Free Video Cutter – Split MKV and MP4 with Avidemux on Mac Windows and Linux
If you have ever read one of my articles on compressing video in Handbrake you will have seen me rant about cutting off a section of your source file, and encoding a 2-3 minute chunk too see how your settings look as opposed to waiting all night for the whole video to encode. I was asked recently how this can be done for free, as pretty much everything out there ultimately ends up asking you for money. Avidemux is a free open source tool that allows you to split and cut your MKV and MP4 video files, including 4K UHD. They have versions for Mac, Windows and Linux, and it works really well!
The latest stable releases can be downloaded on Github HERE. If you are looking for the latest version you can try the nightly builds from the Avidemux site HERE.
Once you have it downloaded your copy, open it up and you will see the main user interface window.
Convert BLURAY to H.265 HEVC with Handbrake without having to know or understand all of the settings. Just copy my settings and you’re done!
H.264 Vs H.265 – Which one should I use? If you have a 1080 HD TV and an older media player you will want to use H.264 – See THIS ARTICLE for instructions.
If you have a 4K Television and a newer media player H.265 is best, so use these instructions below.
*Whilst your user interface may appear slightly different than shown here (depending on if you are using Windows, Mac or Linux), the settings and results will be the same across all platforms.
**NOTE** – These settings are for 1080P BLURAY to H.265 HEVC Video
Use these settings if you have a recent 4K UHD Television and newer media player like the Apple TV 4K. To convert 1080P BLURAY to H.264 – CLICK HERE!
To convert DVD to H.265 – CLICK HERE!
To convert DVD to H.264 – CLICK HERE!
To convert 4K BLURAY to H.265 – CLICK HERE!
THE SHORT VERSION
1 Open source file in Handbrake and make sure you are on the “Summary” tab
2 Set file format to “MKV’ and deselect “Passthru Common Metadata”
3 Click “Dimensions” tab and set Resolution Limit to 1080p and leave Anamorphic as Automatic, leave cropping “Automatic” and borders “None”
4 Click the “Filters” tab
5 Leave Interlace Detection set to Default, De-interlace set to Decomb, and Preset at “Default”
6 Click the “Video” tab
7 Select “H.265 10-Bit (x265)” from the Video Codec drop down
8 Select “Same As Source” in “Framerate”
9 Check the “Constant Framerate” button
10 Set “Encoder Preset” slider to “Slow”
11 Set “Encoder Tune” to “None”
12 Set “Encoder Profile” to “Main 10”
13 Set “Encoder Level” to “5.1” – If this wont play on your system drop it back to “4.1”
14 Set the “Constant Quality” slider to “24”
15 In the “Additional Options” box add strong-intra-smoothing=0:rect=0:aq-mode=1:rd=4:psy-rd=0.75:psy-rdoq=4.0:rdoq-level=1:rskip=2
16 Click the “Audio” tab
17 Select the preferred 7.1 or 5.1 channel soundtrack
18 Set “Codec” to “AC3” and the Bitrate to 448kb
19 Set Mixdown to “5.1 Channels” and Samplerate to “48”
20 Click the “Subtitles” tab
21 Click the “X” in the circle at the right side to remove the subtitles track on Windows, or select “None” from dropdown on Mac
22 Click the “Chapters” tab
23 Uncheck the “Create Chapter Markers” option if you don’t want them or leave it checked if you do
24 Give your output file a unique name and save it somewhere easy to fid
25 Make a preset to save the settings and Press the Green “Start Encode” button
Convert BluRay to the smallest file size in Handbrake without having to know or understand all of the settings. Just copy my settings and you’re done!
H.264 Vs H.265 – Which one should I use? If you have a 4K Television and a newer media player you will want to use H.265 – See THIS ARTICLE for instructions. If you have a 1080 HD TV and an older media player H.264 is best, so use these instructions below.
*Whilst your user interface may appear slightly different than shown here (depending on if you are using Windows, Mac or Linux), the settings and results will be the same across all platforms.
**NOTE** – These settings are for 1080P BLURAY to H.264 Video ONLY Use these settings if you have a 1080 HD Television and older media player To convert 1080P BLURAY to H.265 – CLICK HERE! To convert DVD to H.265 – CLICK HERE! To convert DVD to H.264 – CLICK HERE! To convert 4K BLURAY to H.265 – CLICK HERE!
THE SHORT VERSION
1 Open source file in Handbrake and make sure you are on the “Summary” tab 2 Set file format to “MP4’ and deselect “Passthru Common Metadata” 3 Click “Dimensions” tab and set Resolution Limit to 1080p and leave Anamorphic as Automatic, leave cropping “Automatic” and borders “None” 4 Click the “Filters” tab 5 Leave Interlace Detection set to Default, De-interlace set to Decomb, and Preset at “Default” 6 Click the “Video” tab 7 Select “H.264 (x264)” from the Video Codec drop down 8 Select “Same As Source” in “Framerate” 9 Check the “Constant Framerate” button 10 Set “Encoder Preset” slider to “Very Slow” 11 Set “Encoder Tune” to “Film” 12 Set “Encoder Profile” to “High” 13 Set “Encoder Level” to “4.1” – If this wont play on your system drop it back to “3.1” 14 Set the “Constant Quality” slider to “24” 15 In the “Additional Options” box add ref=5:bframes=5 16 Click the “Audio” tab 17 Select the preferred 7.1 or 5.1 channel soundtrack 18 Set “Codec” to “AC3” and the Bitrate to 448kb 19 Set Mixdown to “5.1 Channels” and Samplerate to “48” 20 Click the “Subtitles” tab 21 Click the “X” in the circle at the right side to remove the subtitles track on Windows, or select “None” from dropdown on Mac 22 Click the “Chapters” tab 23 Uncheck the “Create Chapter Markers” option if you don’t want them or leave it checked if you do 24 Give your output file a unique name and save it somewhere easy to find 25 Make a preset to save the settings and Press the Green “Start Encode” button
This is a simple easy guide on how to make the best encodes with the smallest file size in Handbrake without having to know or understand all of the settings. Just copy my settings and you’re done!
