easiest way to trim captures ?

[Tafflad]

Currently capturing VHS files conversions.

Usually captures some excess footage at end of capture.

Initially is there a simple way of trimming to length ... without re-encoding.
When I get around to full edit that will be done in Vegas ... just want to trim the captures to size (top & tail them)

I have tried loading into VirtualDub, I can easily trim to what I want .... then I have selected "Direct Stream Copy" and then "Save As AVI"


It still takes a while processing frame by frame to make the save, am I keeping to original format without any re-encoding.

If there is a simpler way to trim off excess - please advise.

[hech54]

Are you capturing uncompressed or mpeg?

[Tafflad]

I'm capturing DVAVI (straight output from ADVC300 into WINDV)

Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Format profile : OpenDML
Duration : 15mn 0s
Overall bit rate : 28.9 Mbps
Video
ID : 0
Format : Digital Video
Duration : 15mn 0s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 24.4 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Resolution : 8 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Interlaced
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 2.357
Stream size : 3.02 GiB (100%)
Audio
ID : 0-0
Format : PCM
Muxing mode : DV
Muxing mode, more info : Muxed in Video #1
Duration : 15mn 0s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Stream size : 0.00 Byte (0%)

[jagabo]

Using Video -> Direct Stream Copy mode in VirtualDub will not re-encode the video. Saving to a different drive from the source will increase the speed because DV AVI is only very lightly compressed.

[Tafflad]

Is there a quicker way to 'trim' captures, or is the way I am doing it correct.
Your point on differnt drives is very vaid .. and I do save that way.

[jagabo]

VirtualDub in Direct Stream Copy mode isn't much slower than simply copying the file. I don't think you'll find anything significantly faster.

[CogoSWSDS]

If you don't mind storing the extra few seconds on disk, there's a way you can essentially trim on-the-fly. If you don't have this on your system already, install avisynth. Then do the following:

1. Open Virtualdub and then find the starting and ending frames that you want to keep. Suppose we want to start at frame 0 and go to frame 4242.
2. Open notepad and create a file that looks like this:

avisource("d:\path\to\your.avi").trim(0,4242)

3. Save this text file with an ".avs" extension.

Now whenever you want to open your movie, instead of opening the .avi, open the .avs. Note that avisynth passes the video uncompressed to whatever application you're using, so if you then open the avs in Virtualdub and save an avi, you will be recompressing the video and there will be some small amount of quality loss. Plus it will be a little slower than the way you're doing it now with the Virtualdub "Direct Stream Copy" saving of the AVI. However, if you just need this for playback or for feeding an encoder, this is really a fast way to do it.

CogoSWSDS

[vhelp]

Selecting the areas via begin/end inside virtualdub is prob the best way to go. So keep doing what you were doing if you want the small avi segments for other reasons.

Another alternative is the us the capture software's PAUSE feature, if it supports one, and only capture what you want, ie, minus commercials for instance. But I don't know of any sofware that supports pause during capturing. I'm actually researching the develop aspects for such a tool myself. It would be a great feature to have.

-vhelp 5328

[Tafflad]

Looks like I'll continue the way I have been doing it for now.


Thnx