user2368: Is there a way to use premiere like the hundreds of other "cheap" video cutters out there?
I need a quick way to select a portion of video, for example our source footage is often 1h long, and we need to cut out many 30s clips.
However, this needs to be a fast process, and we cant re-compress those clips on the export.
We have premiere pro, can this do the job? Every time I try, it wants to compress the footage.

user10689: You can export your clips using one of the lossless options (e.g. Quicktime/PNG or Quicktime/Animation).
Notice that this will result in very large files so make sure that you have enough space.

user1760: I know this is an old question abandoned by the asker, but I use ffmpeg to stream copy (re-mux) sections.
Example 1: Single output
Skip first 14 minutes and make a 30 second output:
ffmpeg -ss 00:14:00 -i input -t 30 -c copy -map 0 output


This will not re-encode, so the process is quick and preserves the quality.
Depending on your input format the output may not be exactly from the desired time, but usually it's close enough. See the -ss option in the FFmpeg documentation for more info.

Example 2: One segment of every n seconds
Use the segment muxer:
ffmpeg -i input -c copy -map 0 -segment_time 30 -f segment output%03d.foo


This will not re-encode, so the process is quick and preserves the quality.
Note that splitting may not be accurate, unless you force the reference stream key-frames at the given time. See the segment muxer documentation for more info.


2368: <p>Is there a way to use premiere like the hundreds of other "cheap" video cutters out there?</p>

<p>I need a quick way to select a portion of video, for example our source footage is often 1h long, and we need to cut out many 30s clips.</p>

<p>However, this needs to be a fast process, and we cant re-compress those clips on the export.</p>

<p>We have premiere pro, can this do the job? Every time I try, it wants to compress the footage.</p>
 10689: <p>You can export your clips using one of the lossless options (e.g. Quicktime/PNG or Quicktime/Animation).</p>

<p>Notice that this will result in very large files so make sure that you have enough space.</p>
 1760: <p>I know this is an old question abandoned by the asker, but I use <code>ffmpeg</code> to <a href="https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.html#Stream-copy" rel="nofollow">stream copy</a> (re-mux) sections.</p>

<h1>Example 1: Single output</h1>

<p>Skip first 14 minutes and make a 30 second output:</p>

<pre><code>ffmpeg -ss 00:14:00 -i input -t 30 -c copy -map 0 output
</code></pre>

<ul>
<li><p>This will not re-encode, so the process is quick and preserves the quality.</p></li>
<li><p>Depending on your input format the output may not be exactly from the desired time, but usually it's close enough. See the <code>-ss</code> option in the <a href="https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.html#Main-options" rel="nofollow">FFmpeg documentation</a> for more info.</p></li>
</ul>

<h1>Example 2: One segment of every <em>n</em> seconds</h1>

<p>Use the segment muxer:</p>

<pre><code>ffmpeg -i input -c copy -map 0 -segment_time 30 -f segment output%03d.foo
</code></pre>

<ul>
<li><p>This will not re-encode, so the process is quick and preserves the quality.</p></li>
<li><p>Note that splitting may not be accurate, unless you force the reference stream key-frames at the given time. See the <a href="https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-formats.html#segment_002c-stream_005fsegment_002c-ssegment" rel="nofollow">segment muxer documentation</a> for more info.</p></li>
</ul>
