Lossless Cutting and Joining Blu-Ray ISO

[mstrong]

I have some Blu-Ray ISO files that I would like to edit. I simply want to remove unwanted scenes. I want to cut out the unwanted parts and then splice the remaining parts back together. I would like to do this without losing any video or audio quality.

I have searched the forums here but haven't found what I am looking for. Can anyone recommend a method to achieve my goal? I am happy to pay for software as long as it does what I need it to do.

Thank you.

[Cornucopia]

Rip.
Demux.
Edit smartly/losslessly.
Remux/Reauthor.
Burn.

All this could be done with freeware software available here. Note that none of those steps include converting.

Scott

[noemi7]

Scott so please tell us which freeware has editing preview, does cuts well in m2ts (h264), and handles i.e. DTS audio?

[Cornucopia]

All the above in one freeware package? Probably NONE, particularly in the use of (editing) DTS. But your requirements may not match the OP's, who never mentioned those capability necessities. And since I said "demux", there doesn't necessarily need to have M2TS editing in the subsequent step. Nor does retaining DTS as the codec be a priority over getting the job done . Lots of possibilities, if you take in the bigger picture without getting bogged down in one methodology.

I can't get more specific until you do too...

Scott

[mstrong]

Sorry for not being more specific. I am new to this and don't know what info to offer. I will try to be as specific as I can. Please let me know what info you need that I didn't include.

I have a Blu-Ray ISO file that has a scene that is about 45 seconds in it that I would like to remove.
The Blu-Ray has 5.1 DTS sound.
I have removed all other audio tracks, subtitles, etc.

I would like to not loose any sound or video quality.

What additional info do you need to be able to give me more specific help.

FYI, I own the original Blu-Ray so if re-ripping is part of the process I can easily do that. The original rip was done using AnyDVD HD and Clown BD.

[Vidd]

The easiest way to do it is to load the correct playlist into tsmuxer and trim out the 45 seconds you don't want, and then join the two parts back together in tsmuxer. You will need another tool to give you the correct timecodes to trim. And remember you have to split at a IDR frame.

If you want to edit, you will need to extract the iso.

[mstrong]

If you want to edit, you will need to extract the iso.

Forgive my ignorance but isn't cutting and joining the same as editing? What do you mean by edit? If you can help me understand the difference between cutting/joining and editing then I will better understand if I need to extract the ISO or not.

The easiest way to do it is to load the correct playlist into tsmuxer...

I have the play list and I think I can figure out how to load it into tsmuxer.

...and trim out the 45 seconds you don't want, and then join the two parts back together in tsmuxer.

How do I do these two things?

You will need another tool to give you the correct timecodes to trim.

Can you recommend a tool to do this with?

And remember you have to split at a IDR frame.

What is an IDR frame?

[Baldrick]

Have you even tried tsmuxer?

Open the mpls, under split and cut enabe cutting to cut it. You must manually set the start and end. Save as a m2ts clip. Then save the other clip. Join both clips(add and then join). Save as a new blu-ray disc. You will lose menus,extra material, etc.

Or wait for BDShrink....(dvdshrink for blu-rays... ).

[Cornucopia]

You could also just EDIT the mpls and resave the edited mpls in its place and "rebuild" the ISO from its constituent folders (using ImgBurn, etc). The media would still be there, it would just get skipped. BD was designed specifically to allow this. You can do this with BDEdit (courtesy of Vidd's previous mention), Blu-ray MPLS editor, and possibly tsmuxer (though haven't tried that).

Scott

[mstrong]

Thank you for the advice so far. I will try these suggestions this weekend and report back my results. I really like the idea of editing the playlist. It sounds the least complicated. I will try that first.

I am also happy to wait for BDshrink but don't want to wait forever. Is there word on a release date?

Thanks again!

[mstrong]

OK. I tried for a few hours to use BDEdit. I read forums and the webpage but I am not making any progress. Can anyone help me with BDEdit by giving me instructions on how to use it to clip ~60 seconds of footage form a BluRay.

If Blu-Ray MPLS Editor is easier I would happily take instructions on it. I chose to use BDEditor because it had a GUI and looked less intimidating. Maybe I am mistaken?

[mstrong]

Here is where I am currently.

