Editing and encoding with Avidemux - A quick tutorial

A short guide on using the freeware app Avidemux to edit and encode your recordings.

Hopefully this will be useful to those who want to post videos but thought it was pretty complex (it isn't!) and also those who've dabbled with making clips but have run into problems like aspect ratios (video shows in the wrong size, squashed or stretched) or poor quality encodes.


(1) Obvious first step - Download and install Avidemux. Click here

(2) If your video is recorded on a PVR, you want to burn the recording to a DVD RW and make sure the disc is finalised, otherwise your PC won't be able to read it. Once you've done this, put the disk into your PC and transfer the folder VIDEO_TS to your computer.

I don't have Sky so I'm not absolutely sure about all the options you have for transferring from a Sky+ box to your PC. I think you need to hook it up to a DVD recorder with a scart socket and then transfer it from the DVD to your PC like above.

If you recorded using a TV card in your PC - well, you don't need to do anything.

3) Start up Avidemux and load your video using File > Open. Alternatively drag in onto the Avidemux window. If you're loading a video transferred from DVD you want the file named VTS_01_1.vob or such. The program might give a message that it's found multiple files and asks if you want to append them. Click yes - that'll load the whole disc.

btw - it's important that you transfer the files from the disc to your hard disk like I said, otherwise Avidemux can't open them. It needs write access to the video folder so it can create its index file.

For recordings made on your PC using a TV tuner card, you're looking for a .ts or .mpg file in your recording directory.

4) Hopefully your video has loaded fine and you get a screen like below. If it looks too narrow as below, don't worry about it.





5) We want to encode using x264 - so under Video select MPEG-4 AVC. Be careful to select the right one.



6) Also listed under Video are the 'Configure' and 'Filters' boxes. The default configuration is fine for now and I'll add a few more comments on that later. We do need to add some filters though, so click on that.

The first thing we need to add is a de-interlacing filter. If you don't know what interlaced video is and why it needs to be de-interlaced, there are guides out there that explain it so much better than I can. In simple terms, if you playback a TV broadcast on a PC without de-interlacing, it looks crap. Any movement will result in lines aka 'teeth' being visible.

After clicking the 'Filters' box, select Interlacing and then Yadif, as shown below. Default settings should be fine.





7) Next we want to resize the video. Click transform and then MPlayer resize.





UNTICK the keep aspect ratio box. Assuming your recording is 16:9 widescreen resizing to 720 x 400 is fairly common. Whatever you choose just be sure the height is 9/16 the width.

If you have something to crop though, resize to a bit bigger than what you want your clip to be. You'll notice I'm editing a babestation recording and have black areas to the bottom and sides to remove. So I'll resize to 754 x 424.

Resize method is up to you - personally I like the sharpness of Lanczos.





8) Now go to transform - crop. I'm removing 24 from the bottom and 34 from the sides - bringing me back to 720 x 400 and getting rid of the black bars.





9) All done with filters. Now select View > Preview Mode > Output.

Aside from letting us see the output, its also a bit easier to edit than a squashed video.







10) Editing is straightforward in Avidemux. Move the seekbar by either dragging it around with the mouse, scrolling the mouse wheel or using the left and right arrow. Using shift with the arrows results in faster movement. Just take it easy when shift-arrowing around because it can crash Avidemux. I'd suggest doing it in short bursts rather than holding down shift for ages.

I should also mention that you can save your work by going to File > Save Project. If you're doing heavy editing, save occasionally incase you crash.

Select the areas to cut by using the A and B buttons at the bottom. A to mark the start of a selection and B to finish. Edit > Cut when you're ready to snip.

In the example I'm doing a video of Tammy's section, cutting out the before and after. Sorry Lolly... sorry Paige.







11) Audio next. Under Audio select mp3 (lame) and configure. Your choice but I use the lowest setting of 56kbps.







12) Minor pain in the ass bit now and probably the only thing I wish Avidemux could do better. Audio and Video are always slightly out of sync. So if there's any talking going on during the clip you might want to fix it.

Click on the "shift" box under Audio and try some different values on an area of speech. I usually go -200, -400, -600 etc till I get close then fine tune if needed.

There are other ways of fixing the sync but this is the quick and easy way.



13) Under format go for MKV or MP4.





