WinFF - cut out first 2 seconds of film?

[Quest]

I have a bunch of MP4s that have some garbage that needs removing in the first few seconds of the film. I'd originally ignored the noise and just re-encoded the MP4s to AVI using WinFF but after watching the films, it gets really annoying so would like to take out. I thought I'd found a good solution in a new freeware for me called "Weeny Free Video Cutter" (yeah, I know, lame name), but when after converting a bunch of episodes today, when I compared the two outputs, original one done with WinFF last week and new ones with seconds cut out with this Weeny thing, the difference in quality is very marked. WinFF does a superior job of re-encoding.

The trouble is that though I've spent spare time the entire week I'm just not getting the syntax! Sure, I know that I choose a preset as per normal; and I get that I need to change the parameters. but it's all Chinese to me to figure out exactly how to do this.

The eps range in length from 21:xx to 22:xx, with xx varying in numbers of seconds each episode lasts. I just need to cut out the first 2 seconds on each MP4 when converting to fullscreen avi.

I can't see the syntax in my old WinFF, but in the newer one, v1.5.2, it shows this under the FFmpeg tab:

"...\ffmpeg.exe" -y -i "O:\...film.mp4" -f avi -r 29.97 -vcodec libxvid -vtag XVID -vf scale=640:480,crop=iw-6-6:ih-6-6:6:6 -aspect 4:3 -maxrate 1800k -b:v 1500k -qmin 3 -qmax 5 -bufsize 4096 -mbd 2 -bf 2 -trellis 1 -flags +aic -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -g 300 -acodec libmp3lame -ar 48000 -b:a 128k -ac 2 "O:\...encodedFilm.avi"

The actual preset itself for fullscreen AVI shows this:

-f avi -r 29.97 -vcodec libxvid -vtag XVID -vf scale=640:480 -aspect 4:3 -maxrate 1800k -b:v 1500k -qmin 3 -qmax 5 -bufsize 4096 -mbd 2 -bf 2 -trellis 1 -flags +aic -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -g 300 -acodec libmp3lame -ar 48000 -b:a 128k -ac 2

And I have read FFmpeg info online, as well, a lot over the year or two since I started using WinFF exclusively for my video re-encoding needs but I still feel very lost at sea. So I'm posting this newbies. It's the best program, though, and gives me the best results, so time to learn how to cut out portions like this.

Does anyone know how to do this with WinFF, please?

Thanks so much in advance.

[raffriff42]

If I understand the question, it's very easy once you know how.
- Options menu, check Additional options (or click the Options toolbar button)
- Now you will see additional tabs along the bottom.
- Go to Time tab, set Seek to 2 sec.
- Click Apply Changes.
- Go to the FFmpeg tab, and you will see " -ss 0:00:02" added to the command string.

[Quest]

If I understand the question, it's very easy once you know how.
- Options menu, check Additional options (or click the Options toolbar button)
- Now you will see additional tabs along the bottom.
- Go to Time tab, set Seek to 2 sec.
- Click Apply Changes.
- Go to the FFmpeg tab, and you will see " -ss 0:00:02" added to the command string.
Drat! I was so hopeful. I actually tried the 2 items under the "Time" tab before posting. I thought for sure "Seek to" and putting 2 under seconds would work. It didn't. I then tried the "record to" one and it did, but in reverse! I ended up with just an avi with just the first 2 seconds of film!!

But when I read your response this morning, I thought "oh, it's because I didn't press 'Apply changes', so tried again this morning but pressing that option. But STILL no go!! Yes, I ended up with a nicely re-encoding avi from the mp4 but with those blasted, annoying first 2 seconds.

Don't know why this doesn't work. It's funny that I never noticed the "apply changes" button. I crop and change folder without that and the "record to" worked just fine without applying any changes. So wondering why nothing works with the "Seek to".

I'll have to see if there's a later version of WinFF. I really like the app, but it sure would be nice to cut out portions without resorting to doing it via the syntax, which I suck at trying to figure out big-time!

Going to check versions now ... <sigh>

[Quest]

I have just enough time before heading off to work to try to re-encode once more. I added

-ss 0:00:02

to the FFmpeg syntax under 1st pass. Figured it can't hurt to try adding it manually instead, since the "apply changes" didn't seem to add that to the syntax. If worse comes to worst, I'll try creating a modified preset with that. But I'll know in half an hour if just adding it under the FFmpeg tab worked.

Also, I see that they're up to v1.5.3 in WinFF, so will check that out tonight. Can't hurt. I find that sometimes if something doesn't work in one version, it may in the next.

Whatever happens, will report back. I'm sure I'm not the only WinFF user out trying to figure this type of thing out. This GUI so much easier than any other FFmpeg GUI I've tried. It's almost always a breeze to use.

Thanks!

[Guest]

@Quest

Where did you get the MP4 files?

[Quest]

YouTube.

But adding the syntax in manually worked!! So it's my version of WinFF that doesn't add them through the GUI, it does for other options added, but it doesn't do so for the "Seek to" under the "Time" tab. I'll check tonight to see if v1.5.3 does add the right syntax properly there.

But thanks for your code! Adding it in manually did work, which ultimately is what matters for this! I found a millisecond of noise still was kept in but all the image is gone (I called it garbage but it's just the station identifier which is annoying as it's 2 seconds of posted image and loud audio). I'll keep in the first one but not in subsequent eps. So will just try cutting out 3 seconds. There's a measure of fade in there that should take the extra second cut out okay.

Thanks! Great to know an easy solution to this issue.

[Guest]

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