I’m trying to trim a recorded TV program from Channels which I’d like to archive. That said, it appears to be an .mpg recorded from PBS, however when I try to open it on my Mac using QuickTime, it won’t open. All others open just fine. I’m using a Docker for PBS, could it be using some sort of proprietary video codec?
No, QuickTime is just famous for very limited codec and container support.
I would use something else to trim. There’s a lot of stuff out there. I’m sure our Community will have some suggestions.
I really liked VIdeoRedo till they went out of business. I've found Lossless Cut works equally as well and is free.
+1 for LosslessCut. I've even added an OliveTin-for-Channels Action to update a CDVR recording's commercials metatdata based on a LosslessCut LLC file. This allows one to fix commercial skips in situations that can't be handled by the built-in CDVR commercial skip editor (which is excellent, but limited in scope).
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Exactly what I needed. Thanks for the suggestion, it works great! 
Has anyone tried Smart Media Cutter?
They have Free, Personal and Commercial versions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/videoredo/comments/1f71j0s/im_trying_to_build_a_modern_version_of_videoredo/
I may give it a test spin next weekend.
Well, I never got around to testing it last weekend, perhaps this weekend I will.
It's now at v1.0, with support for mpeg-2 video and cutting of subtitle tracks, among other things.
Looks good! The latest version offered for Mac isn't launching for me, but I note the page mentions it's behind. I'll check back later. In the meantime, does it support .edl files to make commercial removal easier?
If you mean .edl files, I don't think so.
I plan on trying out the Windows portable version this weekend.
You can always contact the developer and ask for .edl support. Contact us | Smart Media Cutter
Shouldn't be that hard to implement since their open-source cutter portion GitHub - skeskinen/smartcut: Cut video files with minimal recoding accepts timecodes to keep or cut out.
Just tried a quick edit on a variable frame rate hevc with subtitles and it worked (think PlayOn).
That's something VideoRedo can't do.
I will have to spend more time this weekend trialing it as the interface seems audio/transcript centered instead of video centered like VRD.
This is very interesting! Indeed, that was one thing that I was disappointed about with VideoRedo.
Thanks for giving it a try for us. I will keep an eye on your progress. 
VRD is very flexible and customizable.
I love using <CTRL> and the left/right arrow keys to scrub through a video quickly on key frames to position in the timeline, then customizable positioning to within a frame. Also VRD can display the frame type in the thumbnails and in the video window (I, IDR, P and B frames). Will see how close I can get to this using SMC, but it seems more geared toward positioning the playhead using audio and local AI generated audio transcripts of your videos.
Well, I tried editing a CDVR recording with Smart Media Cutter that I normally edit with VideoRedo to compare.
First, I edited in VRD as I normally do.
Loaded a one hour H.264 recording from CDVR in VRD with no commercial markings, navigated, found, marked and cut the ads, then saved as an mp4 file. Took about 2 minutes.
Then I tried with Smart Media Cutter and was going to time it.
Trying Audio transcription results in an error that Transcription model download failed.
So I tried different ways to position the playhead withing the timeline to find the commercials.
Clicking on a position in the timeline "kind of" positioned there, but it would jump ahead or behind where I clicked.
Not easy to navigate using only an audio waveform display.
So I tried just playing it at 8x speed, paused when I saw an ad and then tried to fine postion for a cut.
Not easy to navigate without video thumbnails.
This is where I decided I'm not going to time it, as 15 minutes had passed.
So after about 30 minutes I had found my cut points and chose Export Output.
I named the output file with a .mp4 extension as I wanted to output this H.264 video MPEG-2 transport stream recording to an mp4 file.
Failed to output to an mp4 file with errors.
OK, so I'll just output using the same container and codecs as the source recording by using a .ts file extension.
That worked and the output file was almost exactly the same as when I did the cuts in VRD.
I'll keep an eye on this project since it does VFR HEVC w/Subtitles (think PlayOn, I tested) and supposedly 10-bit HEVC (I don't have any to try).
But as long as VRD keeps working, it will continue to be my daily driver.
Would like to hear from other users what they think about it. I can see it working great for podcasters.
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Tried another type recording I use VRD for.
Cable recording in MPEG-2 transport stream with H.264 Video and two AC-3 Audio tracks.
Fails output to .ts file
Could just be the container/codecs I'm trying it with aren't supported yet.
OK, just tried again by renaming the CDVR recording file from an .mpg to a .ts file extension.
Again, Smart Media Cutter loads and plays it, but fails outputting.
Same Cable recording in MPEG-2 transport stream with H.264 Video and two AC-3 Audio tracks.
Fails output to .ts file
Giving up for now.
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Thanks for sharing your experience.
Since this is still under development, it's fair to give it some time to get better.
However, the fact that it's based on audio doesn't give me much hope.
We'll see how it goes.
He did say in his reddit post that he wanted to build a modern version of VideoRedo, but never used it and hasn't watched TV in 20 years(?!).
https://old.reddit.com/r/videoredo/comments/1f71j0s/im_trying_to_build_a_modern_version_of_videoredo/?sort=qa
I think it's pretty cool that he opened sourced the core "video cutting code" of his project. Hope he can implement some of the best parts of VRD (although VRD has way more than what he's doing) to be a good replacement for it.
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