I loaded the BluRay ISO into CloneDrive.
I figured out how to add additional playlist by switching to edit mode on the PLAYLIST tab and using the Insert Key on the keyboard.
I can edit start and stop times of the new play lists.
I created a playlist (with approximated times) for the first part of the movie (before the scene I would like to remove).
I created a playlist (with approximated times) for the second part of the movie (after the scene I would like to remove).
When I try to save the playlist I get an error.
I assume that CloneDrive is most likely treating the ISO as read only and this is why I am getting an error when I try to save.
I copied all the files from the ISO on the CloneDrive to my desktop and I will try again tonight by accessing the files on the HDD and not use CloneDrive or the ISO.

Am I on the right track? Can anyone offer me some guidance?

Tips on how to locate the exact time stamp of the frames I would like to remove would be helpful.

Thanks.

[mstrong]

I just realized I never mentioned that the ISO I have is just the main movie and no menus. I am not trying to preserve any menu functionality as all the menus have been removed.

[mstrong]

If possible I would like to preserve chapter skip info.

Am I going to get in trouble for spamming my own thread?

[Steve(MS)]

If possible I would like to preserve chapter skip info.

Am I going to get in trouble for spamming my own thread?

No, I think so.

This is turning out to be an interesting thread.
The info Scott provided about editing the mpls hasn't been discussed much.
If there were a simple tutorial somewhere....or someone was willing to make one.
Wonder if that method would work for editing out commercials from a captured file converted to m2ts?
I have been using avidemux, cutting on I frames to edit MTS files...there might be a much better way to accomplish this.

Does your blu-ray contain high def. audio?

[mstrong]

Does your blu-ray contain high def. audio?

Yes. It contains Hid Def Audio.

It is my understanding that Blu-Ray MPLS files are designed to do exactly what I am trying to do... playing an alternate version of an M2TS file.

My plan is to create a step-by-step tutorial on how to do this once I have figured it out for myself.

[Cornucopia]

I haven't done that kind of edit yet (as I have had no need to - I just author from scratch), but have a couple of suggestions.
1. You're right, you should NOT be trying to edit a mounted ISO. Extract the contents to a HDD folder first (so they should be read/write).
2. Save a backup copy of the intended MPLS to be edited (first, and put it elsewhere). Then edit and save only 1 copy ON TOP OF (aka REPLACING) the original, using the same name, folder, etc. MAKE SURE it maintains the same case!
3. If you want to go back to an ISO/disc, as I already mentioned, use ImgBurn to generate & burn from the HDD folder structure. It is very good at this already.

Now, if that doesn't work for you, we'll have to do a little more troubleshooting...

Scott

[mstrong]

Here is a quick update!

Last night I felt like I hit a wall with BDEdit so I spent some time exploring tsMuxer.

With tsMuxer I have been able to take the existing ISO and:

1) Cut it up to the scene that I want to remove and create a new BluRay preserving all the chapter skips
2) Cut it after the scene that I want to remove and create a new BluRay preserving all the chapter skips
3) Join the two pieces into one new BluRay and preserve all the chapter skips

My challenge is figuring out where to cut the original BluRay down to the millisecond. I need a tool to help me identify the exact time stamp of a given frame. Can anyone recommend one?

With BDEdit I have been able to take the existing ISO and:

1) Create two new play lists (one to represent the portion of the movie before the scene I want to remove and one to represent the portion of the movie after the scene I want to remove)

My challenges with BDEdit are two fold:

1) Figuring out the time stamp of the scene I want to remove (same as with tsMuxer)
2) How do I create a new BluRay based on the new playlists I created? If I only hade one new playlist I am sure I could simply replace the old playlist with the new one. But I have two playlists (one for before and one for after the scene) and I am not sure how to "join" them.

I will continue to tinker and report back. When I am done I will write up a step-by-step on how to do everything. In the meantime, I could still use some help.

Thanks.

[mstrong]

Well shoot! My PC just informed me I am out of HDD space. The 2TB drive I used for all my TEMP files for video editing died about 6 months ago and I never replaced it. Looks like I will be purchasing a new HDD tomorrow.

In the meantime, I really need a tool that will help me identify in milliseconds the time stamp of a frame from an M2TS file. Anyone now of a good tool?

[mstrong]

I got my new HDD.
Through trial and error I figured out the frames in milliseconds that I wanted to cut.
I made a clip using tsMuxer for the half before the scene I want to remove.
I made a clip using tsMuxer for the half after the scene I want to remove.
I used tsMuxer to first add the first clip and then add the second.
When I muxed it all back together I never got any errors but I did get the following output (see attachment).

When I play back the BD ISO I get no sound but the video plays up the point where I made my first cut and then the video stops.
When I play the M2TS file from the BD ISO I get the sound from the second half that plays over the top of the first half video. That continues until I get to the first clip point and then the video and audio stop.

