Comments on: Command Line Video Editing?

Question: Command Line Video Editing?

voidcontext — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 09:30:07 -0800

I'm looking for a tool which will allow me to cut MPEG2's from the command line (or programmatically otherwise). Either Windows or Linux/BSD. I've looked through a bunch of programs found via Google, but none seem to work without their GUI's. Bonus if the MPEG2 streams are cut at the GOP marker or if it re-encodes the GOP's at the cuts. Otherwise it'll get messy. Free is preferred, but pay would be fine too as long as it works.

By: voidcontext

voidcontext — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 09:41:17 -0800

Additional information: MPGTX works sometimes but not always. Any other suggestions?

There are so many random editors and programs out there, I would love it if someone had some experience with any of them.

Thanks.

By: jclovebrew

jclovebrew — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 10:43:02 -0800

MEncoder probably does what you need. It's part of MPlayer.

By: bemis

bemis — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 11:47:30 -0800

ReplayTV Tools are a handy set of (windows) command line utilities for MPEG2's generated by ReplayTV's - don't know if they'd work on your particular files, but may be worth trying-

By: mdevore

mdevore — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 12:34:50 -0800

If nothing else, your first attempt and failure with MPGTX may be recoverable since it's open-source and reasonably accessible code. A failure cause shouldn't be too hard to detect. If you don't get and/or can't find a better solution, and you want to continue pursuing the issue, send me a failing MPEG2 file. The MPGTX author accepts source patches, so possibly I can implement a corrective modification.

Also, there are a few user patches post-last release available on SourceForge, should one of them sound related to your problem.

By: meehawl

meehawl — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 12:58:18 -0800

You can script VirtualDub and initiate from the command-line. Does that work?

By: voidcontext

voidcontext — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 16:59:54 -0800

Thanks everyone. I am going into work tomorrow morning and will check your suggestions out and report back.

By: nielm

nielm — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 04:08:58 -0800

I swear by videoredo for mpeg2 video editing on Windows. If you do even a small amount of editing, the time it saves it is worth it ($50).

Although it normally uses it's own GUI, it does have a command line batch mode which can read cutlists from an XML file, which you can generate programatically (or from the GUI).

Alternatively: ffmpeg with a command line such as:

ffmpeg -i input.mpg -ss startsecs -t duration -vcodec copy -acodec copy out.mpg

By: voidcontext

voidcontext — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 15:09:44 -0800

Still evaluating some of these, but so far so good. Thanks everyone!

By: voidcontext

voidcontext — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 06:56:02 -0800

mdevore: I found a way around my problems with MPGTX on sourceforge, thanks for the help.

nielm: ffmpeg worked great too. I don't know how I missed it in my original search, I had some preconcieved notion that it wouldn't do what I wanted and overlooked it.

Sorry for the delay in giving results. Had to be thorough in my testing though before I could know for sure. I tried some of the other suggestions, but not in depth.

Thanks again!

By: voidcontext

voidcontext — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 09:08:42 -0800

Just in case anyone stumbles on this thread:

ffmpeg works really well, and the fact that it re-encodes the edges of the cut file make the file much easier to work with in other programs.

mpgtx works also, but the fact that it just slices the file at the VOB boundaries sometimes make other programs choke.

Go with ffmpeg. That's been my experience over many uses the last several months.