Need to trim parts of a lengthy video and create short clips? You don’t have to pay for a premium video editor for this task. There are several free options you can opt for, like Format Factory, HandBrake, QuickTime Player, VLC Player, etc. We will show you how to cut videos in quick steps using HandBrake in this tutorial.
Get the video editor
HandBrake is an open-source video transcoder built by volunteers around the world. We can use it for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs. It is compatible with multi-platforms, Windows, Mac and Linux. In this guide, we will make use of its Windows version to chop off unwanted section of a video on PC. You can also use it to shorten videos on Mac and Linux as well. Make sure to download the right edition according to your OS.
Cut videos in HandBrake
Launch HandBrake on your computer, open the video or movie file you like to edit in HandBrake. Find the Range at the upper section of the main interface. You will see Chapters and a down arrow in the field. Click on the Chapters to expand the dropdown list and select Seconds from the list. Now you will get two boxes to specify the timing for the starting and ending points in seconds.
Alternatively, you can also select Frame from the Range dropdown menu to select the starting and ending frames for more accuracy since most videos usually contain 24 frames or 30 frames per second.
You may need to use another video player on your PC to play the source video and thus get the time stamps or starting and ending frame numbers of the video you want to trim. The HandBrake preview tool is too basic to help you make the accurate selection.
Optionally go to select the Preset you want by clicking on the drop-down button beside Preset, select output video format under the Summary tab, choose video codec from the Video tab, choose a location and folder to save the video from the Save As field at the bottom.
Finally click on the Start Encode button from the top toolbar to save the trimmed video to the folder we have chosen in the Save As field above.