[MPlayer-users] edl accuracy in mplayer vs. mencoder (lavc mpeg4)

[Rich Felker]

On Mon, Dec 26, 2005 at 10:42:07AM -0800, pfile at pacbell.net wrote:
> i guess edl support in mencoder is a recent addition, so maybe its 
> buggy, but i thought i'd ask.
> 
> if i create a cutlist for a TV show (to get rid of the commercials), 
> mplayer -edl foo skips the commercials accurately. however if i use 
> mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy -edl foo to create a version of the file 
> with no commercials, some of the cut-in points (where the content 
> begins) happen a few seconds too late. changing the cutpoint to be 
> progressively earlier has no effect until finally mencoder starts 
> cutting in several seconds too early.

You cannot do accurate editing with -ovc copy unless you use a codec
where all frames are keyframes. Also I recommend using the
-hr-edl-seek option with mencoder. And make sure your edl file has the
exact timestamps you want to cut at, not whatever adjusted values work
well for mplayer -edl (which is imprecise).

Rich