Tool for editing mp4 videos

[nosh]

I need to do some basic editing (cut & paste stuff) to a bunch of .mp4 videos before I move them to a PSP.  I looked at a few recommendations in the video editing threads but most of the intermediate level tools don't support mp4 all the way. I do all my editing with VirtualDub-MPEG2, it does let me edit the files but will only save them if I let it encode them to avi (which I then have to reconvert to mp4  ). Is there anything that'll let me do this in direct stream mode? I assume Premiere or Vegas may be up to the task but they seem like total overkill for this.

[J-Mac]

I used to use Sonic's MyDVD Deluxe Suite and then their DVDit a couple of years ago for all my DVD authoring. They were pretty good and had virtually every tool for most formats - but that was before MP4 Video was out, I think. Now Roxio bought them out and I'm not certain what they have done with them. I did try Roxio Easy Media Creator 8 but they come out with an entire new release each year - no upgrades for current users - and 9 was pretty much a bust, so I abandoned it.

But I'll keep an eye out for a good MP4 video editor.

Jim

[J-Mac]

This one is worth a look:  ImToo Video Editor.  I haven't tried it yet, but it appears to claim it can do what you want.

Looks like they have a trial version.

Jim

[nosh]

Thanks Jim. I tried ImToo (along with a whole lot of other) tailored-for-PSP converters last night. A few of these do have trimming features but you can only snip off the start and/or end of the clips - no real editing functionality.

[Curt]

bumping!

YouTube has made the need for editing .MP4 files most relevant, I think. I have a few thousand video files I would like to edit a little, cut off the beginning & the end, and simple stuff like that. Nosh made a request for more advanced features, a year ago, and received no answers, but even for basic, simple features it seems the only editors capable of doing anything are beginning in the area around $50 ! Can it really be true? Isn't there anything cheap or free out there that will edit .mp4 files, without the need for conversion?


- for Windows Vista

[MrCrispy]

I would like something like this too - a program that can handle h.264 (mp4, mov as well as containers like mkv), has simple NLE editing (trim, cut, copy, timeline) and does no transcoding if its not required.

[Curt]

- QuickTime Pro is very good with basic editing of .MOV files, of course. I don't remember if the free version can do anything.

Edited:
PRO will edit .MP4 files just fine, but will convert (instantly) into .MOV when saving.
The free version can't edit.

[4wd]

Avidemux can do basic cut/trim operations on MPEG4-AVC without doing re-encodes, (at least it did when I just tried it).

There are a few caveats though:
1) There's no guarantee you can open it successfully not using Safe Mode - if you use Safe Mode you may lose A/V sync.
2) Cuts should be performed on keyframes (Frame type I). More specifically set the A point on an I frame and the B point on the frame before the next I frame for the section you want to cut.
3) Make sure the video ends up starting on a keyframe.

Then just set the Video/Audio to Copy, Format to MP4, (must be the same as input format), and save.



If you want to do pasting then you may have to slice'n'dice the original video and then append the sections how you want them.

Experiment, I don't do MP4-AVC encodes because my standalone only handles MPEG4-ASP and for that Avidemux works fine.