Splitting or trimming 5D files
 

Since the 5D loose the locked exposure every time I stop recording I tend to leave it on while rearranging the the setup. This leads to large amounts of useless footage and large files.

Is there a way to just cut out a part of the file that I want to use without reencode or loosing quality? I would rather store and hadle a 50mb file instead of 500mb (or even larger).

Personally, I use the MP4 rewrap technique, regardless of whether I use the whole clip, or trim.

To trim, open the clip in QT Pro. Move the handles, located just under the timeline, to set your in and out points. Choose Edit | Trim to Selection. Next choose File | Export. You can export to MP4 without re-encoding by selecting Movie to MPEG-4. Make sure to select LAN/Intranet. Next open the options and select Pass through. The result will be a trimmed MP4 with correct levels that has not been re-encoded. It works perfectly in Vegas and has full 0-255 levels without gaps or bumps. Results in your NLE might vary...

One challenge with trimming to MP4: Audio will not be included. I tried trimming, exporting the MP4 and then exporting the audio from the same trim points. The audio was smaller. I believe that this is because the video duration goes from I-frame to I-frame (potentially extending the range), while the audio start and end point are sample accurate.

The workaround might be to open the MP4 in your NLE as well as your original MOV file, which will include audio. Adjust the MOV to match the in and out points of the MP4. Export the audio as a WAV or AU file. Now you can delete the original MOV.

We didn't have this problem in our recent project, as we did not trim or delete the MOV files, and we only used the audio as a means to sync the audio from our Microtrack II.

I've been doing some experimenting with Streamclip on this exact thing lately, and it's looking pretty good. It seems to handle lossless cutting/trimming of 1080p 5D2 files, and although at first the UI seems primitive, between all the keyboard shortcuts and undo, it makes it easy to just set in, set out, trim, save direct copy, undo trim, and rinse/repeat through your main clip. Also, seems to do joins no problem to, just open multiple files at once, then save direct copy, done. But maybe someone with more knowledge should try it out for more confirmation, seems to work well for me, and it's free!

I rewrap with MediaCoder and use Vegas. Do you mean that if I follow your procedure I get a rewrapped file that I don't need to run through MediaCoder, but can use straight in Vegas without "loosing levels".

Thanks you both for the tips.

How do you do lossless trimming in Streamclip? What settings do I need to use? I looked at it but couldn't find out, but I'm new to this.

I had another look and found the Save As option. I only looked at exporting before. The audio seem to get saved as well with streamclip. But it's not fast software. When I hit pause it takes a few seconds for it to stop, but I guess I can live with it. I just want to make some rough cuts to get rid of waste footage.

Thanks for the tip.

Just for others, it's worth mentioning a couple of things: (1) this is the only lossless direct stream trimming that works with audio that I could find, and it's free and seems to work, and (2) although it may not be perfectly responsive, for those who haven't used it yet, it actually works pretty good with keyboard shortcuts and the "saving as..." part is actually quite speedy, which is the more important thing as far as I'm concerned (and the speed is also reassuring that it is NOT transcoding the file).

On the rewrap thing with mediacoder, I've actually run into some problems with that. It's been working fine, I've got my own preset, but just this past weekend, it fails on two of four large files. I'm actually wondering if there's some sort of 2 gig limit or something because the two files that failed were over the 2 gig mark. Tonight when I have a chance, I'm going to split the problem files using streamclip, and then see if the split versions can be rewrapped in mediacoder or not. I'll report back later, but let me know if anyone has any ideas on that front.