MP4 Accurate Editing

[TheRandomOne]

I am trying to edit some MP4s. But programs like Avidemux are no good for me. The key frame thing limits what cuts I want to make. are there any good programs out there ?

[Baldrick]

Free? Nope.

Or else tmpgenc mpeg editor, videoredo, solveigmm video splitter. Try the trials first.

[MaverickTse]

AviUtl .
Learning curve applies though.

[hech54]

I am trying to edit some MP4s. But programs like Avidemux are no good for me. The key frame thing limits what cuts I want to make. are there any good programs out there ?

You mean lossless, accurate editing.

[TheRandomOne]

As long as the job gets any description will work

[pippas]

Convert your MP4 file into the Grass Valley (Canopus) HQ or HQX intraframe format, using their free AVCHD2HQ utility and HQ/HQX codec .
You need to register with a Grass Valley account (free) to get the latest versions, or there are copies of previous issues here for direct download on their Taiwan site:

http://www.canopus.com.tw/PC/Download/Program/TOOL/AVCHD_File_Conversion%20Utility_(v4.10).html

http://www.canopus.com.tw/PC/Download/Program/TOOL/Grass_Valley_Playback_Codecs_Pack(v652).html

All free, and gives you a high quality intermediate file - with every frame a key frame - for easy and accurate editing.....

[hello_hello]

Convert your MP4 file into the Grass Valley (Canopus) HQ or HQX intraframe format, using their free AVCHD2HQ utility and HQ/HQX codec .

All free, and gives you a high quality intermediate file - with every frame a key frame - for easy and accurate editing.....

Most of the time you can achieve the same thing with Avisynth, without the need to create an intermediate lossless file. Once the decoded video is being frameserved by Avisynth, there's no keyframe issues. You can edit by specifying which frames you want to encode in the Avisynth script.
MeGUI has an AVS Cutter under the Tools menu. MeGUI creates the script for encoding, you open it with the AVS Cutter and add (multiple) "cuts" using a preview. The audio can be cut or re-encoded to match.

It's the same as using an intermediate lossless file though. Ultimately, you'll need to re-encode it all (not just sections around the cut points as "smart cutters" can do).

Or there's free lossless encoders such as Lagarith or huffyuv or MagicYUV whih can be used to create a lossless intermediate file with many encoder GUIs. Opening a file with VirtualDub (appropriate MP4 input pluging installed) and re-encoding as a lossless AVI using one of those codecs would be a common method, but it's not as convenient as AVIsynth, as creating a lossless file takes extra time and they're usually huge).

[hech54]

As long as the job gets any description will work

What I'm saying is....you can get very accurate cuts with Avidemux, you just can't do it losslessly(COPY) because of
the MP4 file's keyframe attributes.

[Baldrick]

Yep. Just change the video codec to h264/avc in avidemux and you can cut accurate. But it wont be lossless as I guessed you wanted.

[TheRandomOne]

So how do I get the best quality possible if I did that ?

[DarrellS]

The best quality is using VideoReDo TV Suite. If you don't want to invest in VideoReDo then...

...another option is opening the file in Virtualdub with fcchandler's Quicktime plugin as suggested above, make your cuts and use "smart render" which will only re-encode the cuts and copy the rest and save as avi. You'll need to use the same codec. Either ffdshow vfw libavcodec or maybe x264vfw. Then use MKVmerge to create an MKV or ffmpeg to copy as mp4.

for %%a in ("*.avi") do ffmpeg -i "%%a" -c:v copy -c:a copy "%%~na.mp4"

Using Avisynth forces you to re-encode the whole file but if that is the route that you decide to take, Virtualdub has the external encoder feature which allows you to re-encode the streams into an mp4 or mkv container.

Avidemux might be easier but I seem to have more problems with this software. Another program that I have good luck with if VideoReDo has problems is Free Video Editor. You need to be careful when installing or you'll get adware.

[Stears555]

Do not read the previous false suggestions, because they are all wrong. They simply do not know what you want. The only real solutions: solveigmm video splitter, or Smart Cutter Ps/Ts. They knew the so called smart rendering type of encoding. They are H.264 AVCHD MPEG2 frame accurate cutters without re-encoding! You can observe each scene thoroughly, cut or merge segments of movies. Cut commercials out of video stream.

Especially, only small parts on start and end points will be re-encoded, the middle part will remain untouched, lossless. This gives highest speed while reserving highest video quality. So it is called 'Smart Rendering'.

No need to be worried about formats, frame rate or file sizes, the functions of video join, split and cut can be easily achieved by Smart Cutter. The video editing software allows you to edit video files in all popular formats

[hello_hello]

Do not read the previous false suggestions, because they are all wrong. They simply do not know what you want. The only real solutions: solveigmm video splitter, or Smart Cutter Ps/Ts.

Can you edit MP4s with Smart Cutter Ps/Ts, or is that a false suggestion and wrong because it's not what the OP wants?

[pippas]

Especially, only small parts on start and end points will be re-encoded, the middle part will remain untouched, lossless. This gives highest speed while reserving highest video quality. So it is called 'Smart Rendering'.

Smart rendering will do 2 colour space conversions around the edit points, which can make for a very amateur looking result. It may still look OK, depending on the source.
So to say that smart rendering 'reserves highest video quality' around the edit points is just nonsense..

[Stears555]

Especially, only small parts on start and end points will be re-encoded, the middle part will remain untouched, lossless. This gives highest speed while reserving highest video quality. So it is called 'Smart Rendering'.

Smart rendering will do 2 colour space conversions around the edit points, which can make for a very amateur looking result. It may still look OK, depending on the source.
So to say that smart rendering 'reserves highest video quality' around the edit points is just nonsense..

It seems , you have no clue about basic things. Have you ever heard about direct-stream-copy? "Direct Stream Copy" means video is not compressed and remains unchanged, it remained from bit to bit the same as the original input video. Smart renderer reencode only the start and end GOPs of the cut/merge points of the video, and the other part of the video is copied with direct-stream-copy. So the colo space conversion is impossible.

[Stears555]

Of couse, only the licenced full versions know the smart rendering technology.

[pippas]

Smart renderer reencode only the start and end GOPs of the cut/merge points of the video, and the other part of the video is copied with direct-stream-copy.

So this software simply 're-encodes' the video around the cut point without converting the colorspace to RGB and back again, as the 'smart render' options in NLE packages do. That's excellent news.
Presumably you're restricted to only cutting on keyframes though?..

[TheRandomOne]

I tried the Virtual Dub smart rendering thing. I do like the editing with Virtual Dub & I now have AVIs encoded as Quicktime. I tried the MKV Merge thing & the audio was out of sync in the MKV. While in the AVI it is fine. So we are half way there. Now I just need to mux these AVIs as MP4s & I am good

[DarrellS]

MKVmerge assumes audio at 25 fps. You might need to open "Format Specific Options" and set fps.

You could also try ffmpeg to change avi to mkv or mp4 container...

for %%a in ("*.avi") do ffmpeg -i "%%a" -vcodec copy -acodec -na  "%%~na.mkv"
pause

for %%a in ("*.avi") do ffmpeg -i "%%a" -vcodec copy -acodec -na  "%%~na.mp4"
pause

just copy text and paste to notepad and save as AVI2MKV.bat or AVI2MP4.bat and place .bat and ffmpeg.exe in folder with files to convert and double click the .bat file.