Newbie: How to get rid of blank excess at end of video

Help/How To
1

Hi, everyone.

I’m new to Shotcut, so if this is a dumb question, then I guess it can be expected from a newbie…lol.

I’ve edited my video and exported it. I’m happy with it apart from the fact that the actual footage is 3 minutes long, but the exported video is in excess of 6 minutes long with the additional minutes being black screen time. How did I do that?..lol.

I went back and looked at the project file in Shotcut, and I can see that there is a long green strip which continues after the end of the movie for the excess time. So, I’m guessing I have to delete this, but I can’t figure out how to do it.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Michaela

2

Right click the green strip and click remove.

3

Hi, Sauron. Thanks for your reply. However, the excess exists after the final clip (not between clips as shown in your screenshot), and when I first noticed it, I tried to remove it as i had previously done with other gaps between clips with no problems, I couldn’t. In fact, the right-click context menu doesn’t even appear on that part of the project :disappointed: eek!

Any further suggestions?

4

Nope. I’ll get back to you if I find something.:frowning:

5

What happens if you click on the green strip and press Ctrl X?

6

If OverlordTomala’s Ctrl X method doesn’t get rid of the green strip.

Here’s my suggestion.

Create a new video track. Copy or move the video to the new video track then delete the original video track with the green strip.

1 Like
7

hi michaela…you will want to open your previously saved project in Shotcut…either view or click and move the header, (the white triangle with the vertical line that appears on the time line), to the point close to where you want to edit the black portion from your video. then with either your left and right arrow keys, dial in the exact frame that begins the black portion of the clip. then press the s key to split the video at that point…then either hold the right arrow key or click and drag the header toward the end of the black portion of your video…once again dial in the exact frame you want to edit from with your arrow keys, (i would recommend the FIRST frame where you start seeing an image again), press the s key again, then using your mouse…right click in the black portion of your video and select, “remove”, from the submenu. easy peasy c") on a side-note…if the undesirable portion of your video is at the end of your project, then you only need to split the video once and remove the portion from the end. hope this helps.

8

Sauron! That did it. Thanks so much. I had to do the same with the audio track, but that fixed the issue. Hey, just a quick question about encoding: if I encode the exact same project using a more powerful machine, will I get a better quality result or does it not make a difference because it simply uses the same process to encode it but just possibly at a slower speed?

Thanks Sauron. Just trying to get the best quality without too big a file size.

Thanks again for your most helpful advise. :slight_smile:

Michaela

9

Hi, OL.

I tried Sauron’s suggestion first, which fixed it. So, I didn’t get to try yours out. But thanks for contributing :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Michaela

10

Hi, Wanderer.

Thanks for your suggestion. Didn’t get to try it as Sauron’s fixed the issue. :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Michaela

11

I doubt that a more powerful machine will affect the quality or file size of the project.

12

The most powerfull machine will just encode it quicker.

Note : if your machine is really not powerfull enought, you can have some artefact or fluidity problems.

13

Ahhh. That’s what I figured. Thanks so much, Keno. :blush:

14

anytime…just sharing the wealth as it were…stay safe out there and have fun.

16

Here’s the trick: (tracks may need to be at full zoom)

  1. Lock each track by clicking its little padlock icon.
  2. Notice that one (or more) tracks have angled lines past the desired end-point.
  3. Unlock those tracks and right-click & remove any excess portions.
    here