<p>The issue you are seeing is a limitation of your video file format.  In order to get such high levels of compression, modern video is encoded such that only some frames are fully described.  The remaining frames are described by how they differ from those frames coming before or after them.  The frames of video that are based on a given full frame are called a GOP or group of pictures.  </p>

<p>In many file formats, it is not possible to setup the video to start or end on a point that is not the beginning or end of a group of pictures without re-encoding which would result in quality loss.  What your file splitter/joiner is likely doing is grabbing the nearest start/end of a group of pictures that includes the part of the video you wanted and starting/ending there.  If the GOP is large, then this could potentially be some amount of time away from where you actually tried to make your cut.</p>

<p>You could use a transcoder to re-encode the footage, but this would result in a loss of detail since you would have an additional generation of compression loss.  You could also possibly try moving it to a container that allows arbitrary start and end points when playing back (basically just skips the start and end of the GOP on playback) but that would depend on the video players you use supporting the feature and having the actual encoding in a codec that is supported by such a container format.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-12T13:34:46.017Z
2017-10-12T13:34:46.017Z
AJ Henderson
<p>I'm using <a href="https://free-video-cutter-joiner.en.softonic.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">free video cutter joiner</a>, it's simple and very fast. However, sometimes it's not that sharp. I mean I set cut point from A to B, for example 01:25 (1 min 25 sec)to 01:55, then the output vid is like from 01:20 rather than 01:25... a five seconds shift, which is terrible.</p>

<p>Would anyone suggest a simple video cutter that is sharp in the same time. Thanks!</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-12T03:49:14.277Z
Questions related to software recommendations are off-topic for this site. But you might want to search on this site for existing questions about what free video editors are available, because it has been asked and answered multiple times.
stib
<video><video-editor>
Sharp video cutter in Windows
AhmedWas
# Sharp video cutter in Windows

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-10-11)

I'm using [free video cutter joiner](https://free-video-cutter-joiner.en.softonic.com/), it's simple and very fast. However, sometimes it's not that sharp. I mean I set cut point from A to B, for example 01:25 (1 min 25 sec)to 01:55, then the output vid is like from 01:20 rather than 01:25... a five seconds shift, which is terrible.

Would anyone suggest a simple video cutter that is sharp in the same time. Thanks!

**Tags:** video, video-editor

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Questions related to software recommendations are off-topic for this site. But you might want to search on this site for existing questions about what free video editors are available, because it has been asked and answered multiple times.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2017-10-12. Score: 1

The issue you are seeing is a limitation of your video file format. In order to get such high levels of compression, modern video is encoded such that only some frames are fully described. The remaining frames are described by how they differ from those frames coming before or after them. The frames of video that are based on a given full frame are called a GOP or group of pictures.

In many file formats, it is not possible to setup the video to start or end on a point that is not the beginning or end of a group of pictures without re-encoding which would result in quality loss. What your file splitter/joiner is likely doing is grabbing the nearest start/end of a group of pictures that includes the part of the video you wanted and starting/ending there. If the GOP is large, then this could potentially be some amount of time away from where you actually tried to make your cut.

You could use a transcoder to re-encode the footage, but this would result in a loss of detail since you would have an additional generation of compression loss. You could also possibly try moving it to a container that allows arbitrary start and end points when playing back (basically just skips the start and end of the GOP on playback) but that would depend on the video players you use supporting the feature and having the actual encoding in a codec that is supported by such a container format.


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