CLI

[masterofobzene]

The page talks about "basic" cli capabilities.
I don't see any reference to the commands available or what can be done exactly with the cli.
Care to explain a little?

[mifi]

if you click on the "basic cli support" link it will take you here: https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut/blob/master/cli.md

[masterofobzene]

This is what I need:

We need to make many videos of 30 seconds out of a big video.
Many big videos -> many, many 30 seconds clips of each of those.

The request for a proper CLI is what I was asking. Your workarounds defeat the purpose of losslesscut.

My comment was edited and you probably answered the old comment. I saw that bash script too similar to a "bad batch script" and given you talk wonders about AI, I simply assumed you got it from chatgpt, or deepseek. Later I realized that it was bash. And no, don't assume that wsl/bash is more common. Same for powershell (before you mention that trash of language that struggles to interact with applications and paths).

Losslesscut is awesome to do what I need. It works. It is a nice app. Congratulations. What happens to me is that I'm asking for a proper CLI interface so we can automate Losslesscut without being forced to use the gui which makes it "manual" use only.

There are petitions, I myself did one. All are disregarded as "non useful". I don't understand why would you say that other than not being able to program it. If you cannot do it, its OK. Nobody is here to pick on you or your dev capabilities. I myself learned alone and I don't know A LOT of stuff and I'm very limited. This so you know I'm not trying to bring you down.

But again, it seems that you want to hide something and return all requests for a CLI with "that is not really needed" argument.

Well, if its not, please tell me how to make ffmpeg cut a one hour video into segmentS of 30 seconds. Have in mind that by doing so, it makes losslesscut obsolete.

[mifi]

Ok I see you edited your response. Now I think I see what you want. You want to losslessly split all files into 30 second chunks. This can also be done with AI but if you don’t want that then google is an alternative. I might help you write a script to do it if you can’t figure it out yourself, but you’re not really uncouraging me to do so.

The thing is that there are so many people asking for different kinds of automations, and I cannot implement all of them. That’s why I suggest scripts as a workaround. And AI because I don’t have the capacity to do free development consulting work for everybode.

[mifi]

don't assume that wsl/bash is more common.

I would argue that bash is much more common than batch for scripting. not on windows but in total, see for example github:

• https://github.com/search?q=language%3ABatchfile&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=Batchfile&l=
• https://github.com/search?q=language%3AShell&type=repositories&ref=advsearch

but yea I guess more LosslessCut users use Windows than macos+linux so for the losslesscut target group, batch is indeed probably just as common.

[mifi]

Well, if its not, please tell me how to make ffmpeg cut a one hour video into segmentS of 30 seconds. Have in mind that by doing so, it makes losslesscut obsolete.

just to prove my point that AI works I copy pasted your question:

ChatGTP output:

please tell me how to make ffmpeg cut a one hour video into segmentS of 30 seconds

You can use ffmpeg to split a one-hour video into 30-second segments using the -segment_time option. Here’s the command:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy -map 0 -f segment -segment_time 30 -reset_timestamps 1 output_%03d.mp4

Explanation:

• -i input.mp4 → Specifies the input video.
• -c copy → Copies the streams without re-encoding (fast and lossless).
• -map 0 → Ensures all streams (video, audio, subtitles) are included in output files.
• -f segment → Uses the segmenting feature of ffmpeg.
• -segment_time 30 → Splits the video into 30-second segments.
• -reset_timestamps 1 → Resets timestamps in each segment to start from zero.
• output_%03d.mp4 → Names the output files as output_000.mp4, output_001.mp4, etc.

Let me know if you need any modifications, like re-encoding or different naming formats!

on windows

On Windows, you can run the following ffmpeg command in Command Prompt (cmd) or PowerShell:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy -map 0 -f segment -segment_time 30 -reset_timestamps 1 output_%%03d.mp4

Explanation:

• %%03d → On Windows, % needs to be escaped as %%, so filenames will be output_000.mp4, output_001.mp4, etc.
• Everything else works the same as in Linux/macOS.

Steps:

1. Open Command Prompt (Press Win + R, type cmd, and press Enter).
2. Navigate to the folder containing your video using cd (e.g., cd C:\path\to\video).
3. Run the command above.

If you’re using PowerShell, use this version instead:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy -map 0 -f segment -segment_time 30 -reset_timestamps 1 output_%03d.mp4

Let me know if you run into any issues! 🚀

[masterofobzene]

OK I will try the suggested code in my scripts (yes, I use scripts to do stuff too and this is the only thing I was having to do "manually").

I didn't know ffmpeg had such functionality since in past versions you had to put the "from" and "to" timelines harcoded into the arguments, that would imply that you had to first calculate the whole first timeline from 0 to 30 secs, then "30 to 60" and so on, passing each time to ffmpeg like losslesscut does.

If it works, you might want to use it in losslesscut since when going to "last ffmpeg command" I get each line stating the hardcoded "from" and "to" times. Maybe you could simplify it using this command you are telling me, and only replace the duration that the user wants.

[mifi]

I didn't know ffmpeg had such functionality since in past versions you had to put the "from" and "to" timelines harcoded into the arguments, that would imply that you had to first calculate the whole first timeline from 0 to 30 secs, then "30 to 60" and so on, passing each time to ffmpeg like losslesscut does.

if only you had tried to ask an AI in the first place, you would have known! and wouldn't have to waste your own or other people's time.

If it works, you might want to use it in losslesscut since when going to "last ffmpeg command" I get each line stating the hardcoded "from" and "to" times. Maybe you could simplify it using this command you are telling me, and only replace the duration that the user wants.

There are many things that I could do, but like I said there are so many different things people want to use Losslesscut for and I don't have time to implement and maintain all kinds of different batch automations. LosslessCut was not built to be a batch operations toolset - It was built for super fast and efficient manual cutting. ffmpeg/bash does batching so much better.

[masterofobzene]

The line works, you just missed the -c:v copy (or ffmpeg complained about it here)

I can now use ffmpeg directly. Thank you.

[miqumi]

no way you saw ONE guy start using ai and wrote that piece of text talking about masterofobzene as the entirety of 'ai opposers'... huge statistical fallacy ..

[mifi]

I'm not an AI fanboy either. But I think it can be very useful for certain tasks such as learning new command line tools or scripting. I don't like it when people just categorically boycott all AI just for the sake of it and then instead waste other people's time arguing about it, when they could instead just use AI for what it's good for. If you don't like to support US tech giants, fine, then just use a Chinese or European AI. If you care about privacy, find an AI company that also cares about it. I believe that in the future there will be an abundance of AI options available to us, many still free. We'll have to pay a price of course, but I believe there will be many good open source models that can run locally on our own computer, meaning we won't be dependent on the broligarchs or dictators, and all we'll pay for will be hardware and electricity.

[masterofobzene]

I don't understand your comment but I'm constantly using AI now for all coding tasks and I have a lot of scripts for different functions effectively reducing dependence on human developers and their apps. AI is awesome if you are not being stupid enough to use it as a chat friend or ask where to get groseries from. In fact I stopped using lossless cut. Freedom.

Yes its true that they gamble with your privacy, but if you take some precautions you can get away with really good scripts for everything.

So I was wrong, it is a great tool, you only have to be conscient of the privacy thing.
But be aware, its a matter of time until they close everything behind a paywall (I mean total commercial model, no more free use).