Looking for video trimming software

Hello. Recently I have been in search of a very basic piece of software where I can trim some videos I have. I found a program that worked decently from a ease of use standpoint, avidemux but apparently it is re-encoding it and slightly differently (despite being set to just copy the original) so when I cut out 4 seconds or less out of the video the filesize ends up slightly larger than before (which defeats one of the purposes of me trimming the videos in the first place).

Does anybody know a piece of software that can trim without re-encoding ideally with a GUI?

Handbrake, perhaps?

Depending on the codec, you can’t just chop the data off the end. This is a normal situation. However, the increase in file size could have something to do with the way you’re re-encoding it.

For the record, avidemux is my first choice for a quick trim.

Is there a specific settings within avidemux to re-encode it exactly the same?

Off the top of my head? Not sure.

Let me dig into it. Give me a moment.

@SmileAsTheyDie I’m on Linux, but your UI should look somewhat similar. As long as you choose “copy” for video and audio output, that should re-encode with the same quality/settings and codec.

Yeah I had copy chosen and with a small cut it ends up a bigger file. For the file size to be smaller I have to cut around 10+ seconds

Hmmm, I’m not really good enough with video codecs to tell you why that’s happening.

How much bigger are we talking?

Quicktime 7 pro is actually quite useful for this kind of thing, if you have a machine it will run on.

The part of the video up until the next I-Frame has to be re-encoded and can end up being larger than before. For short files this section can be significant. How long is your video and by how much does it grow?

Here is one of the videos that I did. The original length of the video was 36:56 and it was 201,318 KB. I cut off 6 seconds making it 36:50 and now it is 202,028.

I have also noticed the oddity in some of the videos I have already edited where I have cut out a small intial intro scene on the edited version the last second or so is still present despite clearly making the “start” time after the intro.

I’m really not the best person for this.

What @pFtpr said above probably fits best for this. Also, 700kb shouldn’t be a problem, at least not in my book.

Regarding the inaccuracy in the time slice, you might be better off with a more fully-featured editor if you’re trying to make more precise cuts. I don’t know why it’s not cutting precisely.

Encoding is best done with a CLI. It takes time to learn but after that learning curve, CLI is faster than a GUI for a/v. Anyways…

MKVToolnix can do this using keyframes: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/359121-How-to-extract-cut-parts-from-a-mkv-including-all-audio-and-subtitle-tracks

But preferably, use ffmpeg’s seeking features: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Seeking -ss -t -to

I use Moo0 Video Cutter for cutting out specific clips from videos without re-rendering. Some formats do not work however for those i use Free Video Cutter Expert, which is way faster but a little laggy UI. However, what you want to do with Free Video Cutter Expert is select Output Format: Keep same format as source .

Yeah try that out, i was in the same spot as you but this has solved my need for trimming from videos specific clips.

These files can range from 20 minutes long to 40 minutes long generally and in most cases (where the file size is growing) I am cutting off less than 10 seconds. Usually the growth can range from 400kb to a little over 1mb

That’s pretty much in line with what I said. The increase in file size is almost certainly from re-encoding the video around the cut out section.

Given the minor increase I’d just ignore it.

Is there any software that can do this properly? I either run into the situation where I have a piece of software (like avidemux) that doesn’t cut properly relative to where it shows I’m cutting in the preview or software that will cut properly but there will then be artifacts at the beginning of the edited clip.

I need something that can do the cutting properly without the artifacts and with a GUI since I can’t afford to be cross referencing multiple pieces of software to use a command line based program since I have around 2000 files to do.

Going into this I would have never assumed something so simple could be so complicated and not down to a science at this point.

I use ffmpeg for the little video processing I do. It’s terminal only, but third party GUIs do exist.

If you are performing the exact same cuts over and over you may want to consider a text-only tool after all. A batch script will make your life way easier.

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The cuts will vary on a video to video basis.

It might be possible to break the videos into groups that need the same cuts but that would take a immense amount of time compared to just making the cuts on a individual basis once I identify what needs cut.

Out of curiosity, are you trying to remove opening titles or commercials from a TV show or something?

Your workload seems to suggest that. If so, you might be interested in comskip: http://www.comskip.org/ It detects (and removes) commercials and may be capable of detecting opening titles as well.