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.
Want to Stop Transmission Opening Dialogue Box Window For Each New Torrent Added?
Transmission is a great piece of software, but in its default settings state it does have some quirks that can be a little annoying. To learn how to stop this you can watch the below video, or continue reading.
When adding a new torrent, a dialogue box ALWAYS opens, even after you have set your default download locations for both complete and incomplete files.
Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t get that window, and downloads just added and started automatically without you having to click the “Add” button every time?
Here’s how to stop this annoying behaviour once and for all!
Open Preferences, and click on the “Transfers” tab. Make sure you are looking at “Adding” and not “Management”.
To stop it from opening that annoying window make sure ALL of these options are unchecked.
**NOTE** – Be sure that EVERY option is unchecked! I found in my testing that leaving one checked (as shown below), and un-checking the parent option still made the window appear, even though the check was greyed out
As always, make sure you are using the latest version of Transmission BT which can be downloaded HERE.
From time to time you may find you need to know the frame numbers of individual frames in your videos and movies. This is especially useful if you are compressing and encoding video and want to be able to refer back to your source video and compare it to your encoded video. By picking a specific frame and knowing its number, you can view it from both versions side by side to see how it looks.
I recently stumbled upon DJV, a really useful and FREE program from Darby Johnston that amongst many other things, will allow you to see the frame numbers in videos. It has Windows, Mac and Linux versions, and can be downloaded free from the Darby Johnston Github Page HERE.
Once you have downloaded and installed DJV open it up, and you will see the main interface. Drag and Drop your video file onto DJV to load it.
To show the frame numbers we need to click the “View Menu” and select “HUD”, which is short for Heads Up Display.
Next, open the settings/preferences from the top right corner.
Then click and expand the “General” section, and in the “Time” option set the units to “Frames”
In the bottom left corner you will now see the frame numbers displayed.
To celebrate the New Year I have created some FREE social media templates you can download and customise for the BIG 4 popular platforms, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. These templates are correct as of January 2021.
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!
To get started right away please scroll down to the red text that says “START HERE”.
**NOTE** – These settings are for DVD Video ONLY – You can find a updated Blu Ray Tutorial HERE.
MY RANT – By popular demand, I have decided to update my two articles on how to quickly and easily produce great quality DVD and Blu Ray video encodes with Handbrake. The program interface has changed, the H.264 codec has been refined, and the TV’s we view our movies on have evolved dramatically since writing the original articles.
THE GOAL – To produce the highest quality video with the smallest possible file size, whilst retaining the entire original 5.1 Dolby Digital sound track. DVD’s playing on todays large 4K TV’s look terrible due to their low resolution. We will also use Handbrakes filters to clean up the picture quality.
DISCLAIMER – This method will produce very nice quality DVD 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. Unfortunately, good quality video with small file size cant be done quickly, it just doesn’t work that way. Also, All set-ups are different. We all have different size TV’s, different size and shape rooms, different players and a plethora of other factors that could produce varying results. This is a guideline, and a great place for a beginner to start. If you feel there is something that could be done better, or should be done differently, please feel free to let us all know by leaving a comment.
THE TECHNICAL STUFF – My TV is a 65″ Samsung 4K which I absolutely love, and sit about 10-12 feet back from. I play the media from a Apple TV 4K, and use the Infuse Pro 5 player app. The video is encoded on a 3-4 year old HP desktop computer with a Intel I5 processor. The version of Handbrake used in this tutorial is v1.2.0 which is the current stable release for February 2019.
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
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