I have several avi files of dance dvd's that are a single stream of the complete dvd and are over 1.5 hours long each. I have converted each to m4v (AppleTV2 preset) using Handbrake but I would like to split the files into multiple files, one per section, to make finding a section easier; there are no chapter markers at all in the files. I can easily find the beginning of each section and write down the time marker, but how do I split these files into multiple files easily on the Mac? I have searched Google and found several possible solutions but thought that the video folks here would know what works best.
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Best way to split m4v file into separate chapters?
- Thread starter danny_w
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
If they are already .m4v files, you'll probably want to use the free Subler for this. Follow the information on it's online instruction page to blend text codes with chapter names into a text file. Then you can import the text file into Subler for marking the chapters. Or you could add chapters manually in Subler itself.
Thanks, this is not exactly what I had in mind but I may try it. I (painfully) split one of the files into multiple segments but it sure wasn't easy. Adding chapter markers to make navigation quicker would most certainly be easier, and thanks for the tip about Subler. It looks like it will be easy to create a chapter file for each video and have Subler add the chapter markers. I already use Subler but only for adding metadata when iDentify doesn't work.
I used Subler to add chapter markers to one of the files last night and it worked like a charm! Thank you so much!
What did you use?
You say you managed to "painfully" split them. What program did you end up using? I'm try to split some m4v files down to under 1GB (so that I can back them up in the cloud) and am looking for a simple way of doing it...
You say you managed to "painfully" split them. What program did you end up using? I'm try to split some m4v files down to under 1GB (so that I can back them up in the cloud) and am looking for a simple way of doing it...
I used Quicktime but I don't think that is what you want. I was trying to split them at specific points in the video (chapters) and needed something that could do this. I think you just want to make smaller files that can be backed up more easily to the cloud. I think something like the 'split' command would be better suited for what you want:
http://www.computerhope.com/unix/usplit.htm
You might want to give Streamclip (free) a try. It has very good editing capability. There is a small learning curve with it, though, figuring out which settings to use, etc. But once you get a few basics down it is a very powerful editing tool.
