Editing commercials

[tyaholmes]

I was wondering what the most user friendly program is to use to edit out commercials and also if there is any free one what would be good. I tried the Nero Vision one and I like that one but im just tryin the demo version so i was wondering if there is a easy to use free one that you can edit commercials and make a basic title menu. thanks

[FulciLives]

The editor that is best for the job depends often on what format your source files are in and do you want to do nothing but edit or do you need to edit then convert/encode to another format?

In short ... need more info from you.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[tyaholmes]

well i am pretty new at this stuff but i record stuff with my dvd recorder and then i import the file onto my computer with nero vision and i edit the commercials and make a menu and burn them back onto a dvd

[lordsmurf]

Womble MPEG-VCR

[tyaholmes]

is there anything that is free

[edDV]

is there anything that is free

Do you want easy or do you want free?

Add to that, do you want fast or do you want slow and free?

[tyaholmes]

well what would be the easiest free one to use .

[redwudz]

What format? Freeware editors for MPEG, try Cuttermaran. For AVI, VirtualDub or my favorite, VirtualDub Mod.

Payware MPEG editor: I use MPEG Video Wizard. You also mentioned menus. That is authoring, not editing. But if you are looking for an easy to use all in one, take a look at Ulead Videostudio. It might do what you want.

There are other editing/authoring packages in 'Tools' to the left. <<<<<<

[hudsonf]

I know it's not free but you can do what you want with TMPGEnc DVD Author .

[Nelson37]

For MPG files, give ComSkip a try. It is not only free, but totally automated. There's a few settings you need to tweak, depending on your source, but it has worked beautifully for me.

[edDV]

Free takes work. Most free MPeg editors cut on I frames. Those that decompress like VirtualdubMod + various filters loose a generation or a suffer a colorspace conversion but can cut to the frame.

In other words you need to be willing to to learn enough to understand the tradeoffs.

[bits]

Videoredo is not free but it is the way to go!

BTW Comskip does not cut commercials, it finds them! It does a great job of finding them provided you figure out how to set it up.

Mpg2Cut2 is freeware that will cut mpeg files.

[Nelson37]

Comskip provides a setup or info file to be used with several different editors which then actually perform the cuts. I have used Cuttermaran as recommended, and because it is free.
Process is totally automated, run a batch file and get an edited video, zero effort.

Only tweaks I needed were to bump up the silence and black thresholds, increase the maximum commercial length. Carefully checked 6 different documentaries and two movies with near-perfect results. Only minor quibble it will sometimes leave the very short intro clip after the break, and sometimes cut it, much as I do when manually cutting, except I will be consistent for a particular video.

BTW, what is such a clip called? Like the "Farscape" logo, or "The Collosseum" on a documentary? These are like 3-5 seconds, sometimes they blend right into the main video. Not at all objectionable, other than they identify where the commercial break used to be and would not be present on a DVD version of the show, at least I don't think so.