MPG 720p 60fps needs cutting

[iThinkYouBrokeIt]

What program would you guys recommend for cutting commercials out of a recorded episode? I'd like to do the cutting before I do the conversion.

It's MPEG-2 with AC3 5.1
1280x720 60fps

[edDV]

I use Vegas but it takes a long time processing. What I really do is save files by "Acts" (between commercials) with the idea it will be easier to join them later. In parallel I record the SD down conversion for normal viewing.

After all, you can only save about a half hour of 720p to a DVD-5. I'm not interested in h.264 until the hardware encoding is real time.

[jman98]

I'd like to put in a plug for VideoReDo. I use it all the time for exactly what you want to do - edit 720p video. Vegas is a very expensive solution and I'm sure it's great and has many options, but if all you need to do is edit commercials (and that's all I need an editor to do for me), you might as well save a ton of money and get something like VideoReDo.

edDV's statement depends on the bitrate of the recorded video. I was regularly able to get 2 Malcolm In The Middle episodes on a single layer DVD disc with a little room left over. With commercials edited out, I was getting about 45 minutes per single layer DVD. The bit rate was averaging about 12000 Kbps. HDTV is supposedly broadcast at 15000, but for some reason my VideoReDo edits of Malcolm were being saved at about 12000. I couldn't find any setup variable that would explain this, but I wasn't complaining as that was certainly a high enough bit rate for 720p video. I share edDV's opinion on H.264.

[edDV]

I'd like to put in a plug for VideoReDo. I use it all the time for exactly what you want to do - edit 720p video. Vegas is a very expensive solution and I'm sure it's great and has many options, but if all you need to do is edit commercials (and that's all I need an editor to do for me), you might as well save a ton of money and get something like VideoReDo.

edDV's statement depends on the bitrate of the recorded video. I was regularly able to get 2 Malcolm In The Middle episodes on a single layer DVD disc with a little room left over. With commercials edited out, I was getting about 45 minutes per single layer DVD. The bit rate was averaging about 12000 Kbps. HDTV is supposedly broadcast at 15000, but for some reason my VideoReDo edits of Malcolm were being saved at about 12000. I couldn't find any setup variable that would explain this, but I wasn't complaining as that was certainly a high enough bit rate for 720p video. I share edDV's opinion on H.264.

1080i or 720p MPeg2_TS as broadcast varies ~12-19Mb/s in bitrate depending on # of subchannels on the ATSC channel. Locally here the ABC channel runs ~16Mb/s with a SD weather subchannel channel getting the other ~3Mb/s. Strange thing, when they fiber over to cable, Comcast feeds the main channel at 20Mb/s making a 20% larger file. Some locals come in at 25Mb/s over cable.

If the 720p program is video at 59.94 fps you could cut every other frame for a less smooth 29.97 fps but I don't. If the show is film, you can decimate repeat frames down to 23.976fps for 40% file size on disc with no quality penalty. That gets you around 60-90 minutes on a DVD-5 layer depending on the TV station bitrate..

[jman98]

Thanks for the info, edDV. As always, you are the man.

For what it's worth, I don't change frame rates on my edits. I figure it's best to leave them as broadcast. I'm not sure that VideoReDo even has an option to do that if you wanted to. It doesn't have the greatest amount of user options for sure, but it is easy to use with TS streams and a cheap way to just edit commercials.