How to crop last N seconds from a TS video

Question

Is there any way to crop the last N seconds from a video? The format is in this case 'MPEG-TS'.

With FFMPEG, I know there is an option for start time and duration, but neither of these are usable in this use case. Video can have any possible length, so the duration cannot be fixed value.

Also, the solution must run in Windows command line and can be automated.

Statuary

Are your videos limited to a specific container format? If so, look for the container-specific tools such as avisplit from transcode. – Kirsch

Thanks for the hint. The question should have been "How to crop last N seconds from a TS video with any command line tool in Windows." – Statuary

Not too many tools working with TS. Try tsMuxeR: videohelp.com/tools/tsMuxeR – Kirsch

Actually it's also OK if I at first convert them to MP4 h264. And then do the cropping. But tsMuxeR looks very good. I will try that! – Statuary

..but the cropping does not support cropping from the end. Only the start and end time for the cropping. :( – Statuary

Answer 1

The desired functionality can be achieved with the following steps:

1. Use ffmpeg to determine the length of the video. Use e.g. a cmd script:

   set input=video.ts
   
   ffmpeg -i "%input%" 2> output.tmp
   
   rem search "  Duration: HH:MM:SS.mm, start: NNNN.NNNN, bitrate: xxxx kb/s"
   for /F "tokens=1,2,3,4,5,6 delims=:., " %%i in (output.tmp) do (
       if "%%i"=="Duration" call :calcLength %%j %%k %%l %%m
   )
   goto :EOF
   
   :calcLength
   set /A s=%3
   set /A s=s+%2*60
   set /A s=s+%1*60*60
   set /A VIDEO_LENGTH_S = s
   set /A VIDEO_LENGTH_MS = s*1000 + %4
   echo Video duration %1:%2:%3.%4 = %VIDEO_LENGTH_MS%ms = %VIDEO_LENGTH_S%s
   

2. Calculate the start and end point for clip operation

   rem ** 2:00 for the start, 4:00 from the end
   set /A starttime = 120
   set /A stoptime = VIDEO_LENGTH_S - 4*60 
   set /A duration = stoptime - starttime
   

3. Clip the video. As a bonus, convert the TS file to a more optimal format, such as H.264

   set output=video.mp4
   
   vlc -vvv --start-time %starttime% --stop-time %stoptime% "%input%" 
     --sout=#transcode{vcodec=h264,vb=1200,acodec=mp3, 
     ab=128}:standard{access=file,dst=%output%} vlc://quit
   
   rem ** Handbrake has much better quality **
   handbrakeCLI -i %input% -o %output% -e x264 -B 128 -q 25 
     --start-at duration:%starttime% --stop-at duration:%duration% 
   

Statuary

This assumes ffmpeg prints duration for all videos, which still might not be the case. – Kirsch