FFMPEG Splitting MP4 with Same Quality

If you want to just split the video without re-encoding it, use the copy codec for audio and video. Try this:

ffmpeg -ss 00:00:00 -t 00:50:00 -i largefile.mp4 -acodec copy \
-vcodec copy smallfile.mp4

Note that this only creates the first split. The next one can be done with a command starting with ffmpeg -ss 00:50:00.

This can be done with a single command:

ffmpeg -i largefile.mp4 -t 00:50:00 -c copy smallfile1.mp4 \
-ss 00:50:00 -c copy smallfile2.mp4

This will create smallfile1.mp4, ending at 50 minutes into the video of largefile.mp4, and smallfile2.mp4, starting at 50 minutes in and ending at the end of largefile.mp4.

An Alternate way of doing it is:

Create a 2-min clip, starting after 10 minutes:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:10:00 -to 00:12:00 -c copy output.mp4

• -i input file
• -ss start time in seconds or in hh:mm:ss
• -to end time in seconds or in hh:mm:ss
• -c codec to use

The quality of the file stays the same because we use -c copy to copy the original audio + video streams to the output.

Reference, List of commonly used FFmpeg commands: DigitalFortress