Trimming/cutting out pieces of MPEG-2 video

[killmoms]

Okay, here's the deal: I'm trying to assemble my demo reel to start sending off with my resumé to different post-houses... hopefully they'll watch it and go "WE MUST HIRE THIS MAN!" However, some of the material I want to include only lives on DVD now. I've ripped the stuff back off the DVD and demuxed it (I only need the video), but I can't trim out the portions I need in QuickTime. Any selection I make doesn't matter, the Cut/Copy/Paste options in the Edit menu are grayed out. And, unfortunately, since I need to get this stuff into After Effects, I have to convert it to some other format since AE claims QT movies containing MPEG-2 video have no length and thus can't be imported. I also don't want to lose quality in the intermediate, but I don't want to have to convert one entire VOB to some ridiculously huge lossless file (might not have the HD space for it).

I already tried a piece of Shareware called SimpleMovieX, it crashed trying to load the M2V.

Any suggestions?

 

[chimpybits]

Hi killmoms,

My fave way to trim assets from DVD is to use Cinematize which you can set precise (to the GOP) ins and outs during the demuxing process. This app doesnt trim MPEGs (already demuxed assets), but instead works with DVD files (VOB's). As you already have MPEG's use MPEG Streamclip which can trim MPEGs. Alternately, if you are delivering on DVD just use DVD Studio Pro to do all the trimming.

 

[killmoms]

Fantastic, thank you so much, both of those are incredibly useful, and Cinematize worked perfectly. You win at the Internets!