Editing MPG files from VCD

[lymang]

I'm using my Terapin to make VCD's of a number of cartoons and shows I like. I want to edit out the commercials. I am looking for a program that is free (or cheap - say under $50) that will let me edit out the commercials from the MPG files (I don't care if I have to convert the .DAT files to .MPG, I can do that easily with VCDGear). I do not want to recompress if at all possible, as I don't want to mess with the compression again. They are VCD quality already, I don't need to make it worse. The instructions on how to do this with TMPGEnc that are here on VCDHelp are unclear at best, and refer to an older version of TMPGEnc, apparently. I've looked at MPEG2VCR, which both asks for registration and seems to need recompression, I've looked at BBMPEG, which some folks say does it, but I cannot find any editing tools in that program - just a conversion tool afaik. I've looked at VirtualDub, and that won't correctly load either the original .DAT file OR the converted .MPG. I'm far from a moron on the computer, but this is just not working out for me, and I'm not seeing decent documentation on this. It would seem to me that there would HAVE to be a program or two that would do this cutting/editing short and sweet, without hassle. As I said, I'd pay for one if I could find one with decent instructions. <shrug> Any help would be appreciated.

Lyman Green

[energy80s]

I have just found out how to do this properly with TMPG after weeks of messing about. I record a lot of TV shows in MPEG1 with my ATI AIW card and MMC 7.1. This gives me a proper (if a little blocky) VCD format MPEG1 file. However sometimes I end up with the start of an ad break at the end of my file (not hitting the stop button quick enough!) and wanted an easy way to "top and tail" the MPEG video file like I can do with an audio file.

Anyway, this is all you do. Start TMPEGEnc. Goto FILE>MPEG Tools and select the "Merge & Cut" tab. Make sure that it is running in VCD mode (see the little dialog box) and open the relevant MPEG file. Then Play it (or move the slider to the relevant portion) and click on the left "bracket" button - I think its the left one, I'm in work at the minute and can't check. This should select the majority of the file (if not then it's the right one!!!!) minus the ads or whatever you wanted cut out, you'll see the blue horizontal bar highlight the selection. Then click on OK. Select an output file name and press RUN. This will check through the audio and video parts and output an edited MPEG1 file without any quality loss.

Hope this helps, although you are probably confused at the moment!! As with most editing software, the only way to explain something is to actually do it.

[Shabubu]

Cutting in TMPGEnc,

Go to File>MPEGTools

Go to Merge/Cut

Click Add

Open up your MPEG file, choose the first segment of the movie (first bit between adverts) by selecting the filename you just added and clicking edit, then using the |<< and >>| buttons to skim thru the movie, and the { and } to choose your selection boundaries. The blue line represents which area you selected. Press OK

Click add and add that movie again, select the next bit of your movie as described above

Rinse and repeat....

When done, click correct, choose and output file by clicking browse next the the output file box.

Press run

[lymang]

My sincere thanks to the two of you. I finally understand this process, and have successfully done it on one of VCD's! Very, very cool. It is great that there are such nice folks out there willing to explain things.

Lyman

[lymang]

Followup question:
OK, so I figured out how to do the editing with TMPGEnc. Once I'm done, I want to 'rewrite' the files onto a VCD. When I drop them on NERO, it's telling me they aren't compliant for an SVCD (even though I told Nero to burn a VCD). It doesn't, of course, tell me exactly how they aren't compliant, but it says "abandon compliance" or "reencode." I don't want to do the second, of course. Any ideas why this would be the case? Do I need to convert them back to DAT files or something?

[hirotec]

Don't use the default mpeg-1 auto in Tmpgenc.
It will give u non compliant mpeg.
Choose mpeg-1 vcd instead.
Then it should be ok.

[nmb]

Have anyone try to cut MPEG-2 ? I got some weird problem.. XP hangs right away when I try to move the slider to right to find the spot for cutting .. any idea why ?

[Shabubu]

Don't know if this will fix it but the new TMPGEnc (2.02) says it has fixed bugs with SVCD cutting, give it a shot.

[nmb]

Try with 2.02 but didn't work either.. I'm stuck now. I went even a step further try to use the BBMpeg/avi2mpeg2.exe but that proggie didn't work with XP yet.. Anyone here has any reccommedation ?

Thnx !

[Shabubu]

My only recomendation is a workaround, in TMPGEnc set up the source range to the first part of the movie, save the project, then do the same for the second half. Then batch encode them. The Source Range is under settings>advanced. Just double click it to configure.