[mythtv-users] Video Editing HELP! (COMPLETE noobie)

[Douglas Wagner]

Where to begin.  I'm not sure if this is on topic, off topic or what so
please bear with me and my apologies in advance if this is all wrong.

First, I'm using MythTV with a pchd3000 card (the linux video capture card)
capturing NTSC OTA transmission (High Def) through Myth.

I have, what would at first, seem to be a simple issue.  I have a set of
videos that I would like to remove the commercials from.  Yes, I know "Myth
will do this for you."

I've tried, I've failed...oh how I've failed.  Basically, I can go into
Myth's editor, I can mark the commercials and I can do the transcode and at
that point what I normally end up with is a video that has lost ALL ability
to be fast forwarded and many times the commercial cut process isn't what
I'd like.  I have several videos that have gone through this process that
are now in myth video (having been removed from myth tv / recordings) and
thus are no longer in the database.  Worse yet, I have several videos that I
never realized I could cut commercials from so all the commercials are still
there...and I've lost the ability to fast forward so if I want to watch the
movie or show I have to WATCH the commercials.  (Fast Forarding send the
"position" counter to the end of the video and it either restarts me from
the beginning or sends me to the end.)

So what I'm stuck with at the moment are videos in various stages of
"broken" some with commercials, some without, most without the ability to
fast forward or rewind, and all of them with no myth-tv database
functionality so no ability to pull it through a transcoder and wipe out
commercials.

The myth tv editing thing is something I"ll want to fix eventually but for
right now I'm looking for a BASIC tool that I can load a mythtv recorded
video into, simply remove the commercials and put it back out in a format
that doesn't destroy the sound or otherwise break the video...the ability to
fast forward and rewind would be a definate plus but at this point I'll take
a video I can't touch that has no commercials in it.

This would, on the surface, seem simple enough but I cannot seem to get this
to work and I have NO idea where to start.  My most recent fiasco has been
using a program called cinelerra.  Loaded the video into it (that worked) it
took an hour+ to read in and index (ok, fine) and then I went through the
cut process of deleting the commercials.  I managed that.

Upon export I had to go to AVI (MPEG4 I think) and after 15 hours of
transcoding/recoding, whatever the heck it did, I get my video back.

Yes, commercials are gone...so now is sound, it just pops and clicks.  Oh,
yea, and now i've got a nice like 640x480 (maybe more) box in the middle of
my 1080i TV screen with the picture.

Everywhere I look I see words like "keyframe" and about 20K other technical
terms that I have NO CLUE about.

This wouldn't seem hard to load the video into an editor, click and drag to
highlight the commerical part, press delete and export the video...but every
time I try something it seems to blow up the video.

HELP, I mean really HELP.  Is there some basic guide out there?  What about
software?  What the heck is available...everything I try either doesn't read
Myth's format or requires a doctorate degree in video production and at
least 10 years experience working for a major recording company to use.  I
have windows, macs and linux in my house, I'm happy to use any program on
any of them.

I don't need effects, I don't need to overlay a music track across 10 video
clips and cut and paste my own movie.  I'm not producing for YouTube or the
6'oclock news...I want a basic piece of software that I can say "remove this
section of the video" and have it just work.

HELP, please.

Extremely Frustrated,
--Doug
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