Best software to edit HD mp4 file and not lose quality?

MakeEmLaugh

Hi,

I currently own Sergio Leone's great film The Good, The Bad and the Ugly on Blu-Ray. Sadly, the Blu-Ray contains only the extended 2004 edition of the film, not the superior original 1967 international cut. It was the 1967 that I loved with upon seeing it for the first time, and I find it more than a little annoying that the only HD version available is the extended edition, complete with superfluous deleted scenes and distractingly incongruous re-dubbing from Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach.

I wish to edit a HD copy of the film down to the shorter 'international' version. I have ripped it to an MP4 file of approximately 2.5 GB. What programme - preferably a free one á la Audacity, Handbrake et al - would people recommend to do so? I do not want to lose the HD quality of the Blu-Ray rip itself, or wind up pixelating certain scenes.

Any feedback on what the best programme to edit a HD movie file and reproduce it in consistently good quality would be much appreciated.

Allyall

Have you tried VirtualDubEdit, or VirtualDub?

Also, have you looked for any Easter Eggs in the Disc? Maybe one for the original. Apparently there are 4 known easter eggs, but i have no idea how to access them.

fmul9798

I'm afraid I can't recommend an editor for mp4 but I would suggest that if you are concerned with reducing quality from the bluray source, a 2.5GB mp4 file is not a good place to start.

MakeEmLaugh

Allyall wrote: »

Have you tried VirtualDubEdit, or VirtualDub?

Also, have you looked for any Easter Eggs in the Disc? Maybe one for the original. Apparently there are 4 known easter eggs, but i have no idea how to access them.

Having Googled the Easter Eggs, it appears none of them are an alternate version of the film, just brief excerpts of interviews with Wallach et al.

Can you edit MP4s with VirtualDubEdit, do you know, or just AVI files?

Allyall

MakeEmLaugh wrote: »

Having Googled the Easter Eggs, it appears none of them are an alternate version of the film, just brief excerpts of interviews with Wallach et al.

Can you edit MP4s with VirtualDubEdit, do you know, or just AVI files?

Yep, i think so. (I'm almost sure)
Download the plugins from the VirtualDub link, there is one by fcchandler - HERE

Khannie

fmul9798 wrote: »

if you are concerned with reducing quality from the bluray source, a 2.5GB mp4 file is not a good place to start.

Big +1 here. You really should be in the 4-8G region. Higher is better.

You can losslessy split and combine using MKVMergeGUI. Although editing of this type only cuts right before a key-frame, you cannot cut with frame accuracy. However most scene transitions tend to begin with a new keyframe anyway.

Ideally you would do this using the original Bluray (Remux to MKV using MKVMerge) rather than a crappy 2.5GB re-encode.

You can also create a seamless branching version using a custom chapters file. Although most hardware and software players don't support that.