MovieCut plugin: HOW TO use it to quick cut recordings. PART2

AlexWilMac

Staff member
Moderator
(Here part 1):
https://board.openbh.net/threads/moviecut-plugin-how-to-use-it-to-quick-cut-recordings-part1.408/

(4) FINE TUNING OF THE CUTPOINTS
First of all, I immediately tell you that you could skip this 4th paragraph if you don't need a quite precise job. You can go to the 5th and last paragraph of this guide. Otherwise, go on
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As I initially said, this plugin is not ideal if you need a perfect cut, for a recording you want to save in your personal collection. Nonetheless, sometimes I want to watch my recording in a proper way, surely not wanting it perfect but... almost, even when I'm not going to save it forever.
To do that, I need some tricks and a bit of a strategy.
What I'm going to say it's also useful to know how to remove a cut point either if you are not satisfied with it or if you made a mistake.
Imagine that, in the previous paragraph, the beginning of the cut of the advertisement, the one resulted this way

----0h:40m:29s:120 OUT
2) 0h:40m:30s:500 (the beginning of an advertisement) MARK

cuts also a bit of your film (because you marked the beginning at 40m:30s:500 but the actual beginning set by MovieCut was, as you see, was 40m:29s:120.
That is because the plugin did actually set the cut point 1,380s before your mark (in this example! is not fixed) and it might be enough to cut some important words pronounced at that moment.
You would ask: how do I know how much was it cut? Simple: browsing your cut list, you can press play and it'll start from the point you are on.
So, if you are not satisfied with the cut, you need two steps:

a) remove the cut point: go to the ORIGINAL mark point for the END of the advertisement. Remember that this kind of cut point is a COUPLE. To remove a couple you need to be on the SECOND MARK and it's better if it is your mark, not the one set by MovieCut, although it should work with both.
Now, select it and choose "delete cut".
This is true for the "internal" cuts. If you try to use this command after setting only the "start cut here" nothing will happen because the couple start-end is not complete, yet. Instead, the cuts set by "remove before" or "remove after" work differently because they are single: so they can be removed immediately after being set.

b) Now, you are ready to do another try to set the beginning of the cut (as, in this example, you were not satisfied just with it, not also with the end).
Obviously, you need to change the way of setting it: you can't just select the mark in the line 2) (at 40m:30s:500) because it will again decide for 40m:29s:120.
So (remembering my advice to browse the cutting points while in pause) go to the mark in line 2) and, this time, press just for a split moment PLAY on your remote and then immediately Pause again. This way, you'll be a little bit forward this time. Press OK and give the command "start cut here". Then repeat what you did the first time and select the mark corresponding to the end of the advertisment.
Now, MovieCut produces the actual cut points and you can check if, this time, the result is satisfactory. If not, repeat the process...


(5) THE STRATEGY FOR MAKING THE CUTLIST PROCESS FASTER
As I said, you need also a strategy in this process and it is quite simple. I proceed this way: knowing that there is and advance in timing for the actual cut points, whenever is possible I put the marks a little bit after the time I would normally set them. This is usually easier after the ads, because serious channels don't just interrupt films or programmes at random, in the middle of a scene. So, also the restarts, after the commercial break, usually don't have dialogues or quick change of scenes. This way, putting a mark a couple of seconds after (and considering that the average advance is about 1sec) you won't have issues.
The same can be done to mark the beginning of the ads, especially if you don't mind just a split second of "non-film".


(6) END OF THE TASK
This part is simple and it probably won't need any explaining. But, just for completeness, let's say that, after having set the cuts, you'll be able to finalize your work and execute the cutting.
Again, select your recording and press MENU then choose "Execute cuts...".

You'll be prompted with 4 options:

1 Don't cut
2 Replace the original movie with the cut movie
3 Place the cut movie in a new file ending with "cut"
4 Advanced cut specification...

Let's immediately say that I've never really explored the 4th, Advanced cut specification, because it's far more complicated and you need to enter a lot of IN, OUT cut points by the not easy to use virtual keyboard. And, also, because if I need a perfect cut I use Avidemux (available for every OSs).

The 1st command is obvious: if you are not sure of your cut points and want to review them, is like "Cancel" and go back to your editing.
Now, the 2nd is also clear because you'll overwrite the original, uncut, recording by the cut one.
And the 3rd? Usually I don't choose it but imagine that you want to save two or more parts of a recording as distinct files: there is no other way to do that but using this option.
If the parts are two and let's say you want just split in two your recording, you can do that in two steps: in the first you can set only one cut point of the kind "remove before this position" or the equivalent "remove after this position"; imagine you choose "remove before this position".

Now, choosing this 3rd option, Movie Cut will save the part you chose, the initial part, as a different recording with the extension .cut.
In the second step, you'll get back to your original recording and you'll now remove the previous mark and you will change it into the other equivalent one: in our example, "remove after this position" and you can use the option 2 or the 3, indifferently.

If, instead, you want to split in two or more but also cut away ads or unwanted parts, you'll need more steps, but it's again possible.

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In the end, as everything in our life, you need a bit of practice but then you'll enjoy the possibility of watching a film or a programme the proper way.
The last advice concerns only the OBH users who use this plugin quite often: as I already mentioned, you can take advantage of the huge possibilities about its customization, deciding (as I did) to assign the commands " Cutlist editor..." and "Execute cuts" to coloured buttons: this way you'll be able to immediately launch these tasks. OBH made me happy by the chance of customizing the buttons just because I use this plugin everyday and, sometimes, more times per day!

Enjoy your "clean" recordings!
 
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