Editing out commercials in my TV backup procedure

[balance07]

i just need some expert advice on the way i am PLANNING to start doing my tv backups. here it is:

comcast digital cable (maryland, usa) to a series 2 TiVo w/ usb ethernet adapter. video extracted to my pc and converted to an mpeg-2 stream, then encoded to DivX or maybe XviD. the only place where i see a problem is editing out the commercials. if i use an mpeg-2 editor will i be able to cut at any frame in order to get perfect cuts of my shows, or will i only be able to cut at keyframes and therefore possibly get some small bits of commercial stuck in here and there? i was also thinking about first encoding the whole mpeg-2 stream to huffyuv or mjpeg or something like that, i know they take ALOT of hdd space, but would i be able to cut frame by frame then? and then append the cut portions back to 1 avi file and encode to divx?

hope this don't sound crazy to anyone, and i hope i'm asking the right forum, didn't know where else this question might fit. i just want to be able to get as close to perfect as possible tvrps. any advice anyone could give would make my life much easier, thanks.

/balance07

[Darksoul71]

This is a quite easy one:
-Convert your movie to MPEG2
-Convert your audio stream (AC3 ? MP2 ?) to wave
-Open up the MPEG2 stream with Virtual Dub (or Nandub) by using either AVISynth and the MPEG2Dec.DLL or via VFAPI
-Add the extracted wave stream (including commercials)
-Cut out all adds in your video stream using the select buttons of Virtual Dub.
-Convert your "cutted" video to DivX/XVid

Hope this helps,
D$

[balance07]

Originally posted by Darksoul71
-Cut out all adds in your video stream using the select buttons of Virtual Dub.

yer gunna have to explain that one to me a bit more. are you saying that there is a way to cut out the commercials, not cut out the show segments? in the past i had cut out the 3 or 4 show segments and then encoded each separately, then appended them all together. what i want to do is append them all togeter w/o commercials and THEN encode.

or are you saying to select each show segment and encode to huffyuv or mjpeg or one of those lossless avi formats with vdub? then append those together and encode?

sorry if i'm missing something

/balance07

[Darksoul71]

Hm, no problem !

No, you don´t have to save any segments to a lossless codec and compressing afterwards.
Just use the dragbar of VDub (1) to move to the beginning of a addvertisement block. You can use your cursor buttons to exactly choosing the start frame of the add. Click at the left arrow (2) and you´ve selected the start frame of your selection. Now move the slider (1) again to the end of the add block. Again the cursor keys can be used to scroll to the exact end frame. Click at the right arrow (2) and the whole block will turn blue in the slider bar (1). Press Del and the selected block is "gone". Virtual Dub doen´t really delete this frames. They are just not used when you encode the final movie.

Repeat this steps for each block of advertisement and voilà: You have an addfree movie.

After this you can encode the Video to DivX or XVid using Virtual Dub. After the encoding you can extract the audio and encode it externaly using LAME.

Hope this helps...

Look around in the web. There are tons of VDub guides in english.

Edit: GRRR, the JPEG I´ve attached is not visible. You´ll have to wait until some mod sets it free.

cu,
D$

[balance07]

wow, i had no idea that could be done. learn something new every day i guess, thank you so much

/balance07

[[BMC]]

Yes indeed. Thanks for the info :)

[FranchiseJuan]

I there no faster way of cutting comercials then manually? I have been doing this for about a month (on and off) and it is really anoying!

[Darksoul71]

I there no faster way of cutting comercials then manually? I have been doing this for about a month (on and off) and it is really anoying!

:confused: This is anoying ?!??:confused:
I suggest that you take your time and get used to this. Cuttin AVIs with VDub is (by far) the fastest way to do so. Try editing out commercials in Adobe Premiere and you know what I mean.

cu,
D$

[TelemachusMH]

I used to edit commercial when I did my TV capturing, and I found that using AviSynth was better then doing in in vdub. This is just another way you can do the job. You can make an avisynth script similar to this:

video = mpeg2dec("[Video Source File]") # Open source video file
audio = WavSource("[Wav Source File]") # open source audio file (wav format)

AudioDub(video, audio) # Merge audio and video together
DelayAudio([Delay]) # Delay is in seconds not milliseconds! (Optional)

v1 = trim([Show Start], [Show End]) # Retrieves first part of show (Ending before the commercials)
v2 = trim([Show Start2], [Show End2]) # Retrieve second part after commercials

return v1 + v2 # Only give VirtualDub show segments


I like using this because you didn't need to worry about loosing the exact credits frames. Once you set it, the video will always be the same, and you don't have to worry about loading the correct .vcf file. If you want to encode the audio in a different program, you can just use VirtualDub's Save Wav function. :)

Hope it helps,
TelemachusMH

[flebber]

Can you cut and save files in Vdub or avisynth so that audio and video is cut but not encode them, so I could leave them in the same state they were in already?

I have a few things already encoded audio and video and don't want to re-encode just trim off some fat.

[setarip_old]

@flebber

Hi!Can you cut and save files in Vdub or avisynth so that audio and video is cut but not encode them, so I could leave them in the same state they were in already?You certainly can, without re-encoding, with VirtualDub:


1)Load your original (DivX-compressed or otherwise) .AVI into VirtualDub
2) Set BOTH "Video" and "Audio" to "Direct Stream Copying"
3) Move slider to the starting point of the scene you wish to delete
4) From the "Edit" dropdown menu, select "Go to next keyframe"
5) From the "Edit" dropdown menu, select "Set Selection Start"
6) Move slider to the ending point of the scene you wish to delete
7) From the "Edit" dropdown menu, select "Go to next keyframe"
8) From the "Edit" dropdown menu, select "Set Selection End'
9) From the "Edit" dropdown menu, select "Delete frames"
10) Save with a new filename

[mikeytown2]

I used to edit commercial when I did my TV capturing, and I found that using AviSynth was better then doing in in vdub.

If your going to use AviSynth, you might want to give CutFrames a try
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=135423

[flebber]

Thank You both for the replies most helpful, I have been looking for an editor but already had the best thanks.

[setarip_old]

I have been looking for an editor but already had the bestAnd what program is that?

[Gavino]

Can you cut and save files in Vdub or avisynth so that audio and video is cut but not encode them, so I could leave them in the same state they were in already?
setarip_old has already explained how to do this with Vdub. I just want to clarify that you cannot use Avisynth in this process (even if importing an Avisynth script to Vdub), because Avisynth delivers uncompressed frames, not the original encoded ones.

So if you want to edit without re-encoding, you have to use Vdub directly on the original video, just as setarip_old described.

Also note that this method is no good for MPEG2 (Vdub only saves as AVI), but there are a number of MPEG2 editors out there (both free and commercial), eg Cuttermaran and VideoRedo.