Fastest way to create segment from video file?

[therock003]

Besides loading video to virtual dub and selecting starting and end points and saving them as direct stream copy, is there a quicker way to get video segments? Provided of course you know frames or video stamps of start/end prior to the procedure? A command-line maybe or using avisynth in some way?

So for video.avi with 1024 start frame to 5117 end frame, how do i get this segment with the quickest possible way?

[poisondeathray]

you can't use direct stream copy with avisynth - it frameserves uncompressed video & audio

but if you didn't use direct stream copy it would be trim(1024,5117)

you can do it by timecode with ffmpeg, but it's not much faster than doing in vdub

[therock003]

I'm still interested on accomplishing this. Isnt there any newer information?

VDUB doesnt handle mkv files.

If i open an avisynth script on media player classic, and use the save as command to get the video segment, wouldnt it be the same as if i had used direct stream copy from vdub?

[fvisagie]

No, the video needs to be decompressed before it reaches Avisynth already.

The solutions remains the same now . If you want to use a command-line utility, ffmpeg as suggested is one of the best bets.

Cheers,
Francois

[DarrellS]

Virtualdub does handle MKV. You need to use ffdshow to open the H264 file, either through the VFW codec setting or with the Virtualdub Directshow Input Driver. You'll also need the Matroska Input Plugin if you use ffdshow.

You need to know where to cut the video with avisynth, ffmpeg or any other program you're going to use to cut the video which is where Virtualdub comes in so you can get the exact frame or time code you need to make your cut. You can use MKVMerge to cut an MKV in the Global settings using the time code.

There is also a free program called Video Dub that will cut videos without re-encoding but it has some flaws. If you only need to make one cut it works alright. With some work from the author it could be a very good program.

[therock003]

Thanx guys for your answers. But can ffmpeg handle frames as input instead of timecodes? Cause for better accuracy i need to be able to set start and end frame.

Anybody know what the code for that is?

[poisondeathray]

Thanx guys for your answers. But can ffmpeg handle frames as input instead of timecodes? Cause for better accuracy i need to be able to set start and end frame.

Anybody know what the code for that is?

No it can't , ffmpeg is not frame accurate with long gop formats . It can only cut on keyframes. eg. typical xvid/divx avi will use keyframe interval between 0-300 . So your cut points might be "off" by 0-300 frames

vdub is better tool for this, because with xvid/divx avi , you can use "smart rendering" , so only the few frames around the cutsite to the nearest keyframe are re-encoded , and cuts will be frame accurate .

For other filetypes, you can use solveigmm video splitter (not free), but it can smart render avc in mkv, mp4, transport streams) , or videoredo

[DarrellS]

Does VideoRedo support MKV now? That was a big flaw (and not supporting AVI) but it was made for editing video captures and does that very well.

[poisondeathray]

Does VideoRedo support MKV now? That was a big flaw (and not supporting AVI) but it was made for editing video captures and does that very well.

Yes, the beta 4 does AVC, and "sort of" works with MKV, but has problems. SolviegMM is better in this regard, it supports more formats and containers as well.

Part of the problem might be MKVToolnix is updated frequently, and often things are broken, or compatibilty issues introduced - even media players have problems catching up