Current options to edit MPEG2 without re-encode ?

[MarcioAB]

Hello. What are the CURRENT options on MS Windows XP, to edit DVD-Video/MPEG2 files (mainly remove parts), without re-encoding (to keep the original quality) ?
I understand Adobe Premiere is one. But is there anything more afordable ?

Thank you
Regards
Marcio

[CWR03]

Adope Premiere does not edit without re-encoding. Cuttermaran does, and it's free!

[spuddog]

Video ReDo, Womble Mpeg Vcr

[charleski]

ProjectX is another good free solution.

[Anonymouses]

ChopperXP is another.

[MarcioAB]

Thank you very much to share. Will try all of them and post my "newbie" feeling.

[MarcioAB]

Cuttermaran is great but I see it can only start the cut on I-frames.
Still considering the "non-re-encoding" approach, is that "cut on I-frames only" a general MPEG2 limitation ? Or any of those softwares above indicated are able to do that ?

A parallel question: Is that a bad idea to capture all frames as I-frames ?

Thank you
Regards
Marcio

[CWR03]

If you edit to maintain MPEG-2 compliance, you'll need to cut in on I-frames.

[laserfan]

...Still considering the "non-re-encoding" approach, is that "cut on I-frames only" a general MPEG2 limitation ? Or any of those softwares above indicated are able to do that ?

A parallel question: Is that a bad idea to capture all frames as I-frames ?VideoReDo lets you cut on non-I frames, and it will re-construct the GOP accordingly. The result is "compliant" and will play on any MPEG2 player.

I-frames only are quite "legal" I believe, but naturally a program recorded w/all I-frames will have a very high bitrate.

[MarcioAB]

Thank you. VideoReDo, is very good. Now I understand what you mean by "it will re-construct the GOP accordingly". After studing VideoReDo and related subjects now I translate that to "it will keep all the zillions GOPs as they are and just re-contruct (re-encode) that specific GOP (group-of-15-frames-aprox) where the cut falls in the middle".

Thank you all again.

[Abond]

The same will do Cuttermaran, if you point it to a mpeg encoder. It can work with TMPG or QuEnc to reconstruct the GOP if you want to cut at non-I frame.

[MarcioAB]

ahh .. I see. "use encoding mode". Thank you.

That also solve 1 issue ( "No GOP in front of I-frame" ) of the 3 issues I'm facing with Cuttermaran and my "I-frame only" streams.

Cuttermaran still keeps complaining that "The current video stream contains GOP erros! Cutting these streams can have unexpected results or Cuttermaran can crash." (despite no crash yet). It seems VideoReDo does not complain with that.

Cuttermaran get lost on frame-by-frame backward (near the region I want to cut) and VideoReDo make it consistently right.

(Anyway Cuttermaran seems to be great also and I see his GUI nicer than VideoReDo)