[MPlayer-users] cutting with mplayer/mencoder

[Alexei Khlebnikov]

On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 10:06:58 -0700 (PDT)
Loren Merritt <lorenm at u.washington.edu> wrote:

LM> On Thu, 29 Apr 2004, Alexei Khlebnikov wrote:
LM> 
LM> > On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 16:11:02 +0300
LM> > marianciuc <marianciuc at home.ro> wrote:
LM> >
LM> > > How I cut  an  *.avi file , with mplayer/mencoder in two parts: first from
LM> > > beginning to 01:20:30 time , and second from 01:20:30 to end of  avi file ??
LM> >
LM> > man mplayer for switches -endpos and -ss
LM> 
LM> No, don't use -endpos / -ss for splitting avis. -ss seeks to the next
LM> I-frame after the specified time, while -endpos ends exactly at the
LM> specified time. So you can lose up to several seconds of video if you
LM> split that way.
LM> 
LM> A tool that works (finds I-frames and splits at an appropriate location)
LM> is avisplit (comes with transcode).

Note that because of that, avisplit is not as precise as mencoder.

I personally prefer avisplit for cutting large movies, because it can split
multi-audio AVIs without loosing additionl audio tracks and it better
handles buggy divx5 movies. Though on some movies it fails too.

Also I prefer to cut the way that the first 5 seconds of the second part
are the same as the last 5 seconds of the first part. It reminds about
what the first part ended with after a disk change and makes
transition between 2 (or more) disks psychologically "smoother"
while viewing the movie. It also eliminuates inconviniences with cutting
at the middle of the phrase.