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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.

3 Answers 3

20

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.

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  • Since vlc is probably not on your PATH in OSX, you must call it from its app bundle like /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC or set an alias (temporary or in your .bashrc) like alias vlc="/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC"
    – Hraban
    Jul 17, 2016 at 21:04
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    ... but that doesn’t help, since you need some CLI version "cvlc", that I couldn’t find. :(
    – Hraban
    Jul 17, 2016 at 21:23
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    Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface, and if you update .bashrc by vlc="/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC", use source ~/.bashrc to force reload after your modification. Apr 9, 2018 at 15:04
49

Yes, Using VLC player on mac to cut a part of the video is possible..

Goto

"Playback" in top menu while playing the video and at the point where u want to start cropping, click on

"Record", the tick mark beside Record in the sub menu indicates that the recording is happening, click again when u have to stop the cropping.

OPTION + COMMAND + R to start cropping
OPTION + COMMAND + R again to stop cropping

the cropped video saves to home directory by default in mp4 format

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  • 18
    This works on a Mac, but only if you first go into your Preferences and choose what the default folder is for any recorded files.
    – Asparagirl
    Dec 24, 2013 at 1:54
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    In order to set the recorded file's location, go to Preferences > Input / Codecs / Record directory or filename. I also had to restart VLC to make it work. May 27, 2014 at 4:01
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    For me the default was ~/Music (home music folder)
    – k00k
    May 20, 2015 at 12:13
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    BUT it produces stucky video and we have to wait for the recording. So it is not technically "cut the video" May 28, 2015 at 6:52
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    I'm on El Capitan 10.11.1 with VLC 2.0.4 and my default directory was ~/Movies. Oct 24, 2015 at 18:01
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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).

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  • 1
    Unfortunately it is an MXF file and QuickTime can't open it (I will edit my question to reflect that), any other ideas?
    – hpy
    Feb 25, 2011 at 21:46
  • If you were on Windows, I'd suggest VirtualDub, but I haven't come across MXFs yet..
    – slhck
    Feb 25, 2011 at 22:22

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