Track 6 (referenced in the output - see attachment) is the TRUE-HD audio of the second clip.

Can anyone shed some light on what might be going on? And how to fix it?

[mstrong]

Here is a capture from tsMuxer.

[mstrong]

Alright! I got it to work. I was able to remove a scene I didn't want from a retail Blu-ray disk. I tried to do it with BDEdit but couldn’t figure it out. I am sure it is possible to use BDEdit but someone with more experience than me will have to figure it out. I was able to remove the scene I wanted with tsMuxer. Here is the step by step:

***Removing an Unwanted Scene from a Retail Blu-Ray Without Losing Any Video or Audio Quality While Preserving Chapter Skips***

Tools:
AnyDVD HD
ClownBD
tsMuxer GUI
ImgBurn


Steps:

1. Using AnyDVD HD remove the copy protections from the retail Blu-Ray
2. Using Clown BD rip the main movie form the disk and write them to your HDD as a Blu-ray folder structure
3. Open the tsMuxer GUI, click the “Input” tab and then click the “add” button in the top right of the screen
4. Navigate to the folder structure you just created and find the playlist file in the BDMV/PLAYLIST folder, select the file and click Open (see picture 1)
5. Click on the “Split&cut” tab in tsMuxer
6. Under the heading “Cutting” click the box that says “Enable cutting”
7. Switch the units from min to ms (milliseconds) and enter the start and stop times you want for the first part of the movie
8. Toward the bottom of the page click the radio button next to the label “Blu-ray disk” and then click the “Browse” button just to the right of the radio button\
9. Select the folder you want to save your files to and click OK - I recommend creating a new folder for each part of the movie that you will be clipping saving
10. Click the button “Start muxing” at the bottom of the tsMuxer screen
11. When tsMuxer is done, close tsMuxer and repeat steps 3-10 for each part of the movie that you want to keep or go to step 12 – in my case I did these step twice; once for the part of the movie before the clip I wanted to remove and one for the part of the movie after the clip I wanted to remove
12. Open the tsMuxer GUI, click the “Input” tab and then click the “add” button in the top right of the screen
13. Navigate to the folder structure of the original movie (not the clips you just created)and find the playlist file in the BDMV/PLAYLIST folder, select the file and click Open
14. Click the “Blu-ray” tab and copy the time stamps of the chapters
15. Paste and save this data to a text document
16. Click the “Input” tab and highlight the playlist file in the “Input Files:” window
17. Click the “remove” button to the right
18. Click the “add” button in the top right of the screen
19. Navigate to the folder structure of the first clip you saved (in my case the part before the scene I wanted removed), click on the m2ts file in the BDMV/STREAM folder, and click Open
20. Now click the “join” button (located below the “add” button in the top right of the screen)
21. Navigate to the folder structure of the second clip you saved (in my case the part after the scene I wanted removed), click on the m2ts file in the BDMV/STREAM folder, and click Open
22. Continue to add as many files as you have created
23. Your tsMuxer window should look like the second attached image to this post
24. Click on the “Blu-ray” tab and make sure the radio button next to the label “Custom chapter list” is selected
25. Highlight and delete the timestamps in the window labeled “Chapters:”
26. Open the text document for the chapter timestamps, edit them to reflect the portions you removed (this is not hard just take your time and do the math), copy the timestamps and paste them in the window in tsMuxer where you just deleted the timestamps
27. Toward the bottom of the page click the radio button next to the label “Blu-ray disk” and then click the “Browse” button just to the right of the radio button
28. Select the folder you want to save your files to and click OK - I recommend creating anew folder for this final version that has all the joined clips
29. Click the button “Start muxing” at the bottom of the tsMuxer screen
30. When tsMuxer is done close tsMuxer
31. Using ImgBurn write the files to an ISO file
32. You are done! Enjoy!

NOTE: I don’t know of a tool that lets you view the timestamp of the current frame on screen. If someone knows of a tool that allows you to do this it would be very helpful in figuring out what values to enter in step 7 above. Since I didn’t have such a tool I played the movie in my Blu-ray player and wrote down the time values I needed. I used those values as a starting place for my first time through the process above. It took me 4 tries before I got the clips to be where I wanted them to be. This is not ideal but since I was only clipping out one scene it was palatable. If I was going to try and remove many scenes I would want a tool to help me figure out the correct timestamps the first time.

[Baldrick]

Great! And thanks for posting the solution with complete instructions. It might help others who search for lossless blu-ray joining/cutting.