[mythtv-users] mythtranscode: honorcutlist on a non-recording

[UB40D]

On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 7:32 PM, Brian Wood <beww at beww.org> wrote:
> On Sunday 03 May 2009 12:18:08 UB40D wrote:
>> I have a number of historical dvb-t recordings made on a non-mythtv
>> box that I'd like to edit (chop head and tail, remove commercials etc)
>> using myth because its editor is so much better.
>
> I'm curious what you mean by "better".

Better in this case means: much closer to what I actually want than
the other few programs I tried for this task so far. Does the job (the
specific job of chopping head and tail and removing bits from the
middle) reasonably quickly. Lets me find the frame I want with little
fuss and only a few keystrokes. Lets me go forward AND backwards by
the same amount. This sort of stuff. And free.

> There are a lot of options for editing video under Linux, ranging from
> simplistic solutions like gopchop to the full-blown Cinelerra. In between you
> have avidemux to the Open Movie Editor, with perhaps a dozen in between.
>
> So I wonder what it is that makes the Myth editor "better" in your opinion.

I'll be happy if you point me at programs that do those same things
more conveniently! Bear in mind I'm no Spielberg and what I want to do
is usually very simple (see requirements above) but still I wouldn't
mind being able to do a little more than the Myth editor allows. For
example simply gluing two separate recordings together, or editing a
quicktime file (as produced by my photo camera) as opposed to just an
.mpg.

> Clearly the Myth editor is not suited to creating a feature film, but rather
> to cutting portions of an already created product.

That's what I do 99% of the time so that's fine.

> Inserting outside clips
> into a Myth recording is another matter, and not really what the Myth editor
> was designed to do.

And I don't need this functionality.

> Normally I'd assume you consider it "better" because if its integration into
> Myth, but since you are dealing with outside videos, this is probably not the
> case.

The outside videos were videos recorded with the windows-based pvr
software that came with the dvb hardware, until I got so fed up with
it that I replaced the setup with myth. So they're the moral
equivalent of myth recordings, even if they are "outside videos".
Because it was so cumbersome to chop head/tail with Vidomi (what I
used back then), they're still there unedited. And I'd like to edit
them and reclaim some disk space.

> As I said, I'm just curious. What makes an editor "better"? Ease of use?

Largely yes I guess: not getting in the way so that I can do the
editing in minimal time.

As I said, suggestions for more effective programs are welcome. Under
Linux I unsuccessfully tried a few programs that claimed to do
lossless MPEG2 to MPEG2 editing without transcoding (only on I-frame
boundaries is not a problem for me) and never got anything going: I
remember a very cumbersome one called ProjectX and a couple of others
whose name I forgot that looked simpler but didn't actually appear to
work (no doubt also thanks to my incompetence).