How to trim/cut clips with VLC

Question

I am running VLC 1.1.5 64-bit on Mac OS X 10.6.6. On the web I found instructions saying I should click on Video->Advanced Controls in the menu bar to reveal options that let me trim and cut video clips. However, there is no such option in my copy of VLC.

What I want to do is cut a ~2 minute portion from the middle of a two hour footage (in MXF format that QuickTime can't open) that I've got.

Is there another way to trim and cut clips of videos in VLC? Or should I use other (preferably free, Free, and open source) software? Thanks.

Answer 1

For some reason VLC has removed options to stream a partial clip from their transcoding and streaming wizards. But the options are still available at the cli.

Here's how I stream a portion of a file, while keeping the original audio and video streams intact (no transcoding done). Times are given in seconds:

vlc in.avi --start-time 65 --stop-time 95 :sout=#file{dst=/home/myser/Desktop/out.avi} :no-sout-rtp-sap :no-sout-standard-sap :sout-keep

With transcoding:

vlc in.avi --start-time 65 --stop-time 158 :sout='#transcode{vcodec=mp2v,vb=4096,acodec=mp2a,ab=192,scale=1,channels=2,deinterlace,audio-sync}:std{access=file, mux=ps,dst=/home/myser/Desktop/out.mpg}'

More info on transcoding here.

Answer 2

If you're up for other software, just try QuickTime, it has very nice and easy trim controls, you just drag the sliders at the video progress bar and then there's a trim option (I believe it's Cmd+T).