how to edit mpeg 2 and vob without reencoding?

[illusory]

I'm trying out Sony Vegas. I'm trying to edit an mpeg 2, to cut off the beginning and end to just take a piece of it out. Fine, Now I want to export the resulting clip as the mpeg it is, WITHOUT REENCODING IT! Will nothing do this? Vegas seems to be re-rendering it, despite its claims to avoid reencoding when uneccesary. Are there settings to prevent this?

I tried it on Womble, and that seemed export without reencoding (at least with one method), but it destroyed the audio portion of the file -- turned it to loud hissss!

And Vegas will not accept VOBs, so that means i need to reencode an mpeg2 from a VOB, then bring it into Vegas which will again reencode the mpeg2 after i edit it down to the portion i want. Then drag it into the DVD artchitecht to render the video. This means I have reencoded at least two times, when the file is DVD COMPLIANT to begin with!

Is there any way around this? Anything I can do to simply get pieces cut from Vob files into a DVD autoring software and make a DVD which does not insist upon reencoding?

Please help!
And thank you for listening,
NJ

[MilesAhead]

AviDemux

AviDemux you can cut a clip out and just save to disk. The restriction is it will adjust the beginning and end to the nearest key frame. You can do it yourself using the << and >> controls. It's free software.

[r0lZ]

IMO, VideoRedo is the best tool to cut off parts of a DVD compliant MPEG file. It is precise (frame accurate) and as far as I know, it has never destroyed any audio or video stream. It can export to another MPG file or build a DVD, but its capabilities to do nice looking menus are poor, and it has no transition effects. It is also somewhat expensive (especially if you need the H.264 version.)

Womble is supposed to do the same thing, and I have used it during years, but each time a new version is released, there are actually new bugs added, but its terrible interface (the only thing that needs to be completely changed), is never modified. I'm tired of the constant problems with that software, so I'm sticking now with VideoRedo.

[schlemiehl]

Stream copying MPG2 files

Hi,

I'm trying to edit an mpeg 2, to cut off the beginning and end to just take a piece of it out. Fine, Now I want to export the resulting clip as the mpeg it is, WITHOUT REENCODING IT!

I tried it on Womble, and that seemed export without reencoding (at least with one method), but it destroyed the audio portion of the file -- turned it to loud hissss!
NJ

1.
Maybe your MPG2 file is damaged?
Where is it from / which program has created it ?
Which tool do you use to do a playback?

If everything else fails:
assume
%movie is your mpg2 file
%start is the first frame you want to keep, expressed as timeline position
as HH:MM:SS.xxx (xxx=milliseconds)
%end is the last frame you want to keep (HH:MM:SS.xxx)

Metacode:
ffmpeg.exe -i %movie -f vob -ss %start -t (%end - %start ) -vcodec copy -acodec copy movie_NEW.vob

where
-ss = search seconds (or skip seconds)
-t = timeline length to process
depending on the version of ffmpeg.exe you either SKIP or SEARCH, read: try and find out if %start is inclusive or exclusive the computed frame.

2.
If Womble surrenders, and it is not a user's error, it's about 100% sure that the file itself is flawy. Supposed you didn't add any effects or filters or other fancy stuff. Tip: Try smaller pieces at different locations within %movie to find out if it is a general error or but an issue of out of sync etc.

Keyword "out of sync":
Avidemux is well known for its having quit innovative ideas about how a correctly synced file should look or sound like ;-[

Good Luck

S.