14) Click the floppy disk icon at the top left to save your clip. Don't forget the file extension.





15) Patience.




Any problems or questions just ask or PM me.

I'll add to this as needed. Also, comments and suggestions welcome.

Excellent tutorial. I already use Avidemux (in linux) for all my vids that I post.
There are also some good user guides on the internet. Thats how I learnt how to use it.

Just a couple of minor points.
1) If your vid is captured on a usb stick or usb external drive, there is no need to copy it to your hard drive. The index file will be written where the original vid is ok. My tv has record direct to usb capability. Instead if I record on my PVR, I copy to DVD and rip it with ProjectX to get an mpg file into my computer.
2) If the sound is badly out of sync with video and needs fixing, set the audio delay by trial and error until its ok. When doing this, just use the "copy video" and "copy sound" options (no conversion) It does this very quickly. Save as a .avi file with avi format. Playback the saved file to test. Delete the file afterwards, its too big to use.
When you have found the correct setting, then you can do all the converting, filtering etc. which can take a long time.
The sound on the sexstation webstream (captured directly from the stream, not via the Adobe flash player) can be up to 5 seconds behind the video.

Thanks for the feedback.

About the audio sync - if while the video is paused you put a value in the shift field and press return it should playback with that shift in effect within avidemux without having to save a copy to test.

Didn't know you could get TV's now that had direct to usb recording - v. nice.

Did every step after the last step clicked floppy, saved and now the video just gone. Any help thanks

I have had some problems in the past resizing videos captured directly from freeview with my tv usb record function.
I use Avidemux in linux but have recently tried it in WinXP.
In WinXP, the resize filter has an option to unlock the aspect ratio so individual values can be set for width and height if necessary. This option has never been available in linux, and clicking the "Apply" button after setting values returns them to default. The videos made do not always play at the correct aspect ratio on some players. e.g. video bam player.
I have had to pass them through ffmpeg encoder first, to fix the size and aspect ratio correctly, which is a nuisance.

I just found this info on the internet today. I've never found a solution when searching previously.
http://www.avidemux.org/admWiki/doku.php...ter_resize

quote :-
The filter dialog config box is the same for both filters. You can direcly enter the new width/height and the resize algorithm or use the slider and the menu.
In case you enter the values manually, press OK, not Apply, as pressing Apply recomputes the value from the slider position.

Problem solved.

It's worth sharing that you may want to pass your source file through a tool such as ProjectX to demux it and to fix any sequence/small errors in the stream. Then re-mux it, and then use this new file as your input into AviDemux.

In doing this, I've never had audio sync issues (that haven't been my own fault for other reasons).

For those inclined this can be automated as ProjectX can be run from a CLI, and you can remux with say mplex. Both these tools are available in both Windows and Linux.

(20-04-2011 18:53 )dirk362 Wrote:  It's worth sharing that you may want to pass your source file through a tool such as ProjectX to demux it and to fix any sequence/small errors in the stream. Then re-mux it, and then use this new file as your input into AviDemux.

In doing this, I've never had audio sync issues (that haven't been my own fault for other reasons).

For those inclined this can be automated as ProjectX can be run from a CLI, and you can remux with say mplex. Both these tools are available in both Windows and Linux.

I already use the ProjectX java program for ripping video off my recorded DVDs. It can also convert mpg TS (transport stream) files to normal mpg files.

just to throw a couple more in for people new to video editing like myself. I find handbrake to be very good which now has a Linux GUI called ghb. The picture settings are quick and easy to use for cropping, filters etc.



Also mp4box is is quite handy if the stream codec is fine and and you just want to cut a chunk out, strip off the audio, change the PAR and move it into a mp4 container.


afaik both mp4box and handbrake run on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Nhawk, just a quick question about editing with videmux. When trying to get to a particular section of video, when I click the seekbar at the point i want, the video doesn't actually get to that point. it only moves on a few frames or so. Why might this be?

(29-06-2011 10:51 )jack29g Wrote:  Nhawk, just a quick question about editing with videmux. When trying to get to a particular section of video, when I click the seekbar at the point i want, the video doesn't actually get to that point. it only moves on a few frames or so. Why might this be?

You have to be in pause mode, and drag the slider on the seekbar to where you want it to be, not click the position.