnc
Cuttermaran

[erik]

I am not sure but Womble MPEGVCR did give away the program for free, at least you received a licence for free.
Its a great and simple program that does exactly what you seem to need.

Give it a try at their web site.

[MisterTee]

Erik,

I have used MPEGVCR. In fact that is the only one that allowed me to job through the movie to do the cutting. I did notice that it took about 9 hours to edit the 90 minute video that I had. Is this amount of rendering time typical? Also I am interested where you found this software for free. The version I am using is eval.

[blader_se]

I am not sure but Womble MPEGVCR did give away the program for free, at least you received a licence for free.
Its a great and simple program that does exactly what you seem to need.

I only got a 30-day trial. The program was good, but I believe I thought it was to expensive...

[Mister Slimm]

I did notice that it took about 9 hours to edit the 90 minute video that I had. Is this amount of rendering time typical? Also I am interested where you found this software for free. The version I am using is eval.

I cut the ads out of every episode of Lost recently. There were 4 ads in an hour show every week. It tooks TMPGEnc about 5-10 minutes to demux the video, about 2 minutes to load in Cuttermaran, another couple of minutes to perform the edits, and about 10 minutes for Cuttermaran to cut and mux the thing back into an mpeg file. The only bit I needed to pay attention to was the cutting and I carried on using my machine for other things while demuxing and muxing was taking place.

The fact that you are taking 9 hours indicates that you are de-coding the MPEG stream instead of demuxing it and re-encoding it instead of muxing it. The de-encoding and re-encoding processes are lossy processes and will introduce all sorts of unpleasant digital encoding artefacts into your output.

[erik]

Erik,

I have used MPEGVCR. In fact that is the only one that allowed me to job through the movie to do the cutting. I did notice that it took about 9 hours to edit the 90 minute video that I had. Is this amount of rendering time typical? Also I am interested where you found this software for free. The version I am using is eval.

I registered my evaluation version and then I seem to have receive a licenced version because it continues to run(?????

What I do is open the mpeg file to edit, delete in the timeline the pieces I want to delete or I use the output of comskip to read in a clip list and I past the clips from the clip list onto the timeline and then I press the save button.
The who process takes a couple of minutes ofr a 2 hour recording, no demuxing, no decoding, no encoding, no muxing, direct copy of the mpeg input regments to the output file, no large intermidiate files.

I you can't get the free licene I do recommend cuttermaran.

[Mister Slimm]

I registered my evaluation version and then I seem to have receive a licenced version because it continues to run(?????

Cool. I'm gonna have a butchers at this too.