Cutting MP4 files with Avidemux

[BigPhil1]

Do cuts have to be made on keyframes? I was hoping for a more exact cut and intend to delete the source files once I've extracted the parts I need so want to make sure I do it correctly and don't mess up the resulting files somehow.

[videobruger]

Do cuts have to be made on keyframes?

Not if you choose to encode the video instead of "Copy".

Or you could use a "smart" cutter like SolveigMM Video Splitter to only encode around the cuts.

[BigPhil1]

Thanks for your reply. Yeah I should've mentioned, I was using copy for video and audio as I don't want anything encoding or changing in any way that would decrease quality. Do you know what would happen to the resulting files if cuts were not made on keyframes? I've made a few test cuts and they seem to playback fine.

[theewizard]

Afaik
When choosing copy, the cuts WILL be made on the nearest key frames even if that is not where you marked it, so you either get shorter or longer video than you marked
Unless you have really long gops with strange scene changes you are not likely to notice the difference , most of the time