[FFmpeg-user] Cutting out part of a video does not work

[Cecil Westerhof]

Peter White <peter.white at posteo.net> writes:

> On Sat, Mar 27, 2021 at 05:53:56AM +0100, Cecil Westerhof via ffmpeg-user wrote:
>> Peter White <peter.white at posteo.net> writes:
>> 
>> > On Fri, Mar 26, 2021 at 07:02:13PM +0100, Cecil Westerhof via ffmpeg-user wrote:
>> >> Carl Zwanzig <cpz at tuunq.com> writes:
>> >> 
>> >> > On 3/26/2021 9:28 AM, Cecil Westerhof via ffmpeg-user wrote:
>> >> >> There is only one problem. The video is 7:21 long, but both mpv and
>> >> >> vlc think it is 7:30 long.
>> >> >
>> >> > IME, the metadata length often lies. When you say it's 7:21, is that
>> >> > exactly how long it plays for or how long it ought to be?
>> >> 
>> >> I almost never have this. (If I remember well, only with videos
>> >> created with ffmpeg. Sometimes it started on a negative timestamp
>> >> instead of 00:00:00.)
>> >> 
>> >> Looking at the -to you would expect 7:22, but when I just play it, it
>> >> ends at 7:21.
>> >
>> > You can try using -to as an input option as well. I am not sure, but I
>> > seem to remember having similar problems once. Also, have a look at -t
>> > for defining the length of the file as opposed to cutting on time code.
>> 
>> That is what I did first. Then I got 1:34:19 (or something like it).
>> So even worse.
>
> When you say "first", was that with -vcodec copy? Because that might
> explain it. Although, I do not know why the file would be so much
> longer. May be that data stream.

No, libx264. What I think happened that the input was stopped, but the
timestamp copied from the original. But I will keep playing with it.

By the way when I crop the video afterwards the end time is correct.
But it would be better to do everything in one swoop of-course. (At
the moment I am just finding out what to do.)


> BTW, you can use "time codes" for -ss, -to and -t, too. Personally, I do
> not like having to calculate in seconds when I can simply use the
> timestamps shown by a player. It is much more intuitive, to me at least,
> to just say: cut from (-ss) 19:45 -to 27:11 instead of from 1190 to
> 1631. But that, of course, depends on how you retrieved those timestamps
> in the first place.

Well I enter them as timestamps and my script convert it to seconds.
(It is quit an old script.) And when I use the first as input and the
second as output I need to convert them so I can calculate the length.


> From my understanding the difference between them being used as input or
> output options, respectively, is that when used as input options they
> tell the *demuxer* to seek and stop at the given timestamps. Or, more
> precisely, the demuxer seeks to the last keyframe before the -ss
> timestamp and the decoder starts decoding from there, discarding all
> frames before the accurate timestamp.

That was my understanding also.

-- 
Cecil Westerhof
Senior Software Engineer
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilwesterhof