Trimming AVI in virtualdub,direct strem copy ignores my start and end point

[Rudyard]

Have a captured AVI, I need to remove the start where you see me start my screen cap software and the end when I press stop.

It was captured in XVID (gave good output for the final SWF conversion) and anyway I followed guides like this:

https://www.videohelp.com/oldguides/virtualdubedit

BUt it doesnt seem to trim my video, the output just ignores my start and end points if I use Direct stream copy. I seem to loose quality quickly if I recompress.

MY steps are:

1 - Load video
2 - Mark in where I want to start
3 - Mark out where I want to end
4 - Set video compression to direct stream copy
5 - Save as AVI

End result always contains the beginning and end I tried to crop out.

Can someone explain where im going wrong. Havent fiddled with vid editing in a while and everything im doing right now is going wrong! thought this would be easy.

[guns1inger]

Direct Stream Copy will only cut on I (key) frames. Enable Smart Rendering, set your compression to CQ of 2 or 3, and only the cut points will be re-encoded

[rcubed]

Have a captured AVI, I need to remove the start where you see me start my screen cap software and the end when I press stop.

It was captured in XVID (gave good output for the final SWF conversion) and anyway I followed guides like this:

https://www.videohelp.com/oldguides/virtualdubedit

BUt it doesnt seem to trim my video, the output just ignores my start and end points if I use Direct stream copy. I seem to loose quality quickly if I recompress.

MY steps are:

1 - Load video
2 - Mark in where I want to start
3 - Mark out where I want to end
4 - Set video compression to direct stream copy
5 - Save as AVI

End result always contains the beginning and end I tried to crop out.

Can someone explain where im going wrong. Havent fiddled with vid editing in a while and everything im doing right now is going wrong! thought this would be easy.

Rudyard,
I always do it by deleting the sections I don't want to keep. That seems to work. I delete because I am normally removing commercials from a broadcast capture and they are non-contiguous.

1 - Load video
2 - Mark in where I want to start the cut
3 - Mark out where I want to end the cut
4 - Select edit from the options at the top of the screen and select delete from the drop down menu
5 - repeat steps 2-4 until all the sections that need deletion have been accomplished
6 - Set video compression to direct stream copy
7 - Save as AVI

I have never tried the crop to selection drop down item, that might do what you want for a contiguous range of frames and your work flow - Just tried that with one of my .avi captures and it worked.

guns1inger's comments about cutting on I frames is correct. I don't have I,P, or B frames since my gear captures in DV - just straight frames. So my crop points don't have any limitations. When I have edited MPEG files directly I use Cuttermaran and if the cuts are not on I frame to I frame the program re-encodes only those frames. There are probably other editing programs that will do the same. I've never tried editing XDIV files.

rcubed

[Rudyard]

Thanks for your help, will give it a try and post results.

[redwudz]

Xvid/Divx have a default keyframe setting of about 300 frames, so frame accurate editing is very difficult. This is common with most highly compressed formats. The smart rendering in VD, as mentioned, is a easy way to get around this limitation. An alternative I have used for H.264 is to convert to a lossless codec, such as HuffyUV or Lagarith, do your editing and convert back. But that takes time and a lot of hard drive space. Still, it makes it easier if you need to do extensive editing.