Cut entire chapters

NJH · Post by **NJH** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 5:31 pm

Hi,

I am new to MF5 and a feature I am looking for is the ability to cut an entire chapter from my video. MF5 creates the chapters well but when I go to the multi edit section, it seems that I can only edit on a time basis. There are 2 complete chapters I would like to cut out, and I have had to do it by finding the start and end positions just by panning through and then cutting. I would like to be able so select a chapter and delete the whole thing directly. Nero can do this, but it is not good/accurate at creating the chapters in the first place.

Thanks

Velojet · Post by **Velojet** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 9:22 pm

Go to 'Add/Edit Chapter'. Select the chapter/s you want to cut. Click 'Remove Chapter', or simply press the delete key. Gone!

(I suggest you fill in your system details in your profile. Didn't matter in this case, but it'll help in future queries that may be more system-dependent.)

Good luck!

NJH · Post by **NJH** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 9:51 pm

Unless I'm mistaken, all that does is delete the chapter marker and not that section of the video. I'll have another look tomorrow, when I'll also sort out my system details.

Velojet · Post by **Velojet** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 10:32 am

NJH wrote:Unless I'm mistaken, all that does is delete the chapter marker and not that section of the video. I'll have another look tomorrow, when I'll also sort out my system details.

But what do you mean by "delete ... that section of the video"? It's true that it doesn't chop it out of your input video file, but you wouldn't want that, would you? What it does is prevent it from being written to your output video, and that's what you do want, isn't it?

(Thanks for your system details!)

NJH · Post by **NJH** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 3:19 pm

I do want to delete the whole chapter from the output file. The first chapter looks like someone hit the record button accidentally but was waving the camera around at the time, the second I want to delete was recorded in "portrait mode" i.e. with the video round at 90deg. Rather than try to correct it, I would like to scrub the footage. So I want to delete the whole chapter rather than just the chapter marker.

Velojet · Post by **Velojet** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 8:23 pm

Sorry, NJH, I hadn't fully appreciated what you were wanting to do. Thanks for the clarification.

It indeed seems to me that when MF5 creates chapters, it simply inserts chapter markers, but does not also split the video into separate clips (unlike some other video editors).

So (it also seems to me) there's no automatic way of separately identifying the segments between individual markers and deleting them. All I think you can do is to note the time at which markers have been inserted, then use those times to identify the segments to trim on the timeline within 'Multi-trim Video' - which, I gather, is exactly what you said you were doing in your initial message.

Perhaps some other user has a more efficient method for doing this?

NJH · Post by **NJH** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 9:11 pm

I suspected that was going to be the answer.

I have tried Nero which makes it very easy to delete entire chapters, but it is not very good at setting them in the first place and is also pretty cumbersome at editing.

I also tried Sony's Vegas Movie Studio which uses a very different model which splits the raw DV input into separate files for each chapter which you then have to re-assemble into a movie. I have only dabbled, but it has so many options which I find confusing and it has no way of automatically adding chapter marks to an already downloaded avi file.

So far, as I only want a fairly simple tool, I still prefer MF.

maddrummer3301 · Post by **maddrummer3301** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 9:26 pm

NJH · Post by **NJH** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 6:51 am

The file is a single avi file downloaded from my DV camcorder by firewire. It is not an mpeg file yet. I downloaded it with Nero, onto an NTFS partition so it comes as a single file. I have just realised that I have not tried downloading it with MF to see if it makes any difference. I may try it tonight.

maddrummer3301 · Post by **maddrummer3301** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 2:51 pm