Best software to edit an .AVI file.

[darkrats]

What's the best (and easiest) software to remove the first few seconds or minutes of an .avi file? I'm converting some DVDs to .avi files to store on my HD. Some of them have a short preview or introduction before the movie actually begins, and I'd like to just have the movie. Thanks.

[hech54]

Edit the mpeg/DVD....not the end resulting "avi" file.
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/video-editors-mpg-dvd

[sanlyn]

Most of those editors are not frame-specific, and some will even re-encode segments. I use VirtualDub for AVI. You can also use Trim() in Avisynth. the O.P. sez it's being saved to AVI anyway. But I have a feeling the AVI's are being recompressed to smaller files, for a quality loss. A 90-minute DVD saved as lossless AVI would be anywhere from 35 to 60GB.

[hello_hello]

DVD Shrink has a re-author function. Once you've ripped the DVD, open the ripped files with DVD Shrink, hit the re-author button, then drag the movie title from the right pane to the left (assuming it's a movie DVD). It's generally obvious which title is the movie.
Select the title edit button (I think that's what it's called) above the title in the left pane, and in the window which opens select a starting point. If the preview or intro you're wanting to remove is a single chapter, just select chapter two as the starting point.

Once you're done use DVD Shrink to re-save (backup) the DVD to a new location on your hard drive. Use the new version for encoding (it's easier than trying to slice off chunks after encoding).
Important: Go into DVD Shrink's preferences and set the target output size to DVD9 to ensure DVD Shrink will just re-save the video rather than shrink (re-encode) it.

If you want to try editing the AVI, VirtualDub or VirtualDubMod are fairly easy. Open the AVI, and use the start and end buttons to select the start and ending points you want to save or delete, then resave the AVI. For basc cutting such as that the video must be cut on keyframes so you won't always be able to cut exactly where you want. When setting the start and end points either use the keyframe buttons to navigate or use the slider while holding down the shift key to ensure you always land on a keyframe.
Important: You must set the video compression method to direct stream copy from the top video menu before resaving the AVI, otherwise VirtualDub will try to re-encode it.

[bruce73]

I use SolveigMM AVI Trimmer (www.solveigmm.com). Easy to use, freeware, and it also supports MKV files.