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Crowbot

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Can anyone recommend a free or low cost alternative to MPEG Streamclip? It's 32 bits and I don't want to lose the function. TIA.
 

casperes1996

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Jan 26, 2014
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Well, when asking questions like this, it'd be helpful to know the functionality you want, instead of just a program name. I did a fast Google, and the information about what the software exactly does was not clear cut enough at first glance; Do you just want a converter? ffmpeg and any GUI front-end that uses it will work.
macOS itself has a lot of built-in video conversion
 

Crowbot

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Well, when asking questions like this, it'd be helpful to know the functionality you want, instead of just a program name. I did a fast Google, and the information about what the software exactly does was not clear cut enough at first glance; Do you just want a converter? ffmpeg and any GUI front-end that uses it will work.
macOS itself has a lot of built-in video conversion

Sorry, I thought it was a well known app. I'm just an amateur looking to define and snip sections of videos out and saving them to a file. Conversion to M4V would be nice. Thanks.
 

Ted13

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Dec 29, 2003
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I'll check out Shotcut, but here is what I specifically use MPEG Streamclip for, and always thought it was the only one available:
From via cTivo I download TV shows (like SNL, all the late night talk shows) in their native MPEG2/5.1 Dolby Digital format. I edit out the the musical guests performances, still in their native format via MPEG Streamclip.
I watch them via IINA or VLC on my Mac, via Infuse Pro https://firecore.com on my AppleTV or iPad. The video and 5.1 audio stay intact from watching them live or via Tivo directly.
Not even considered trying to use Quicktime for editing, because you can't even watch the unedited cTiVo MPEG2/DD 5.1 on the Mac without the video and audio getting totally out of synch within a couple of minutes, something that doesn't happen with MPEG Streamclip or IINA or VLC.

Before TiVo - my recording, editing and playback was all done in EyeTV
 

Ted13

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BTW, EyeTV 64 bit is in final beta.
That's great news, and using EyeTV as an editor would be great (it is better than MPEG Streamclip for my type of editing), if there was a way to import the .mpeg files from TiVo/cTivo. That would absolutely solve all my problems. Years ago, when I first switched from EyeTV to TiVo I tried converting a .mpeg file to a .EyeTV file, but never figured out a way to do it.
 

Crowbot

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I don't know much about the specific file structure that EyeTv uses. I've been using the beta for a few weeks now and except for a couple of kernel panics when I shut down the system it's been pretty good. As long as I shut down ETV before I shut down the Mac I'm OK.

 
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Ted13

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1573906210494.png

These are the contents of a .eyetv package. The .mpg file is identical to the .mpg file that cTivo produces. .tiff files are screenshots from the .mpg file.
The .eyetvp & .eyetvr are xml plist files that could be created for each .mpg import (although obviously would be a huge waste of time to do manually). .eyetvi is not readable - I'll have to see if anyone knows about its content.
 
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Crowbot

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These are the contents of a .eyetv package. The .mpg file is identical to the .mpg file that cTivo produces. .tiff files are screenshots from the .mpg file.
The .eyetvp & .eyetvr are xml plist files that could be created for each .mpg import (although obviously would be a huge waste of time to do manually). .eyetvi is not readable - I'll have to see if anyone knows about its content.


Here's what I found.
 

Ted13

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https://shotcut.org/

Free, open source, etc.

I’m surprised so few people know about it.
Finally got around to trying in Shotcut to edit out a clip from a (c)TiVo recording the same way I do in MPEG Streamclip and immediately found out it can't be done:
How do I cut or trim a clip without encoding or transcoding it?
This is not supported, and there are currently no plans to support it. We recommend that you use VirtualDub or Avidemux for that.
The whole reason I use MPEG Streamclip is to quickly edit out a clip from the recording without transcoding...
 
