How can I edit WTV files without converting them?

[duder_me]

Hello. My problem is that I set up Windows Media Center on another computer, but I accidentally forgot to change the default recording settings (which are ridiculous settings by the way), so one of my recordings has a minute of commercials at the beginning. I'm perfectly fine with keeping the commercials during the show, but I want to delete the beginning portion of the recording without having to convert the WTV file. I am aware that there are programs that supposedly delete the commercials during the show (which isn't my goal), but I never had luck with such programs since they were confusing to navigate through. I have a really strong distaste with the majority of third party Media Center plugins and programs since they aren't very user friendly and can do more harm than good to the file directory, so it would be great if I could get a seamless step by step tutorial on how to accomplish what I specifically want to do.

To make matters worse, the battery on the laptop I was recording with died mid-way through recording during the commercial breaks, so I quickly plugged in the charger and resumed recording, but now the show is in two separate files. Is there any way I can splice these two recordings together without having to do any sort of video conversion or altering the original files? And no, I can't record it again another time since this might be the only time this show airs for now.

Normally, I'm pretty careful when it comes to recording shows on Media Center, but I guess today I wasn't so lucky.

[DSperber]

If the WTV recordings are of "copy protected" content (from your cable company, using a TV tuner card that's cablecard-enabled), then you will NOT be able to do any editing whatsoever to those programs, using ANY software. The DRM rules regarding WMC and copy-protected content says that only WMC can PLAY these programs (either live or recorded), through the decryption feature of the cablecard. No other Windows or 3rd-party programs can use the cablecard-enabled decryption capability... only WMC. Them's the rules.

Of course the DRM rules get even stricter if you want to discuss it. For example, the encryption key is time-dependent and machine-dependent and installed-OS dependent. If you reinstall Win7, you will NOT be able to view these WTV recordings made with a previously installed Win7 and WMC, since the decryption key is unique to that old previously installed Win7. WMC running in the newly installed Win7 environment will NOT be able to decrypt those old WTV recordings, even with the same TV tuner card and cablecard. Same if you change motherboards and CPU's... again, you won't be able to play those older WTV recordings of copy-protected content. You also can't share one of these copy-protected WTV recordings with a second Win7 machine. You simply cannot do anything but play them on the pretty much the exact same Win7 machine basic hardware with the exact same installed Win7/WMC that did the original recording.

Now if your WTV recordings are of "copy-freely" programs, either because your cable company is delivering them that way, unencrypted and not copy protected, or you're using some type of clearQAM or OTA/ATSC TV tuner, well now you can do anything you want with these. You can use Windows Media Player or other 3rd-party media player programs that can handle WTV/MPEG-2, you can play them even on new machines and newly reinstalled Win7/WMC setups, and you can play them on second Win7 machines. They're "copy-freely" with no restrictions at all.

So it is this latter "copy-freely" class of WTV recordings which can now also be "edited", using appropriate media-editing software. For WTV, in my opinion there's none better than VideoRedo TV Suite, which can handle copy-freely WTV native. This is a frame-accurate video editor, with lots of output options. I use it all the time to edit "So You Think You Can Dance" (copy-freely, received OTA/ATSC on FOXHD through my Hauppauge HVR-2250 dual-tuner card), to produce selected clips of the performances. I save to MPG form (it's still the original HD unrecompressed 100% digitally perfect untouched broadcast MPEG-2 inside) for convenience playing back these MPG video clips with PC media player programs or off of my LAN network from my Oppo BDP-103 BluRay player (all of which can understand the underlying MPEG-2).

So the removal of any commercials is done by you, through the editing process. You can either (1) CUT out sections you DON'T WANT in your final edited result output by marking the start/end of these unwanted sections, or (2) mark start/end of "SCENES" you WANT to include, adding each of them to an assembly-in-progress which specifies one or more such "scenes" you want to combine into the final edited result output. The input is untouched, no matter whether you use CUT or SCENE approach to your editing.

You can specify the output "wrapper" format (again, I use MPG for universal compatibility)... which can be WTV, MPG, TS, AVI, etc., but the internal content is still untouched un-recompressed original "frame copy" MPEG-2. Note that depending on the starting/ending frame you select for an edit section, it may be necessary for VRD to "re-encode/re-compress" one or a few frames. But once that brief few frames is passed, the rest of the original MPEG-2 content is "frame-copied" 100% digitally perfect into the output.

[Mike88]

+1 for VRD.

Lately I don't edit commercials a lot so I have the earlier version of VRD which works with dvr-ms files. I just let WMC convert to dvr-ms & then edit. The updated VRD will work on wtv files as mentioned by DSperber.

VRD used to have something like a 15 day free trial but don't know if they still do. You might want to check it out because it's a great program & their forum has great support.

[choliscott]

+1 for VRD. Not only does it allow you edit .WTV files, but you can also compress them down (if there was something you wanted to keep) to H264 .WTV format. I noticed that a 6 GB original size recording will turn out to be a little over a GB when compressed.

[Roginator]

I would encourage you to use a commercial-skipping solution. It's a great time saver once set up.

[duder_me]

Thanks for the suggestions!