**NOTE** – These settings are for Blu Ray Video ONLY – If you want to convert DVD Video see the tutorial HERE.
My Rant – (If your not interested in my rant, scroll down to where it says “Lets Get Started”)
Circa 2000 I got really pissed off at DVD’s. You start watching them, get relaxed and into the story, and when you least expect it they skip or freeze. Sometimes they even crashed completely. In my experience, the damn things were so unwatchable that I swore I would never buy another one again. Blu Ray has been around for a while now, and it started to feel like time to try again with this new technology. I did my research, and found a player that will play all regions (Regional Encoding – one of the stupidist restrictions in the history of technology), and made a somewhat hefty investment in starting a Blu Ray collection. I purchased all of the Marvel Movies, Agents Of Shield, Alcatraz, and I had been hearing a lot about Arrow, so I purchased a Season 1 and Season 2 box set for $80 AUD. I got through Episode 1 and 2 ok, but at episode 3 the old DVD issues appeared. To cut a long story short, EVERY one of the 8 discs in the set crashes about halfway through, and the last 2 episodes on each disc will not play at all. I cant believe the movie studios get away with it. Can you imagine how many bad discs there must be around the world? Again, they drive us to action that they deem illegal.
In order to watch the show I paid $80 for – I was forced to rip the discs to my hard drive. There are plenty of tutorials out there that show you how to do this, so I am not going to cover that here. Once I had ripped the episodes, each file was almost 6GB in file size. I set about trying to reduce the sizes and found thousands of different ideas and methods. It is a topic a lot of people are very passionate about. Factors like TV size, Viewing distance, hardware, drive space restrictions and a plethora of other concerns are all valid. But if you are like me, and just want to reduce your episodes to a more manageable size, whilst retaining most of the quality, here’s how to do it.
Lets Get Started
PLEASE NOTE – This method will produce very nice quality 1080p videos, but may take 2 hours or more to process each hour of video, so my advice is to let run whilst you are sleeping each night.
Once you have ripped your Disks to MKV files with Make MKV, Open Handbrake (You can download the latest version for free HERE) then press the source button and select the file you want to convert, or if you want to do a batch of files, select the folder that contains all of your ripped MKV’s. Handbrake will import them all, but you will only see the first one. Now it’s time to make some adjustments to the settings.
All of your settings should look like the above screen grab – Click it to enlarge.
2. Click the button that says “Video”. Make sure the video codec is H.264 (x264)
3. The frame rate should be “Same as Source” and Constant Framerate should be selected.
4. Check Constant Quality and adjust the slider until the RF number goes to 25
5. For the encoder options, slide the preset slider to Very Slow. Trust me, it takes a while, but the quality is far superior, and usually yields a smaller file size. Unfortunately it is a trade off for speed vs quality. Like I said, run it while you are sleeping.
6. Leave “Fast Decode” unchecked.
7. Set Tune to Film
8. Set Profile to High
9. Set Level to 4.1
10. Now click the “Picture Settings” button in the top right side of the window.
A new window will open. Change all of your settings look like this
11. Whilst in the picture settings window, click “Filters” and change all of your settings to look like these as well
12. Now you can close out the Picture Settings window and select the “Audio” tab in the main window.
I am a real Audiofile, I love the Dolby Digital and DTS 5-7 channel audio tracks in movies, so I select “Auto PassThru”. But, if regular 2 channel Stereo is ok for you, you can configure that in this area if you want. I figure you are converting a Blu Ray, so you might as well have the best sound quality as well. Just select the Dolby Digital or DTS sound track from the drop down window, and choose “Auto Passthru”
13. Click the “Subtitles” tab and select none
14. Click the “Chapters” tab and make sure “Create Chapter Markers” is un-checked.
15. You are now ready to start encoding. If you are only doing one file, just press the “Start” button and Handbrake will start encoding. If you are doing a batch of files, open the File Menu and select “Add All Titles To Queue”
16. Press the “Show Queue” button to see all your files waiting to be encoded
17. Press the “Start” button and your encoding session will begin.
Using this method I have been able to shrink each of the episodes from about 6GB in size down to about 1.3 to 1.5GB in size, retaining the full 1080p resolution and DTS sound track. The picture quality is very nice on my 42 Inch Samsung LCD TV. I play the files off my WD TV Live Hub and connect using HDMI cables. If you have a larger TV and notice some artifacts or “Blocks” in the picture, tweak the RF number slightly to 24 or at most 23. Adjustment here affects file size and quality considerably, so tread carefully and use small increments.
I recently purchased Sony’s Bloggie 3D and have been impressed with the results so far. Its small and light, has a great 3D screen, not only shoots 3D and 2D 1080P video, but 5 megapixel 2D and 2 megapixel 3D photographs as well. A few things I don’t like about this camera is the start up time is a little longer than I would like, and the battery life is poor. I often run out of battery WELL before the memory is even close to full.
But for what it does, and what you pay, this camera is a VERY cool and fun device to have in your pocket.
In July/August 2012 I visited Alcatraz Prison, and filmed Frank Morris’ Cell B-138 in 3D HD. Frank Morris was involved in the Great Escape with John and Clarence Anglin, and Allen West. Morris and The Anglin’s escaped the island never to be seen again. Personally, I think they made it to the mainland!
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