How do you initially discard unwanted footage from your movies?

[agckent]

I have lots of long GoPro movies (e.g. 4 minutes) which contain very short (eg 5 seconds) sections which I want to preserve.  I want to extract the 5 seconds to a new file then delete the original 4-minute movie completely.

I know how to make a movie made up of several original footages from my Nikon and my Go Pro and export it to YouTube.

Up until now I have simply put all of the original footage movies of a  into a single project.

The trouble with that is the wastage of disc space for those 4-minute original GoPro movies which will contribute just 5 seconds of their content.

There are thousands of articles on trimming, and I know how to do that up to a point, but I cannot find a recommended workflow for initially permanently discarding the unwanted stuff.

For example, after a 2 week sailing trip  I might have 150 separate footages averaging  3 minutes each (7 hours 30 minutes in total) which contain on average 10 seconds each of potentially desirable content (25 minutes in total)   I would wish to add just those 25 minutes to my project for that trip which I would then probably reduce down to a final movie of about 6 minutes in length.

Any thoughts on the best approach would be appreciated.

[title edited by mod]

[sillybomb]

You could keep track of your shoot with a shot list on the day so you know which videos to keep / which section of the video.

To save space;

You could export individually trimmed clips to a "desirable" bin (folder) 25mins and then trash your original videos. Then edit your youtube video with trimmed down "desirables" clips.

You can't trim it before bringing it in to premiere because thats what you're using premiere for in the first place.

[Ann Bens · Accepted solution]

Make subclips.

Then export these clips from the Project Window to the desired format.

You can batch export by selecting them all at once

Right click and Export Media.

When done you can delete the original long file from Premiere and hdd.

Right click on file and hit Make Offline........

[Averdahl]

Yet another way is to bring the footage into any app that supports Smart Render and cut away the unwanted footage. A smart render export is lightning fast, many times faster than real time, and no re-compression will take place. I use TMPGEnc MPEG Smart Renderer 5 when i want to get rid of unwanted .mp4 video fast and with no re-compression.

[Ann Bens]

That is an extra 70 bucks.

[Averdahl]

That is an extra 70 bucks.

Yes, and rendering out the footage in Premiere Pro will take time and "cost" a re-compression. To edit it and re-compress it once again for the final render will "cost" due to the extra hit of quality. Since disc space was a concern i doubt that CineForm will be used as an intermediate codec. Time is money as well. The priority has to be made by the user.

Or, download the trial version of TMPGEnc MPEG Smart Renderer 5 and do everything within the 30-day limit. The trial version is fully functional, no watermarks, etc for 30 days. Or, re-encode, and re-encode again, loose time and rock on!

[Warren Heaton]

Does TMPGEnc MPEG Smart Render provide any technical details as to how they work around the GOP structure?

[R Neil Haugen]

From a quick glance at their info, I'd guess it's the same as the free-ware options for this out there, but with a vastly improved UI than command line options.

Which is to say, it goes to the nearest i-frame before and after your selection, and simply 'cuts' there. So your actual cut may have a few more frames to it than you saw. They may have their UI set to tell you where it will actually cut when you say "here".

Neil

[Averdahl]

Does TMPGEnc MPEG Smart Render provide any technical details as to how they work around the GOP structure?

I don´t know how it works under the hood. From what i have understood is that if you make a cut it will only re-encode a few frames around that cut to get the GOP structure correct. The rest will just be left untouched. So cutting away let´s say five minutes from a clip that is 1 hour long will literally take a couple of seconds to output. That along with the lossless output made me realize that it is a useful tool for me that is easy to use.

[rodneyb56060189]

I went to that link and read it .. it scrolls down pretty far, and is a lot to read.

At some point it explains that it cuts at the frame, not the GOP.

However, without having tried it myself, from what I gather is you have to actually remove one frame to make a cut. It's not like cutting in NLE where you 'separate' frames by cutting in between the frames.

It does some stuff where you remove the frame ( I assume you remove two frames far apart in order to get the range of stuff you want to keep.. ) and THAT'S the only part that gets encoded … so that the overwhelming majority of footage is not transcoded at all when exported or processed or whatever you call it.

[Stan Jones]

My favorite for this several years back was VideoReDo. Smart render is an important option.

