Trimming MPEG2 files that have been captured in RealTime

[phase52001]

Hi All;
I have done searches but haven't turned up an answer to this.

I have captured some old VHS tapes directly to my G4 using a MediaPress card under OS9. So it encoded directly as MPEG2 & PCM files. This saved a lot of time and the resulys are fine.

I can import into DSP (1.5) and it all works.
It makes a nice DVD.

The thing is I start the capture before the material I want comes on and stop it a few seconds after its finished. Which means I have a small amount of unwanted material. Now it's easy to hide using chapter markers and linking the buttons to stories.

What I'd like to be able to do is "trim off" the unwanted (MPEG2) video. I know you cannot do this in FCP, and I was wondering if there is some sort of MPEG2 editior that would do this.

I know this topic has come up before. Its just that I cannot find an answer to the question.

Thanks if you have any suggestions or thoughts.
Jay R.

[pixeljammedia]

The structure of Mpegs makes exact trimming problematic. Mpegs use things called iFrames. These frames hold a complete picture, and the other frames contain only the changes. If a part of the picture stays static, Mpegs do not encode them in non-iframes to save in size.

That means that trims should only happen on an iframe since anyother frame will have missing pixels (the part that was static and contained in the iframe) That said you have a couple of options with trimming Mpefs without transcoding to DV and re-encoding to Mpeg.

Gumby has an Mpeg splitter, mpgtx can cut up an mpeg, and there was a thread about something called Goldberg here: https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=202336 I personally don't capture directly to MPEG so I can't tell you how well these work. Give them a try.