Any advice on how to split a large AVI into smaller clips easily?

[Bluelude1]

Sorry if this is a really basic question, but I am pretty new to video editing..i deal more with photos. I have several large avi files that consist of a various home videos taken at different times and I was wondering if there is any way to easily split these videos into smaller individual videos without re-compressing them before I work on them? I basically want to separate all of them so I can discard sections I don't need.

[edDV]

Sorry if this is a really basic question, but I am pretty new to video editing..i deal more with photos. I have several large avi files that consist of a various home videos taken at different times and I was wondering if there is any way to easily split these videos into smaller individual videos without re-compressing them before I work on them? I basically want to separate all of them so I can discard sections I don't need.

Define AVI in your terms. If this is from a camcorder, then what Model?

[Bluelude1]

avi was the output file format

[poisondeathray]

ues mediainfo to identify what type of AVI

eitherway, you should be able to use virtualdub, set video=> direct stream copy, audio=>direct stream copy, mark your in/out points and file=>save as avi

or if you want to save automatic cut pieces at regular intervals (like frames or MB size) , file=>save segmented avi

[Bluelude1]

Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question, but by doing that I won't have any issues with degrading the image quality?

[poisondeathray]

Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question, but by doing that I won't have any issues with degrading the image quality?

not when you set "direct stream copy"

But you have to cut on keyframes. If your video is DV-AVI, every frame is a keyframe, and you can cut anywhere without degrading quality. For long GOP formats, you cannot cut just anywhere.

This is one of the reasons why it's important to identify what type of AVI you have, and the type of compression used. Use mediainfo view=>text copy & paste the results back here

AVI is just a container. It can hold many different kinds of audio & video. "AVI" provides very little information, you need to specify what kind of AVI

[Bluelude1]

Hopefully this is the information you were referring to.

[Cornucopia]

Yeah, so that says it IS a DV codec. That makes it easy. Using DirectStreamCopy in Vdub should work perfectly, without ANY loss (All of DV-AVI frames are I/Key-Frames).

Scott

[poisondeathray]

Yes that's fine. It's a variation of DV-AVI, so every frame is a keyframe. You can cut anywhere, just follow the instructions above

[Bluelude1]

Thanks for all of your help guys ...every time I get into something new I am reminded of how steep the learning curve can be.

[sanlyn]

Thanks for all of your help guys ...every time I get into something new I am reminded of how steep the learning curve can be.

True, Bluelude1, and it's an uphill curve at that.

I archive big AVI video captures that way often, but I ran into a problem once when trying to reassemble the parts, and you might encounter it. I cut the AVI into 4-GB chunks to store onto disc. I don't like to cut in the middle of an ongoing scene. I try to cut a second or so after a change in camera angles. I save that, then open the big AVi again and find a spot about 30 frames before that same change in scene or camera angle, and start the next chunk at that part. In other words, I set up the cuts so that the end of Part A overlaps a bit with the start of Part B.

You likely won't have any problems, but I once tried rejoining two parts and had a brief "click" and 1/4 second dropout in the audio where the two pieces reconnected. And this clip was uncompressed AVI, no keyframes. Hasn't happened since, but I always try to split big AVI captures in the manner described.

[Cornucopia]

sanlyn,
That is a common known problem with any cut/segmented files. Has to do with the fact that you're cutting at the resolution of a VIDEO FRAME (~1/60 sec.), while audio doesn't use frames (in a sampling sense) and has a resolution of an audio sample (~1/48000 sec.), so the tool doing the cutting is too "rough" for all the material.

My longtime simple workaround is just to keep an unsegmented copy of the audio and use it as the sole source for audio when joining. Then, you won't need have to do any overlapping. Once I started doing this, my archive restorations have been perfect (~8-9 years).

Bluelude1,
Remember to do "direct stream copy" for both the video stream and the audio stream (it wasn't mentioned earlier).

Scott