Not to detract from the point, but if you are using ffmpeg to process raw video files, you can just use the "-ss" parameter on input and "-t" on output to get w

Not to detract from the point, but if you are using ffmpeg to process raw video files, you can just use the "-ss" parameter on input and "-t" on output to get what you want. It'll seek and avoid unnecessary reads. ffmpeg -f rawvideo -r ntsc -s 1920x080 -ss 3:00 -i some_file -t 5:00 output_file