cutting commercials

[jming38]

is there any program that cuts out the commercials while you are capturing from a tv show? i have a ati aiw radeon card and wanted to cut them out a bit easier than having to pause recording and then joining my mpg files together. which is my next question. anybody know how to do this easily? which program is the best? this is taking me too long to figure out.

[dinesh]

If filesize is not a limitation to you I suggest you capture the whole thing and later edit out your video.
If you are restricted to 4 GB limitations (of course there are ways to get around it using multisegment capture), you could use the commercials to stop your capture and rename the captured file and restart just before your main program resumes.You need to still edit your video to cut out the commercials.
To my knowledge, I am not aware of any program that can differenciate between a commercial and the main program.

[menace]

I'm going through that process right now--just a tip look in the tools section and have a look at their editors--avoid ifilmedit and TMPGenc for editing out commercials. Tmpgenc is good for other stuff though. If you come across an editor thats easy, quick AND keeps the audio in sync let me know!! I'm trying out adobe premier tonight so we'll see.

[dood]

What format? If you are editing mpg or mpg2 files (which are not easy to edit, btw) then I like Womble's mpg2vcr. It does frame-accurate cutting and the output does not need to be re-encoded.

[jming38]

I have an AIW Radeon card and so I captured some tv shows (Combat Missions on USA) and saved them as mpg files - maybe later to vcds. I wanted to cut out the commercials. My buddy is in the air force somewhere in the MidEast taking care of business and I thought he might like this show.

Last time I was home, so I just sat and stopped recording when there was commercials and then used TMPEnc to join the files together. But I'd rather find an easier way to cut em out than sitting here.

Which is the easiest program to use to just cut the commercials out? No limitation really. I have 120GB so I have plenty of space. I just don't really want to have to wait to re-encode or anything like that. Just cut it out and paste the pieces together.

[menace]

I use vcd cutter now--it just cuts and pastes the two clips together and at the same time you can frame edit the commercials out--sweet thing is that you don't have to re-encode the whole thing--cut and paste--nice and simple--tell your buddy to put a boot up bin ladin's ass for me

[jming38]

i'd like to try vcd cutter, but there's only a demo and it is limited. so i'm not sure if its gonna work for me yet. i've had the synching prob with tmpgenc like everyone else...

[energy80s]

I normally capture each part of the show individually and then edit them together with the MPEG Tools section of the TMPGenc. As long as you leave a bit of "come and go" on each part, then the MPEG joiner can cut and paste properly (with no glitches in the soundtrack). Remember that MPEG cutting is NOT frame accurate.

[dumwaldo]

the problem that everybody seems to have with sync is IMHO not a problem with TMPGEnc other than it does not point thing out that a video editor should know.

next time you need to cut a file try this...
open your file in VIRTUALDUB not TMPGEnc. now hold down the shift button and work the slider to to find your begining cut point. DO NOT LET GO OF THE SHIFT KEY!!!! now write down (or use notepad) the exact time that VirtualDub is displaying. you need the time not the frame count and there should be [I] next to the time. if you see [B] or [P] next to the time go back and do it again and HOLD DOWN THE SHIFT KEY while doing it.

now do this again to establish the exact time where your end cut is.


NOW you can open your clip in TMPGEnc and use the times you established with VirtualDub with the merge and cut tool to cut your mpg files without loosing sync.

if you wish to work with the video and audio as one file you must preserve the file integrity and ONLY cut on the appropriete frames. for mpeg's it is intreleaved frames and for avi's it is key frames. in VirtualDub these frames are indicated by the letter next to the time but TMPGEnc does not show this info to help you cut. if you cut on the wrong frames you will loose sync almost every time.