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Was thinking about asking on here if anyone knew of a GUI interface to FFMPEG for quickly cropping and splitting videos losslessly (ie without re-encoding) and without gimmicks, but I then went ahead and found what I was looking for: LosslessCut - "The swiss army knife of lossless video/audio editing".
Because it does not re-encode the video, it's just shifting existing data around on your hardware from one file to one or more new files, its blisteringly quick. The price of this speed is a lack of accuracy in where it makes the cuts.
It's a perfect tool for very quickly removing all the crap non content from your video clips until you're left with the content that is worth filling up your storage/bandwidth with. Then you use your favourite video editor to do the proper editing/processing after.
It's multiplatform, available on Mac and Windows app stores. Or straight for Github
https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut/blob/master/README.md
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It’s a perfect tool for very quickly removing all the crap non content from your video clips until you’re left with the content that is worth filling up your storage/bandwidth with. Then you use your favourite video editor to do the proper editing/processing after.
So you're editing it twice? Kinda negates the speed of the first rough edit doesn't it?
No I'm using it to save storage space. The workflow of it is faster then using a fully fledged editor for this. It is most useful if the footage recorded has large sections where nothing happens. You point and click to mark the sections you want then export. Files named with original recording name plus time stamp of section.
A 1.5gb recording cut into 3 clips takes about a second to export.
So you’re editing it twice? Kinda negates the speed of the first rough edit doesn’t it?
Maybe, I have been just deleting the original footage after uploading to youtube.
But I always go through all the footage before editing, using a file manager and FFplay*, to very quickly review it all looking for the interesting bits (if any). That process kinda gets repeated after dumping it all in the video editor during editing. So if I use LosslessCut for that review process, it may actually speed up and make editing easier.
* FFplay is a basic video player supplied with FFMPEG**. FFplay only seeks to keyframes*** so has instant seeking.
** LosslessCut is to some degree a GUI wrapper for FFMPEG - an open source command line video processing application.
*** Keyframes being the points in compressed video formats where there is a full image - the frames between are partial images.
i use avidemux for quick crop/split, but i dont know if its as good for your needs
Thought I'd test it out, I started with a directory of 31 video files, totalling 20gb and 27 minutes of footage.
It took me 40 minutes using LosslessCut to go through it chopping it up and reducing it to the footage of interest.
The result was 61 files, totalling 11gb and 16 minutes.
So have nearly halved the storage requirements and viewing time, and now have individual content focused clips.
There's a good chance I'll still delete them later down the road anyway haha. But it's a good tool and will definitely come in useful.
You can do it natively in Windows. W11 has "ClipChamp" and W10, counterintuitively, can edit videos with the Photos app.
I've used VLC media player without too much trouble.
Insta360 Studio.
Is this a remote camera you just leave running or a hand held you can stop and start in real time?
I found it took hours to edit footage for YouTube etc to cut out the chaff. Now As I'm holding the cam I've adapted and I can story board the film before hand and basically do the first edit while out in the bike etc. this literally saves hours.
Now I'll admit this is amateur vlog style stuff using a GoPro or phone can but I guess the principle is the same. Obviously it dies depend on what you are shooting.
I use a basic version of corel video. Mainly because my laptop can't cope with the pro version or something as advanced and involved as prem-pro. Also Corel was a one off cheap payment and not an expensive monthly layout the likes of Adobe want