Ready for the fastest video trim of your life? Grab a file, drag and drop, set an endpoint, set an out Point, export, export, and done. No joke, trimming can be incredibly swift. Imagine taking a file that's over 20 minutes long and clipping out a segment just over a minute in mere seconds. This level of speed is achievable with software designed for efficiency.
About LosslessCut
LosslessCut is the ultimate cross-platform tool for super fast and lossless trimming and cutting of video and audio files. Simply drag a file in, mark the cut points, and hit export. Because it performs a direct data copy without re-encoding, the process is extremely fast and preserves the original quality. It's perfect for rough cuts of large video files taken from video cameras, drones, GoPros, etc., allowing you to quickly discard unwanted footage. It also features capabilities for merging segments, extracting audio, taking snapshots, and more, all within a clean, intuitive interface.
Key Features
Blazing Fast Trimming
Experience unparalleled speed in video editing. Define your start and end points, and export the desired segment almost instantly. This makes quick edits, like removing forgotten stop-recording moments, a breeze.
Multiple Segment Export
Need to extract multiple highlights from a longer recording, like gameplay footage? Simply drop the file in, go through and set multiple little clips for highlights. When you hit export, you get options: export them as separate files, merge them into one highlight reel, or keep both the merged version and the separate clips. Select merge, hit export, and watch as it processes the different clips and joins them into a single file rapidly.
Lossless Quality
The core principle behind LosslessCut is preserving the original file's quality. It achieves its speed by avoiding the time-consuming process of re-encoding the video. Your exported clips retain the exact quality of the source material.
Cross-Platform Availability
Whether you're on a Mac, Linux, or Windows machine, LosslessCut has you covered. It offers native applications for all three major operating systems, ensuring a consistent experience regardless of your platform.
How it Works
You're probably thinking, how does that work? How is it insanely fast? LosslessCut effectively takes the original file and copy and pastes the segment you want into a new file. So the export speed is really just your computer copy and pasting your file. It's insane!
But there's a gotcha. See, with compressed video files, you generally have keyframes and Delta frames. Now, a keyframe is like a photo; it's got every pixel in that image there. But the Delta frames are just what changed since the last frame. This helps you save on file size. Because of this, LosslessCut will shift your endpoint to the nearest keyframe, which is actually the correct data to start a file. These keyframes are signified by the white lines throughout the timeline. The duration between keyframes depends on the file you're importing and the level of compression it has.
Now, under export, there is an experimental feature called smart cut, where it will try and render the little segment between keyframes for you. While results may vary, if that could work reliably, it would have to be the fastest, most precise video trimmer out.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- 👍 Extremely fast export speeds due to no re-encoding.
- 👍 Lossless editing preserves original video quality.
- 👍 Ability to cut and merge multiple segments easily.
- 👍 Free and open-source, available on major desktop platforms.
- 👍 Simple drag-and-drop interface.
Cons
- 🤔 Cuts typically snap to the nearest keyframe, potentially reducing precision.
- 🤔 Smart cut feature for precise cuts is experimental and may not always work perfectly.
Availability and Cost
LosslessCut is readily available for download. You can find the free links for Mac, Linux, and Windows on its GitHub repository. Scroll down the main page to the readme section to locate the download links for the latest release. While the software is free when downloaded directly from GitHub, there are also store links (like the Mac App Store or Microsoft Store) where a paid version is available. This serves as a way to support the developer. If you use the free version and love it, consider donating to Mikhail Finstad, the developer behind this incredibly useful tool.
