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[MikeDip]

Hello friends,

I have a folder of a lot (like 300) of videos from an old camcorder. They are mp4 files. What I want to do is remove the first parts of each video since for some reason they all start with black screens, random noises/grunting, and static. I can't go into detail on what's on the video but the actual start time doesn't need to be exact and the content sort of loops, so as long as I can cut out the first bit everything would work.

Is there an easy way to remove the first say, 30-40 seconds of each video for 300+ videos? It can be the same time removed from every video, or even just a way to take just the middle 5 minutes from each video, or whatever would work to just get a chuck of the video minus the beginning, I don't need to actually have different times for each one. Also, I don't care too much if the quality goes down a bit, as long as they stay the same format and keep the same file names.

Hopefully there is a way to set this up and walk away? I don't want to do each one manually (I don't even know how to actually do it manually yet but I assume it can be done as I am aware video editing exists)

Thank you and please help

EDIT: Oh I am on windows if that matters.

 

[Flo_Evans]

Should be possible... You might want to post in the film making and video thread for specific software to do this on a pc... Think sorenson sqeeze has an option for batch trimming but idk of you can get that.

edit: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=398058

 

[MikeDip]

Should be possible... You might want to post in the film making and video thread for specific software to do this on a pc... Think sorenson sqeeze has an option for batch trimming but idk of you can get that.

I will scope one out, didn't know we had any video threads! My searches didn't turn up anything but I searched badly I think.

 

[MikeDip]

Thanks for the link! I searched again after you told me but couldn't find it. You were very helpful.

Really hope I can solve this issue and someone from that thread or someone who sees this one knows what to do.

 

[DeadTrees]

I have a folder of a lot (like 300) of videos from an old camcorder. They are mp4 files. What I want to do is remove the first parts of each video since for some reason they all start with black screens, random noises/grunting, and static. I can't go into detail on what's on the video but the actual start time doesn't need to be exact and the content sort of loops, so as long as I can cut out the first bit everything would work.

Is there an easy way to remove the first say, 30-40 seconds of each video for 300+ videos?

ffmpeg is probably what you want.

ffmpeg -i scientology_convention_2015.mp4 -ss 0:30 -c copy non_incriminating_evidence.mp4

...where the time immediately after -ss is where the new copy of the video should begin. All you need now is your choice of programming language to run ffmpeg for each mp4 in your list.

 

[CTLance]

There's always ffmpeg, but that's not a really comfortable solution. Depending on your OS there may be a useful GUI lying around that exposes the options and allows for queuing.

Here's how the guy in the above link did it on Windows, adapted to fit your requirement. If you install ffmpeg, just open notepad, plunk in these lines, save it as videocut.bat in the directory with the videos and then doubleclick on it:

@echo off
echo this will take a while!
for %%a in ("*.mp4") do ffmpeg -ss 40 -i "%%a" -acodec copy -vcodec copy "newfiles\%%~na.mp4"
echo done...
start newfiles
pause

 

[MikeDip]

Okay ffmpeg sounds like it will work. This is new to me so wish me luck. Thanks so much!

Now to figure out how to install ffmpeg

 

[MikeDip]

I tried installing ffmpeg twice but I messed up I think, it is not working. Is this install guide good? http://www.wikihow.com/Install-FFmpeg-on-Windows

When I get to the environmental stuff I think I messed up. Should not have tried this so late at night.