I need to cut MP4 videos. A part at the beginning and a part at the end in a batch fashion

Question

I have several training videos. All .MP4s.

I want to remove 3.5 seconds from the beginning and 4.5 seconds from the end of the entire folder of them...

I know of

Answer 1

Eric Lalonde script was good enough, thank you!

For those who can't or don't like installing ffmpeg, I added ffmpeg path variable. In my scenario I am cutting the 14 seconds from the beginning and 9 seconds at the end.

@Echo Off
SetLocal
Set "ext=mp4"
Set "opts=-v quiet"
Set "opts=%opts% -print_format "compact=print_section=0:nokey=1:escape=csv""
Set "opts=%opts% -show_entries "format=duration""
Set ffmpeg=C:\Users\user\Downloads\ffmpeg-20180102-57d0c24-win64-static\bin\
If Exist *.%ext% (If Not Exist "Trimmed\" MD Trimmed)
For %%a In (*.%ext%) Do Call :Sub "%%~a"
Exit/B

:Sub
For /f "Tokens=1* Delims=." %%a In (
    '%ffmpeg%\ffprobe %opts% %1') Do (Set/A "ws=%%a-9.00" & Set "ps=%%b")
Set/A hh=ws/(60*60), lo=ws%%(60*60), mm=lo/60, ss=lo%%60
If %hh% Lss 10 Set hh=0%hh%
If %mm% Lss 10 Set mm=0%mm%
If %ss% Lss 10 Set ss=0%ss%
%ffmpeg%\ffmpeg -i %1 -ss 00:00:14.000 -to %hh%:%mm%:%ss%.%ps,~3% -c:v copy -c:a copy "Trimmed\%~1"

Answer 2

I kindly thank everyone here for encouraging me to keep searching, I found a solution that is perfect. Here it is. I am afraid the examples given even in the comments elude me but I will still try to read up and educate myself on how those commands work. Thanks again. Replace 8.25 (end trim) and 4.25 (beginning trim) and change the values until you are satisfied with the outputs.

@Echo Off
SetLocal
Set "ext=mp4"
Set "opts=-v quiet"
Set "opts=%opts% -print_format "compact=print_section=0:nokey=1:escape=csv""
Set "opts=%opts% -show_entries "format=duration""
If Exist *.%ext% (If Not Exist "Trimmed\" MD Trimmed)
For %%a In (*.%ext%) Do Call :Sub "%%~a"
Exit/B

:Sub
For /f "Tokens=1* Delims=." %%a In (
    'FFProbe %opts% %1') Do (Set/A "ws=%%a-8.25" & Set "ps=%%b")
rem If %ws% Lss 20 GoTo :EOF
Set/A hh=ws/(60*60), lo=ws%%(60*60), mm=lo/60, ss=lo%%60
If %hh% Lss 10 Set hh=0%hh%
If %mm% Lss 10 Set mm=0%mm%
If %ss% Lss 10 Set ss=0%ss%
FFMpeg -i %1 -ss 00:00:04.2500 -to %hh%:%mm%:%ss%.%ps:~,3% -c:v copy -c:a copy "Trimmed\%~1"

Answer 3

a small enchantment for op answer (i cant reply under his comment because of low points): last line make it this way instead:

FFMpeg -ss 00:00:04.2500 -to %hh%:%mm%:%ss%.%ps:~,3% -i %1 -c:v copy -c:a copy -avoid_negative_ts make_zero "Trimmed\%~1"

this way it cut on key frame to avoid out of sync audio if you are playing the video on old tv

Answer 4

Responding to Erkko's answer.

Set ffmpeg=C:\Users\user\Downloads\ffmpeg-20180102-57d0c24-win64-static\bin\

I used,

Set ffmpeg="C:\Program Files (x86)\K-Lite Codec Pack\Tools"

and for some reason it won't work.

I want to cut 10 seconds from the start and 30 seconds from the end.

'%ffmpeg%\ffprobe %opts% %1') Do (Set/A "ws=%%a-30.00" & Set "ps=%%b")

%ffmpeg%\ffmpeg -i %1 -ss 00:00:10.000 -to %hh%:%mm%:%ss%.%ps:~,3% -c:v copy -c:a copy "Trimmed2\%~1"

resulting in 10 seconds at the start and 20 seconds at the end. I had to change 30 to 40

'%ffmpeg%\ffprobe %opts% %1') Do (Set/A "ws=%%a-40.00" & Set "ps=%%b")

to enable 30 seconds cut at the end. Is this how the batch intend to work or is there an error?

Answer 5

I solved it. I don't mind helping you, but I'm not going to provide the full solution. I will, however, give you hints with the trickiest parts. I'll leave it up to you to fill in the blanks.

ffmpeg will let you do what you want. The -ss switch specifies the start position. -t specifies duration. Unfortunately, there's no switch or program substitution variable that'll internally perform the needed math on the video length to trim-right. You'll have to compute that via scripting.

First you'll need the total length of the unmodified video:

for /f "tokens=2" %%x in (
    '2^>^&1 ffmpeg -i "%%~fI" ^| find /i "duration"'
) do set "length=%%x"

To calculate the value for the -t switch, you can invoke PowerShell to determine newLength = totalLength - (leftTrim + rightTrim). Here's the secret sauce:

powershell "'{0}' -f ([timespan]'%length:,=%').add([timespan]::fromseconds(-(%trim-left% + %trim-right%)))"

Once you get your target length calculated, plug it into ffmpeg like this:

ffmpeg -i "%%~fI" -ss %trim-left% -t %target_length% -c:v copy -c:a copy "%destination-dir%\%%~nxI"