Shortening an AVI video from 2 hrs to 75 mins

[mrswla]

Hello guys/gals,

I recently used Studio 9 to import a video as an avi into my computer. I didn't know exactly how long the video was, so I set it to record for 2 hours. Afterwards, I see that it is only 1 hour and 15 minutes. Is there any easy way to shorten the video file, to cut off all the garbage video at the end?

Thanks for any info,
Joe

[guns1inger]

Studio 9 is an editing program, yes ? Find the endof the section you want to keep and make a cut. Select the rest and delete it. If Studio 9 is any good, you should be able to save what's left without re-encoding. As to how you cut it - that's what the help files are there for.

[mrswla]

Thanks for the reply.

Once you import into Studio 9 and make all necassary cuts, edits, etc. it does not save a new avi file. It only saves a small file that tells studio to reference the original avi file and where all the cuts, edits, wipes, etc. are. It does not change the avi file in any way. Thanks for the idea though. I guess I could make a cut and delete the remainder and then re-encode it as a new avi file, but I fear that would take hours. Therefore it would probably just be easier to re-import the original video. But I didn't really want to do that if I didn't have too.

Thanks,
Joe

[Abond]

VirtualDub

[guns1inger]

You should still be able to export the avi to your HDD without it re-encoding. Virtualdub will do the same thing, but if you have it in Studio, you may as well use it. I don't understand what your problem is, other than finding a little time to read the manual so you understand how NLE's work. What you have saved is the project file, which does, as you say, contain just the information about the cuts you made. You need to export/render/whatever Studio 9 calls it your edited version to get a new, shorter avi. All editors, be they simple like virtualdub, or complexe like premiere or vegas, work the same way.

[mrswla]

Thanks for the replies guns1inger and abond. I will try to use Studio first, but I do believe it will re-render it which will take awhile. What in Studio doesn't take awhile!?!
If it seem to take forever I check out virtualdub.

Thanks,
Joe

[jimmalenko]

I'd check out virtualdub from the start ... open file, set start point, set end point, go to video > Direct Stream Copy, go to Audio > Direct Stream Copy, then go to File > Save as AVI. Save out to a new (& shortened) AVI file. No loss of quality, no confusing settings, no 're-rendering', nada, nothing. Job done.

[mrswla]

Thank you jimmalenko. I will definitely use virtualdub from the start. Also, thanks for explaining how to do it. Virtualdub will be a new program for me, so thanks for shortening my learning curve. I would probably have installed it and then looked at it like

Thanks,
Joe

[DarrellS]

Thank you jimmalenko. I will definitely use virtualdub from the start. Also, thanks for explaining how to do it. Virtualdub will be a new program for me, so thanks for shortening my learning curve. I would probably have installed it and then looked at it like

VirtualDub is definately the program to use for this, as jimmalenko suggested.

They have their own users forum also (although most of their users are on this forum also, the creators hang out over there).

http://forums.virtualdub.org/