Lossless cut without losing subtitles?

[NadCat]

Following advice from this forum I've tried LosslessCut/SolveigMM which both mostly rely on keyframes and more advanced software like TMPGEnc Smart Renderer or VideoReDo which use keyframes when possible and reencode whenever it's not. The former obviously have a lot of limitation on where you can successfully cut and the SmartEdit feature in LosslessCut doesn't really work.

I've tried both TMPGEnc SR and VideoReDo and both have problems: VideoReDo simply does not support 10-bit videos and reencodes them to 8-bit. That is not at all what I'm looking for, I want the cut to be as lossless as possible. TMPGEnc SR does not have that problem but removes every subtitle from the cut video. That means I'm forced to demux them with ffmpeg, sync them with SubtitleEdit, and mux them again. That makes the usually simple process of "cut, rename new file, done" pretty tedious. Is there another, better solution to this problem?

[ProWo]

For keyframe cuts you can also use avidemux or clever Ffmpeg-GUI.

[NadCat]

Thanks for the recommendations but they don't really help me. LosslessCut is perfectly capable of doing keyframe cuts, I don't really need an alternative for that. What I need is something that can also reencode until the next keyframe if I need to cut between keyframes. The only programs I've found for that are SolveigMM Video Splitter and TMPGEnc Smart Renderer (and also VideoReDo but as I mentioned that doesn't support 10-bit videos). SolveigMM outputs broken files if the next keyframe is too far away (the video doesn't automatically start, has a considerable amount of blackscreen, and doesn't have audio for multiple minutes) and TMPGEnc deletes muxed subtitles which I really don't want. LosslessCut does also have a smart cut option but that doesn't seem to work with .mkv.

[mazinz]

Following advice from this forum I've tried LosslessCut/SolveigMM which both mostly rely on keyframes and more advanced software like TMPGEnc Smart Renderer or VideoReDo which use keyframes when possible and reencode whenever it's not. The former obviously have a lot of limitation on where you can successfully cut and the SmartEdit feature in LosslessCut doesn't really work.

I've tried both TMPGEnc SR and VideoReDo and both have problems: VideoReDo simply does not support 10-bit videos and reencodes them to 8-bit. That is not at all what I'm looking for, I want the cut to be as lossless as possible. TMPGEnc SR does not have that problem but removes every subtitle from the cut video. That means I'm forced to demux them with ffmpeg, sync them with SubtitleEdit, and mux them again. That makes the usually simple process of "cut, rename new file, done" pretty tedious. Is there another, better solution to this problem?

I was curious about this since I have both TMPG Authoring Works 6 as well as their Smart Render program. You are correct in that SR ditches subtitles. However Authoring Works does not do this and you can edit while keeping them. The catch in that software of course is the output being either dvd or bluray format. It allows you to add clips to the end of a track so when the disc is made it shows as one clip rather than several and the test I tried kept the subtitles with a 14 second edit and a 26 second edit as one clip

Now the slightly possible better news for you is that Tmpg's Master Works should do this as well as output to the type of file that you require. Authoring works and SR are (more or less) slightly budget versions of Mastering Works since MW can do everything those programs can do and more

[smrpix]

Authoring works and SR are (more or less) slightly budget versions of Mastering Works since MW can do everything those programs can do and more

Not quite. MW does not smart render, nor does it author DVD/BR. That's why they remain three separate apps.

[mazinz]

Authoring works and SR are (more or less) slightly budget versions of Mastering Works since MW can do everything those programs can do and more

Not quite. MW does not smart render, nor does it author DVD/BR. That's why they remain three separate apps.

Thats a damn shame. One would assume MW should have smart rendering (then again from a business standpoint if it did that would "render" their smart renderer program useless and therefore less money in the pockets). I was just playing with the trial version now. I like what it has to offer but no SR is a deal breaker (well almost, it still does a lot if encoding and I will end up purchasing it).

I can always shoot them an email and suggest they add subtitle preservation for smart renderer

ok so its back to square one for the OP

[ReefHound]

Thanks for the recommendations but they don't really help me. LosslessCut is perfectly capable of doing keyframe cuts, I don't really need an alternative for that.

The SmartEdit feature in LosslessCut is in experimental stage. They know there are issues and are actively working on it. Perhaps give them a little more time. Here's what they have to say:

Have now made an initial implementation of this.

This experimental feature will re-encode the part of the video from the cutpoint until the next keyframe in order to attempt to make a 100% accurate cut while losslessly copying the rest of the segment.

Only works on some files:
I've had success with some h264 files, and only a few h265 files seem to work.
Other codecs may or may not work.
Only supports cutting a single video stream. All other video streams have to be disabled (in the tracks panel). You can still probably do multi-passes and then recreate a file with all the streams.
Thumbnail stream will be dropped
Only scans up to 60 seconds to find a keyframe.
It tries to auto-detect bitrate from input stream, however if it fails, then it will calculate bitrate from the whole file's size/duration (may be wrong)
Tries to copy timebase from source to destination

[Ayaa]

Has a tool similar to LosslessCut the same limitation?
It is:

SharpCut - https://bagno.jp/software.html