How to trim/cut clips with VLC

Question

I am running VLC 1.1.5 64-bit on Mac OS X 10.6.6. On the web I found instructions saying I should click on Video->Advanced Controls in the menu bar to reveal options that let me trim and cut video clips. However, there is no such option in my copy of VLC.

What I want to do is cut a ~2 minute portion from the middle of a two hour footage (in MXF format that QuickTime can't open) that I've got.

Is there another way to trim and cut clips of videos in VLC? Or should I use other (preferably free, Free, and open source) software? Thanks.

score 49 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 11 '13 at 17:48

49

Yes, Using VLC player on mac to cut a part of the video is possible..

Goto

"Playback" in top menu while playing the video and at the point where u want to start cropping, click on

"Record", the tick mark beside Record in the sub menu indicates that the recording is happening, click again when u have to stop the cropping.

OPTION + COMMAND + R to start cropping
OPTION + COMMAND + R again to stop cropping

the cropped video saves to home directory by default in mp4 format

answered Jul 11 '13 at 17:48

Vamsi Krishna Pinapala

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This works on a Mac, but only if you first go into your Preferences and choose what the default folder is for any recorded files. – Asparagirl Dec 24 '13 at 01:54
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In order to set the recorded file's location, go to Preferences > Input / Codecs / Record directory or filename. I also had to restart VLC to make it work. – Simon Woodside May 27 '14 at 04:01
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For me the default was ~/Music (home music folder) – k00k May 20 '15 at 12:13
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BUT it produces stucky video and we have to wait for the recording. So it is not technically "cut the video" – Sibbs Gambling May 28 '15 at 06:52
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I'm on El Capitan 10.11.1 with VLC 2.0.4 and my default directory was `~/Movies`. – Zach Rattner Oct 24 '15 at 18:01
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Works - sort of - as I don't get audio on the recorded clip... – JJarava Oct 25 '16 at 08:01
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how to trim the video in one shot? (without having to read the whole video) – JinSnow Feb 11 '17 at 14:50
This records only sound (.wav), any idea why? – EliadL Jan 28 '19 at 16:09

noobish · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-07T17:01:06.220

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For some reason VLC has removed options to stream a partial clip from their transcoding and streaming wizards. But the options are still available at the cli.

Here's how I stream a portion of a file, while keeping the original audio and video streams intact (no transcoding done). Times are given in seconds:

vlc in.avi --start-time 65 --stop-time 95 :sout=#file{dst=/home/myser/Desktop/out.avi} :no-sout-rtp-sap :no-sout-standard-sap :sout-keep

With transcoding:

vlc in.avi --start-time 65 --stop-time 158 :sout='#transcode{vcodec=mp2v,vb=4096,acodec=mp2a,ab=192,scale=1,channels=2,deinterlace,audio-sync}:std{access=file, mux=ps,dst=/home/myser/Desktop/out.mpg}'

More info on transcoding here.

edited Mar 07 '11 at 17:01

answered Mar 07 '11 at 15:25

noobish

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Since vlc is probably not on your PATH in OSX, you must call it from its app bundle like `/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC` or set an alias (temporary or in your .bashrc) like `alias vlc="/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC"` – Hraban Jul 17 '16 at 21:04
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... but that doesn’t help, since you need some CLI version "cvlc", that I couldn’t find. :( – Hraban Jul 17 '16 at 21:23
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Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface, and if you update .bashrc by vlc="/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC", use source ~/.bashrc to force reload after your modification. – Mike Castro Demaria Apr 09 '18 at 15:04

score 18 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 25 '11 at 21:22

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If you're up for other software, just try QuickTime, it has very nice and easy trim controls, you just drag the sliders at the video progress bar and then there's a trim option (I believe it's Cmd+T).

answered Feb 25 '11 at 21:22

slhck

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Unfortunately it is an MXF file and QuickTime can't open it (I will edit my question to reflect that), any other ideas? – hpy Feb 25 '11 at 21:46
If you were on Windows, I'd suggest VirtualDub, but I haven't come across MXFs yet.. – slhck Feb 25 '11 at 22:22

How to trim/cut clips with VLC

3 Answers3