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  1. Member
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    Hi folks. This would be ridiculously simple for you, but for me it's a pain in the a***.

    On the odd occasion I want to cut a video, I use iMovie on my Mac. This is all I need to do - cut a small portion.

    I cut where I want which is fine. The painful part is in saving. All I've managed to find is "Share" as a file.

    It takes a crazy amount of time to resave the shorter clip. We're talking a 30Mb .mp4

    Is there a simple free app you can recommend or a simpler saving process in iMovie (which I find quite cumbersome)?

    Many thanks
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  2. Member hech54's Avatar
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    I'd use AviDemux myself. I use an older, less buggy version(some claim the newer versions are buggy) # 2.4.4.
    Depending on where you cut(key frames), your output file will not require any re-encoding.
    Settings(after cut):
    COPY
    COPY
    MP4
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  3. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    First, let's be clear to everyone here: you are on a Mac, right? That limits you as to which apps you can use.

    iMovie is notorious for giving you limited output options, so if your movie isn't ALREADY formatted in one of their "approved" codecs/layouts/sizes/containers, it is going to want to CONVERT it (either on input or on output) to one of those. This is what I believe is happening to you.

    Take hech54's suggestion and use AVIDemux. It should be able to handle your basic needs plus it covers lots of input formats. However, you don't say what that format might be, so it might still have a problem with some.

    AND

    Notice that he mentioned that it "depends on where you cut". If you cut on Key frames, you should have very little trouble. If, OTOH, you cut elsewhere, it is going to HAVE to render new versions of the sequence, whether "Smart Rendering" only the affected local cut area or standard rendering the WHOLE output file.

    This also is affected by which codec (and settings) you have used.

    Scott
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  4. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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    Better asked in our Mac Forum. Moving you.

    And welcome to our forums.
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  5. Member crjackson's Avatar
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    Another vote for AVIDemux.
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  6. Member
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    Thanks for the useful help everyone.
    Mac = yes.
    Some of the terminology you use is beyond me (key frames), but on iMovie it shows the vid in blocks and if you are referring to these blocks, then yes I do cut in the middle of them.
    I'll check out AVIDemux.
    Many thanks
    Update
    Immediately upon loading it talked about some "crash" which didn't seem to effect anything so I ignored it.
    Upon saving it said as you have before about the key thingos, but I saved it anyway and the resulting .avi seemed to be fine. Whilst it said there would be corruption due to the cutting I couldn't see anything wrong.
    Result: it worked fine (but with lots of warnings!).
    Thanks again.
    Last edited by modene1; 22nd Aug 2014 at 10:51.
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  7. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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    Keyframes=I frames. https://www.videohelp.com/glossary?I#I%20Frame

    When you use the more compressed codecs, like Xvid, Divx, H.264 and similar, they use a few 'tricks' to achieve higher compression and smaller files. One is to space the 'I' frames further apart. 'I' frames are complete video frames. The frames in between are only partial frames. What the downside of this is, is that you can't just cut anywhere you want. Unless you cut on a full 'I' frame, you will have a bit of a video glitch. Codecs like Xvid can have 300 frames between 'I' frames. H.24 has similar specs. Some editors can re-encode around the cuts. Some want to re-encode the entire video. You just have to understand editing can get complicated for some codecs and formats.
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  8. Member
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    Nice description Red. Thanks .

    Actually, you've touched on something that's perplexed me for a long time.
    I've used various codecs in the past and have them installed on my Mac and they work fine. The one that I've never been able to play is Xvid.
    No matter what advice I manage to find online, nothing has enabled me to view Xvid coded movies.
    Any tips?
    Thanks again.
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  9. Not a MAC user but if those Xvid is in a AVI container perhaps changing the four cc from Xvid to DIVX (DX50) with AVI FourCC Code Changer would help.

    PS Xvid has some additional features compared to DIVX so this may not always work.
    Last edited by videobruger; 23rd Aug 2014 at 04:09. Reason: spelling
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  10. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    Mac uses Quicktime as its main Multimedia engine (though you can use a few specific apps that bypass that), so you'd want something that Quicktime could work with.

    Xvid (and DivX) are forms of MPEG4-ASP video compression. Quicktime understands MPEG4-SP, but not ASP, natively. To get QT to understand ASP, you'd need a component plugin. 3ivX used to make one that worked, though it had some problems, took over much other (unnecessary) duties, and cost $, but it was a solution. Now that most Macs are Intel-only and the code base isn't "universal" anymore, I don't know if it even works on new Macs. Another option was Perian, but that also now no longer works (verified).

    If the DivX install still includes a Mac Quicktime component, that should work, then you might just need to change the identifying fourcc code (inside the movie file) from "Xvid" to "DivX".

    Scott
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  11. Member
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    Thanks. I'll try the conversion as everything else seems to just bomb.

    Actually I use VLC for all my playback. Whilst I'm not over-the-moon with the new welcome box it's still a great player.
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