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staniol666

macrumors newbie
Apr 1, 2020
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Can anyone recommend a free or low cost alternative to MPEG Streamclip? It's 32 bits and I don't want to lose the function. TIA.
I had a similar problem (cutting out advertising from satellite streams). Solution for Catalina: avidemux. UI and workflow can be compared to mpegstreamclip (set markers, cut passages, optionally save directly without conversion (mode: "copy") or encode in h264, h265 mkv etc.) http://avidemux.sourceforge.net
 
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Crowbot

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I had a similar problem (cutting out advertising from satellite streams). Solution for Catalina: avidemux. UI and workflow can be compared to mpegstreamclip (set markers, cut passages, optionally save directly without conversion (mode: "copy") or encode in h264, h265 mkv etc.) http://avidemux.sourceforge.net

Thanks for the lead. I found something called 1-Click Video Cutter Joiner. Somewhat odd interface but it does what I want. Just the occasional snip. But it looks like it's unsupported because I can't find it on the developer's website.
 

anthony11

macrumors 6502
May 18, 2007
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Thanks for the lead. I found something called 1-Click Video Cutter Joiner. Somewhat odd interface but it does what I want. Just the occasional snip. But it looks like it's unsupported because I can't find it on the developer's website.

The name alone sounds awfully Phishy to me, ymmv.
[automerge]1586819123[/automerge]
I had a similar problem (cutting out advertising from satellite streams). Solution for Catalina: avidemux. UI and workflow can be compared to mpegstreamclip (set markers, cut passages, optionally save directly without conversion (mode: "copy") or encode in h264, h265 mkv etc.) http://avidemux.sourceforge.net
I grabbed a copy of this just now, and prima fascie it appears to have promise.

My use of MPEGStreamclip is entirely to edit out uninteresting parts of video files off the net. MPEGstreamclip makes this very easy; avidemux I think of in the context of ripping, syncing, and encoding OTA or especially DSS content. So it has a lot of foo that is extraneous to my purposes, and needs some settings changes to eg simply slurp in a WMV file and write it back out with edits. The in/out market keystrokes are a bit awkward, but tolerable. So it seems to be a viable if less convenient solution.

For context, the only issue with MPEGstream clip is the inability to run 32 bit binaries on Catalina and later. As I consider replacing my cheese grater (limited to Mojave) with say a Mac Mini or an MBP, I'll need to have an efficient solution for this common task. I'm halfway considering a VM on High Siera just to keep using MPEGstreamclip.
 
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Crowbot

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The name alone sounds awfully Phishy to me, ymmv.
[automerge]1586819123[/automerge]


For context, the only issue with MPEGstream clip is the inability to run 32 bit binaries on Catalina and later. As I consider replacing my cheese grater (limited to Mojave) with say a Mac Mini or an MBP, I'll need to have an efficient solution for this common task. I'm halfway considering a VM on High Siera just to keep using MPEGstreamclip.

I think 1-Click is an abandoned, but legit, product. It has a slightly unfinished look.

I may also go the VM route because of this and other programs I don't want to lose when I upgrade to Catalina.
 

elenardz

macrumors newbie
Apr 21, 2020
1
0
I for example used to use MPGE Streamclip to lower the quality to my video files and make them small enough without quality loss and send them through whatsapp. Marvelous tool for it. Any good alternatives for it?
 

No Nickname

macrumors newbie
May 28, 2009
7
4
I've been reading this thread for a while now. I loved mpeg streamclip because of the ease in which I could trim videos. My old Quicktime Pro was even easier to use to trim out content, and even paste things together.

While I miss those, I just realized Quicktime 10.5 has the Edit>Trim feature that I never knew about. Duh! It's just like trimming videos on my iPhone. I trim out what I don't want and then "Save as."

I'd still love a great app for converting to different formats. Is that what Handbrake is good for?
 

Crowbot

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I tried doing it with QT but it first has to convert MPG to QT before it can do clipping. That can take considerable time for large files. I found a solution in 1-Click but it doesn't seem to be available any more.
 
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