Tool to trim and clip H265 movies?

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Level 1

72 points

Tool to trim and clip H265 movies?

Does anybody know of a simple tool that allows me to perform the following two operations on videos in H265 (HEVC) format?

1. Trim the movie

2. Delete segments from the movie

I would like to have a tool that does not re-encode the video afterwards.

Essentially, I am looking for a simple tool just like Quicktime Player 7 , except that it should be able to work with H265 codecs.

I already tried iMovie , but, first of all, it is too complex for these simple tasks (create new project, load movie, drag to timeline, ....). Second, it seems to me that it recodes the movie, which, I believe, incurs a small loss in quality.

With Quicktime Player, I cannot delete segments in the interior of the movie.

Also, it sometimes gives me the error message "The operation could not be completed" (on H265 videos).

So, any recommendations for other tools will be highly appreciated.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13.2), iPhone 6S, always latest iOS

Posted on Jul 6, 2018 3:05 AM

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Answer 1

Rich839

Level 8

48,156 points

Jul 8, 2018 3:12 PM in response to GabrielZ

Hi, Gabriel,

I am not able to replicate your findings with QT 10. I opened an HEVC H.265 clip in QT 10 and was able to trim it and delete segments. It was a fairly low res clip, however.

To trim I did View/Show Clips, then selected the clip, then Edit/Trim, then dragged edge of clip to trim, then clicked on the Trim box on the right, then Done. To delete segments I moved the playhead (red vertical line) to the place where I want to make the split, then Edit/Split the clip at point A and point B to create Clip A-B, then selected A-B and hit delete. You can also just make a split at point A, and trim to the right or left to delete.

Since you are only having the problem with some of the clips, there may be something about the specs of the unsuccessful clips that is causing the problem. Perhaps they are 4k clips, that can sometimes be problematic. Open the clip in Quicktime and do Window/Show Movie Inspector. Take a screen shot of the information box that appears, and post it.

You said that you didn't want to use iMovie to do the editing because of convenience factors and concerns that you would lose quality. While it is true that there is yet no HEVC export option in iMovie 10, you can still export at 1080 that is very high quality -- or even at 4k 30 fps. Of course it is your call as to what is acceptable quality, but I suspect that any quality difference would be minimal and maybe not even visible to the eye.

-- Rich

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Answer 2

GabrielZ Author

Level 1

72 points

Jul 6, 2018 8:47 AM in response to Rich839

How do you mean? I've got Quicktime Player Version 10.4 (928.13) .

But with some movies, it gives me the error message "The operation could not be completed".

That is why I am asking for other tools. Sorry , I should have mentioned it.

And, I don't see how to delete segments in the middle of the movie.

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Answer 3

GabrielZ Author

Level 1

72 points

Jul 8, 2018 3:19 PM in response to Rich839

Thanks a lot! it took a little while to understand how the "Clip" feature works. It is exactly what I wanted, thank you so much for pointing it out.

The problem I am having with some videos must be a bug, either in QT or in ffmpeg.

Here are the infos of one example, where both trimming an clipping fail, or rather, saving the movie afterwards fails:

If you want, you can also retrieve the video from : Dropbox - A_Matter_hevc.mp4

The original is here: Dropbox - A_Matter_h264.mp4

(I converted only the first 10 seconds with ffmpeg, just so you know why the HEVC version is only 10 seconds, but it still exhibits the problem I am having.)

Best regards, Gabriel

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Answer 4

Rich839

Level 8

48,156 points

Jul 6, 2018 6:31 AM in response to GabrielZ

Hi, Gabriel,

Quicktime 10 will do it.

-- Rich

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Tool to trim and clip H265 movies?

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