[Warren Heaton]

How could I forget?

Prelude.

Although, instead of trimming the footage without re-compressing, you'd be transcoding to a CODEC that's good for editing.

-Warren

[R Neil Haugen]

Trimming without re-compression is a great thing for archiving H.264 type footage. Even with all that compression, the files can easily be huge for the amount of usable material. Being able to simply trim to the usable part and dump the rest saves a ton of space.

And also time.

You can trim a whole folder of files by the time the transcode is done with the first couple. Trimming being near-instantaneous.

You can of course then make decent digital intermediate t-codes for editing, and dump them on completion of the project, as the originals take so little space, and you can re-create the t-codes at need.

Neil

[Kevin-Monahan]

Looks very cool, Averdahl.

Kevin

[Mike Dziennik]

Put the parts of the clips you want onto a sequence and then use the project manager to Consolidate/Transcode to a new location. Once you're happy with the new files, delete the old ones.

[agckent]

Thank you all for a great response to my question.

The reason I put the original question is because I do not understand the underlying process of making sub-clips and exporting as per Sillybob and Anne Bens’ suggestions. I have stumbled upon a method of rendering and exporting to YouTube which works, by selecting recommended  options/methods which I have gleaned from tutorials, but I do not know to what extent the final outputted .mp4 file is degraded from the original .mp4 (GoPro) or .mov (Nikon camera).   To draw a sort of parallel, when I export from Lightroom in a JPG format  I know that the exported file can differ greatly from the original Raw File but I also know that I can always return to the original RAW file which lightroom leaves intact and so could revert to the original raw file if my skills improved and I wanted to make another export from it 

It would appear that Averdahl’s smart render software recommendation would allow the small selected portion of the original footage to stay intact in its original state with no degradation. I have looked at their site and have asked them if they have any solutions or suggestions for .mov files because they state their software is for MP4 files and  some other format unknown to me. Also the lighting fast speed is attractive .

The other reason I asked the question is because rendering and exporting takes a lot or processing time and I wondered it I was missing something.  Mike Diennik suggests “Consolidate/Transcode to a new location”. I have not tried that.  Does that method preserve the original un-degredated format of the source footage? And is the quicker than exporting sub-clips?

Finally, I got a bit lost with R Neil Haugen’s latest comment. Are you re-enforcing Averdahl’s point about the Smart Render software being the best solution, or are you suggesting another approach from within Premiere Pro?

[Ann Bens]

There is no best solution: the best solution is what works best for YOU.

As for Mike Diennik response: the answer to your question, no and no.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=make+subclips+in+premiere

[R Neil Haugen]

I was referring to Averdahl's post about the trimming software, and what that does versus transcoding. "Trimming" and "muxing" are both terms used 'out there in the Wild' for this sort of work. You can search for it with this line ...

trim video without re encoding

Trimming doesn't create a single frame. It finds the complete or "i-frame" spots, cuts before them, and removes the unwanted material. You still have the original media, just without the section you don't want to keep.

Transcoding creates new media from the old. A decent t-code will keep so much you can't tell them apart even at 100% view, sometimes through a couple generations. The better quality t-codes will of course create vastly larger files than original highly-compressed media in order to keep the quality of the image.

Neil

[Averdahl]

I have looked at their site and have asked them if they have any solutions or suggestions for .mov files because they state their software is for MP4 files and  some other format unknown to me. Also the lighting fast speed is attractive .

I tested here and i can open .mov files from a Canon 7D but they will be outputted as .mp4.

The only difference between the two is the wrapper, iow .mov or .mp4. The codec inside the wrapper will be the same, iow H.264.

[rodneyb56060189]

AGC,

The people responding to you are all very good and smart and experts and so on. Unfortunately, there are certain terms or 'words' ( nomenclature) you may not be familiar with ( me neither half the time ). T-code is Neil's new shorthand for Transcode. Mux generally means 'mixing together', and usually means you put a video clip with a sync'd audio clip and link them together... when exported the sound file is imbedded ( mixed in with ) the video file... or 'muxed'.   Most cameras today have little microphones in them where they record video and sound together, so you already have a muxed video/sound clip.

hehe... sometimes smart people can be confusing because they forget how to keep things simple and fundamental for new users etc.

