split a file

[davitof]

Hello,

I must be getting dumb but I can't figure this out. I am using vlc 2.0.4 on Windows (but I guess this is not OS-specific). I have video files (mp4 but I guess format does not matter either) I want to extract some video sequences from. I found explanations on the web on how to do this in VLC, but those explanations were obviously for older versions of VLC and I can't manage to do it. How is this to be done with the current version (if it is still possible)?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

You could use the record button

[davitof]

Yes, I guess it would work, but obtaining splits with split-second precision would be very difficult to achieve. I just found out that others on the net found the same drawback for this method. What I was looking for is something like what is described here http://www.ehow.com/how_8690780_split-videos-vlc.html but those dialogs seems to have changed since may 2011: The "Partial extract" / "Enable" seems to have been re-labeled to "Show more options", "From" has probably been renamed "Start time", but there is no matching "End time".

Now that I am looking at how the dialog is working, I see that the "Start time" spin changes the value of the :start-time edit option below. A little search on the Net shows me that the corresponding option for the end is :stop-time. So I edit the edit options to the values I need (counting in seconds isn't as easy as counting in minutes:seconds, but a little math and I get my desired value), and I hit "Convert / Save". In the "Convert" dialog which opens now I enter an output file name, and hit "Start". Very disappointing results: I get a new entry "Streaming" in the Playlist, and no output file at all.

Am I on the right track and if so, what am I missing?

[davitof]

... so I decided to try another way: command line. I tried the following command:

Code: Select all

"c:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" -I dummy -vvv "source.mp4" --sout=#transcode:standard{access="file",mux="dummy",dst="%_commanm%.mp4"}

but I get a dialog telling me vlc has crashed, offering me to send a report to the dev team (which I did) and then the dummy window briefly flashes and closes before I have the time to read it and try to guess a possible solution.

I am out of ideas, I quit trying to use vlc to split files.

[solazy]

Hi davitof,
In case it may help you, I used recently the last version of the well-known free program Avidemux (sourceforge) version 2.6.1 dated 2012-12-21, to quickly extract some sequences from a big mp4 file [x264-AC3], without reencoding.

All went fine with the following parameters :
Video Output : Copy
Audio Output : Copy
Output Format : MP4v2 Muxer (because Mp4Muxer didn't work for me)
Mark beginning...
Mark end...
Record

As they wrote in the Version history : "Various improvements to MP4, FLV and MPEG-PS/TS demuxers"
That's very true, as I never was able to split mp4 with older versions of Avidemux. Only the last version did it.