Editing Commercials

[Jacks_Daddy07]

I recently recorded a tv episode using Windows Media Center Vista (32bit) and was hoping someone could direct me towards a a program that i can use to trim out the commercials (hopefully a free program). I am sure someone else has posted about this before, sorry for the repeat question. Thanks

[lowellriggsiam]

Windows movie maker.

[usually_quiet]

Windows Movie Maker only gives you a choice of .wmv. It re-encodes the whole file and can take hours to finish. ...but if you want .wmv as your end format, it is the best way to go.

If you want to have the file in a different format than a .wmv after editing, there are ways to trim the commercials. VideoReDo Plus (not free) can perform frame-accurate editing on dvr-ms files and output .mpg or .ts files, with minimal re-encoding, only adjacent to the cuts. .wtv files need to be converted to .dvr-ms or .ts first.

The free route I use:
1. Download and install TSSniper, GraphStudio and DVRMSToolbox.
2. Convert the .wtv files to .ts format with GraphStudio, using filters installed by DVRMSToolbox.
3. When the conversion is finished, open the .ts file in TSSniper and edit. (TSSniper is not frame accurate, but does not re-encode. It is limited to GOP level cuts, which is normally 15 frame intervals in the US.)
4. Convert to the desired end format, whatever that may be.

How to use GraphStudio to convert from .wtv or dvr-ms to .ts:
1. Open GraphStudio.
2. Select File->Add Media File to place the .wtv/dvr-ms recording to be converted in the graph.
4. Delete all the filters except the one for the .wtv/dvr-ms file, which is the leftmost filter in the graph. (Select by clicking an item, then right-click it and choose "Delete Selection" from the pop-up menu.)
5. Use Graph->Insert->filter to bring up a list of DirectShow filters installed on the PC
6. Select Moonlight M71 Muxer, from the list. (It was installed by DVRMSToolbox)
7. Select the matching file writer filter or dump filter, Moonlight DumpPOS (It was installed by DVRMSToolbox)
8. Choose a location for the output file using the "Browse" button, and enter the output file name and ".ts" for the file extention.
9. Drag and drop to connect the DVR Out-1 Pin from the source to the Input0 pin on the Moonlight M71 Muxer filter. An additional filter, PBDA DTFilter, will be added automatically and 2 more pins will appear on the Muxer filter.
10. Drag and drop to connect the DVR Out-2 Pin from the source filter to the Input1 pin on the Moonlight M71 Muxer filter. An additional filter, PBDA DTFilter 0005, will be added automatically.
10. Drag and drop to connect the M71 Out pin on the multiplexer filter to the Input pin on the output file box.
11. Start the graph by clicking the green start button (an arrow). (The controls are under the menu bar.) While the conversion is taking place, the stop button (a square) is red.