My Nikon d800 can shoot video and sound via the little pinhole microphone. It saves files on an SD card as MOV ( H264).  Those video clips have sound built into it.

In essence just forget about the word MUX for now, cause it has no real bearing on what you are trying to do at this point.

The file extensions ( MOV, MP4, AVI, etc. ) are all referred to as 'wrappers'.   Some of the 'wrappers' can have many different codecs (COmpressionDECompression) in them. My method of recording with my Nikon ( not to SD card but to something else) can be MOV DNxHD, or MOV PRORES, for example.  Again, this has NOTHING to do with what you are currently dealing with.

YOU have Nikon stuff ( MOV H264) and MP4 (H264).  They are the exact same thing except for the 'wrapper'.

Averdahl did a test and says the TMPGEnc MPEG Smart Render thing opens the MOV (from Nikon ) OK.  Plus it opens the MP4 stuff OK. Both get exported ( saved as ) MP4 when done trimming. So that's great, cause that's what you want.

As an oddball addition to this crazy stuff we are learning, is the fact that you can often just simply change the file extension from MOV to MP4 and some program that rejected the MOV will now be happy as a clam with the MP4.  Weird things happen like that.

Since the TMPEnc thing cost money, the other suggestion was by Ann which I personally don't know how to do but she's really smart and if she says it works you can believe it.

To a large extent all this suggestion stuff comes down to personal opinion re: what is best to use in the NLE for editing. MP4 is not your ideal format for editing ( although it can be done OK now with our new powerful computers ). Originally it was meant for 'viewing only'.

So that is where the 'transcode' comes into play.

If I were YOU I would keep it simple at this point and do what Ann suggested or buy the TMPGenc thing and learn now to trim what you want to keep using that program.

Good luck. And keep shooting !

[Warren Heaton]

Quick clarification: "mux" means "multiplex" and it corresponds to "demux" which means "demultiplex".  In the DVD-Video authoring process, the MPEG2 streams and audio streams are multiplexed (or muxed).

Picture and sound together in a file is either "link" or "interlocked", but not "muxed".

[R Neil Haugen]

Warren, absolutely correct. But in this brave new world of cool stuff, a lot of terminology is ... transmogrified into ... whatever.

When I first looked into this process, several different sites and makers of the software both for-pay and open-source used "mux" or "muxing" in their descriptions, and it puzzled me. That didn't seem to be what they were talking about. Me being me, I naturally searched for the term ... and no, it ain't what they were using it for.

However ... for practical purposes ... it's a common use (or really mis-use) but one "found" out there in discussions on this process. Shouldn't be, but is ...

Neil

[rodneyb56060189]

One final note.....to poster....

You mention a 2 week sailing trip. I know people who shoot pro ( for advertising boat builders and sponsored races, or luxury yachts, etc. ) using both Canon cameras and Drones now.  Let's say it's a regatta around Newport. Or down in the Caribbean, whatever. Even with models on motor yachts there's tons of junk that doesn't get used. For drone footage it's really retarded cause you have to fly from your follow boat ( out of the way of race course and downwind ) to just get to the boat(s) you want to feature, and with decent light ( sometimes with light behind sails so they glow etc. )… and you are rolling the whole time !  And you have to get the stupid drone back in time ( before battery dies ) and land it on your lap in a moving boat !   Yikes !

I personally would do my edit with that stuff, using what is necessary to make it happen ( multiple sequences, timelines, whatever ) even though it's a LOT of byte count ( 7 hours of mp4 must be getting up to around 30 gig ?? ) … and export your final edit.

Then buy a cheap usb 3 memory stick and stuff everything ( including your project files ) into the stick, label it and put it in a draw and just keep all of it.

You never know when ( years from now ) you might need a shot you never used before cause it just didn't work for your current project, and memory sticks are retarded cheap today.

[agckent]

Thanks again for all these interesting posts.  I feel I have been pointed in the right direction and will now enjoy researching  and playing around with the various suggestions.

I would have liked to have marked them all with "Correct answer" but it appears only one "Correct Answer" choice is allowed, 

[rodneyb56060189]

Thank you Warren. I learned something new