Simple editing question
 

This should seem like a pretty simple thing to do but I haven't been able to do it....

I have avi files I've converted from my mp4s, and all I want to do is cut a piece out of the middle and save it as another avi. I have both Premiere 2.0 and Uled Movie Studio, and in both cases it seems as if I have to go through a complicated procedure of opening a new project, cutting the video clip and rendering it. Very time consuming.

Isn't there an easy way to do what I'm talking about?

Kenny Frank

Quicktime Pro accepts MP4s and probably AVIs.

You can truncate scenes very easily.

I trimmed a HD1 MP4 clip and ended up with a MOV file - no quality loss that I could see.

However, when I forced it to stick MP4-MP4, there was plenty of quality loss. Haven't figured that out..

Graham,

I think when you did stick with the .mov it probably just kept the MPG4 as it was, and put it in a container. since that is the apps native way of thinking. sadly when you output as mp4 it might actually have re-rendered..

if thats the case, im guessing the MOV took very little time to save and the MP4 spend time rendering.?


Bo

www.bophoto.com/HDV

"im guessing the MOV took very little time to save and the MP4 spend time rendering.?"

Correct!

I must confess to doing very little editing with the HD1. I tend to delete imperfect shots instead. It's that kind of camera, isn't it? Like a digital still camera. Deletion becomes a central part of the creative process.

But when I need to cut, I will probably turn to Quicktime Pro - it's great to see an edited clip with no quality loss.

No solution for AVI?
 

So there's no way to simply cut an AVI file without re-rendering it?

I don't know of one, sorry.

But if the only reason you are converting to avi is to make such cuts, then leave your files as MP4 and use Quicktime Pro.

Well another reason to convert is that I use Premiere, and I don't think it recognizes MP4 files... But I haven't found any way to do what I'm talking about in Premiere, and when I rendered the clip as an avi in Premiere a 400mb clip became about 2gb! I'm sure that's because of whatever codec I had selected, but it also took forever and seemed like a really ridiculous process just to clip a part of a file...

Kenneth,

If it took for ever and bloated the file. you can be 100% positive the file was re-rendered. The quicktime option is much better for just trimming the files.


Bo

www.bophoto.com/HDV

If your taking a chunk of video out of the middle, and what to join the two end pieces in a new video, you are editing, and that requires a rendering of the final product. Thats what editing is. Removing unwanted footage, and splicing together remaining.

Note: You may get a faster render in Premiere Pro if you are rendering to the same .avi file structure, and deselect the option that requires the program to rerender every thing on the time line.

No, I am cutting out pieces at the beginning and the end, leaving only what was in the middle.... I'll try unchecking that option and see if that avoids a re-rendering...

Thanks

Chris--

I've been looking for those settings and can't seem to find them. Can you tell me where they are?

Thanks,

Kenny Frank

Ken:

My assumption is the initial .avi that you have converted from the .mpg4 is a DV standard file. Then when you've edited the file, you select the Export to Movie selection, then go to settings, then select the Video tab, and then deselect recompress. I'm hoping that does something for you, but I could be wrong. I assume you are not trying to reencode through encoder. Obviously the key to a faster render would be rendering to the exact setting that are in the source file.