Removing commercials from recordings on MacOS

#1

I'm looking for a Video Editor on MacOS that will accept EDL, edit decision lists, created by comskip to remove commercials and finally, save the resulting video in the same format as the input. The edits should handle captions (CC1 and CC3) and multiple audio tracks as expected.

Basically I'm looking for a replacement to VideoRedo on Windows. I've been looking around and the closest thing I have found is LoslessCut but it seems that it can't handle .mpg format (screenshot attached) and therefore have to convert the video format first.

I also can't seem to figure out how to remove the commercials after loading the EDL file on top of the original video. I do see the commercial segments on the right hand side but after removing them and exporting the video, I still see all the commercials still.

I tried using avidemux but it appears it doesn't support EDL or I might not know how to exactly use it. I'm new to this and still trying to figure it all out.

Any suggestions or recommendations is greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

LosslessCut
LosslessCut879×612 142 KB

VideoReDo going out of business?
#2

LosslessCut accepts EDLs

It works with mpg. Maybe you're using ATSC3?

#3

Yes, LosslessCut does accept EDLs. I'm not having an issue with loading the EDL file.

Mostly figuring out how to remove the commercials from the original video created by Channels DVR (comskip).

I'm recording these games via HDHomeRun PRIME on Verizon FIOS in the US. How do I verify or confirm that I'm using ATSC3?

#4

Just a guess, but are you clicking on the "yin yang" icon to actually excise the commercial breaks?

CleanShot 2022-02-02 at 08.54.25
CleanShot 2022-02-02 at 08.54.251169×762 816 KB

#5

I had not used that icon/button before. I was removing the commercial segments from the right hand side by clicking on each commercial segment, right clicking, and then clicking on remove segment.

I tried clicking on the "yin yang" icon after loading the EDL file, but I don't really understand what I need to do after that to remove all the commercials from the entire video. I have attached a screenshot before and after clicking on on the "yin yang" icon.

Thank you for all your help!

LosslessCut - Before
LosslessCut - Before876×601 156 KB

LosslessCut - After
LosslessCut - After876×601 521 KB

#6

I'm a new user of LosslessCut too, but all I've done to successfully convert the recording to have no commercials is:

  1. Load the MPG
  2. import the EDL
  3. click the "yin yang" icon
  4. and click Export.
Need Windows software recommendation for editing out commercials
#7

That worked perfectly. The only change I had to make is choose "Merge cuts" instead of "Separate files" from the Export options screen. Thank you very much for all your help! :+1:

1 Like
#8

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that last part! (For what it's worth, it remembers your choices for next time.) But I'm glad you've gotten it sorted. I was happy to learn about LosslessCut, it's really fast, all things considered, and does the trick, for free!

#9

I agree, It's super fast. I really like it a lot. Thanks again for all your help!

#10

Thank you @euroegyptn and @Fofer for this thread. I have been wanting to do this on my Mac but have not done the digging required to make this work. You really saved me a lot of time!

1 Like
#11

Is this better than MCEBuddy? I use MCEBuddy on Parallels and it works fine but I know it slows down my mac a lot.

#12

It’s got a funky interface — but it works. And it doesn’t require Parallels and a Windows install, so there is less overhead. Good enough for me.

#13

lossless cut is gui only? no CL options?

Is the expectation you guys do this manual process every time you want to cut a video? Seems like much more time and effort than watching the commercials or FFing or hitting a skip button - I feel like I’m missing something here.

#14

Lossless Cut is a GUI for Ffmpeg. If you want the CLI option, then you use Ffmpeg.