EDIT!.. i'll answer my own stupid question. but ive left the post in case someone else gets use out of it..

the unwanted beginning and end (as well as any ads or the boring middle half hour of Top Gun) can be removed by editing the recording (accessed when playing it) - and then enabling the cutlist when using mytharchive. a good guide is here

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Re ... Recordings

end of edit

hello.

i live in australia. its warm here and the beaches / girls are nice - but tv stations here seem to have a hard time sticking to their schedules. particularly at night.

often shows are 10 minutes or more late in starting.. and therefore finishing.

to ensure that i get everything, i ask mythtv to start recording 5 minutes early and keep recording 5 minutes after the scheduled times.

this is fine when im watching recordings through mythtv - i can just skip to where i want - but occasionally i want to use mytharchive and transcode a recording to dvd. for example, i record family guy eps and want to transcode several of them to a single dvd with a menu.. nice.

the problem is that their might be 5 minutes of crap before and after the show - which i dont want to archive. is there a way to crop the unwanted start and finish of my recording using mytharchive? or Avidemux (i have a dvb tuners)? (would i need to use Avidemux for the whole process?)

from what ive been able to find there's no plugin that does this.. it would be a great idea though (any takers?)

I use avidemux for the whole process, mainly because I want to save them as xvids not DVD. Avidemux is pretty good at cutting of the start, finish and commercials.