ffmpeg - just encode chunks of source (manually remove ads)

[Sharft 6]

Is there a way I can open up a video player of some sort, note down all the times that ads stop and start, then encode only the desired parts of the video? None of the commercial flagging methods in mythtv seem to work for me.

[nm]

OTOH:

1. If the capture is MPEG-2 SDTV, cut and demux with Project-X. That will also take care of any errors in the captured stream so that it's easier to handle later on.

2. Make Edit Decision Lists with MPlayer: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/edl.html
This is exactly what you asked for, but requires remuxing TS caps to MKV or some other indexed format first.

[Sharft 6]

Thanks but..

capture is h264/MPEG4 in .mpg container (HDTV).

Option 2 looks like you have to load the edl file every time and use mplayer for playback.

I don't need a player that can mark the times for me. I was just hoping there was a way of putting in a bunch of numbers into an ffmpeg parameter that would stop it from encoding the undesired parts. Maybe I need to create a script that encodes the parts I want and then joins them all together?

[nm]

Option 2 looks like you have to load the edl file every time and use mplayer for playback.

Not necessarily. You can use EDLs during re-encoding to cut the input.

I don't need a player that can mark the times for me. I was just hoping there was a way of putting in a bunch of numbers into an ffmpeg parameter that would stop it from encoding the undesired parts.

Maybe I need to create a script that encodes the parts I want and then joins them all together?

Yes. ffmpeg only allows you to set a startpoint and the duration, so if you don't want to use other tools or modify the code, that's your only option.

MPlayer/MEncoder and EDLs allow more complex cutting operations in a single run. (And MPlayer provides an user interface for marking the cuts.)

Or you could use AviSynth with avs2yuv and Wine.