The AVI file size limitation push me to work and split my video capture to many AVI files which must be encoded one by one with my MPEG Encoder.

Which will be the best windows program who can able me to union those several MPEG files ( VideoCD compliant ) into only one huge MPEG file ?

MPEG_1.MPG + MPEG_2.MPG + MPEG_3.MPG = Final.MPG

Please let me know.

-- Roberto Gomez Torres (robertogt@bigfoot.com), January 21, 2000

Answers

Try this in msdos prompt type:

copy MPEG_1.mpg+MPEG_2.mpg+MPEG_3.mpg Final.mpg

-- Steve (nguyens1@rocketmail.com), January 21, 2000.

Steve,

Are you sure the method you suggested can work? Have you tried it yourself?

-- Daniel S Lee (siangneng@sp.edu.sg), January 22, 2000.

Go get yourself VCD Cutter 4.01

-- Angel (foo@bar.com), January 22, 2000.

Hi

Sorry if I sound like a know it all. But the DOS command posted here is wrong.

The correct command should be: copy /b file_01.mpg + file_02.mpg + file_03.mpg final.mpg

or

copy /b file1.mpg + file2.mpg + file3.mpg final.mpg

How to do this....... The first thing you need to do is to put all the mpg files you want to join together inside the same folder. Next, open your notepad and write the dos command into it. When you are done, use "Save As" and choose a filename and add the extension ".bat" so that the notepad file becomes a DOS batch file otherwise it becomes a text file. This file should also be saved in the same folder as the mpg files you want to join.

This is important. If you take a careful look at the DOS command, you will note there are spaces between parameters and no spaces within the filenames. The DOS batch file will not work correctly if you don't follow these requirements.

For example, if your mpg file is saved as "MY TRIP.mpg", use your Window Explorer, press "F2" to invoke renaming the file and either delete the space between the words "MY" and "TRIP" or alternatively, insert "_".

Some people say that you shouldn't run a DOS batch file when Windows is running, but I have sucessfully joined umpteen movies without having to shut down my system. All you have to do is double-click the DOS batch file and the DOS window will open and carry out the instructions you have written.

All these sound complicated but believe me, it is easier than it looks and after a few times, you can write this instruction from memory.

-- NT (i1x@nightmail.com), January 23, 2000.

Why bother to go thru all that crap when VCD Cutter 4.01 will do the job for you

-- Angel (foo@bar.com), January 23, 2000.

Thanks NT for correcting my dos command syntax. Anyway, for future reference if anyone want use use a dos command and forget what is the correct syntax you just need to type in the switch /? after the dos command, for example: copy /? dir /? fdisk /? etc

Hope this would help

-- Steve (nguyens1@rocketmail.com), January 23, 2000.

Hi Steve You are welcome. The dos tip is great. We hardly work in dos now but we know it comes in useful when needed (ie, crashesesssssssss!)

Hi Angel Cinax iFilmEdit can also do the same job. Not familiar with VCD Cutter 4.01 so I won't comment on it. But the DOS command makes it really really fast. Try it and you will know how fast it is. You just need to write out the command once and place it in a special folder. When you want to join your mpg files, just drag them to this folder and make sure their names are the same as those you have written in the DOS batch file and double-click it. Besides, it's FREE.

Regards NT

-- NT (i1x@nightmail.com), January 23, 2000.

This D.O.S. command is nice, but has anyone REALLY tested it? Personally, I hardly believe that this can work because MPEGs are not .txt files, how can you be sure that the resulting file will be a legal MPEG? Binary files usually have "end of file" signals and other data regarding other issues such as the filesize, etc. that simply won't be removed by the copy+ command. IMHO the expected result is that the final MPEG plays OK until it reaches the first union point, then the application would abort or freeze or something.

So again, if anyone tested this with positive result let us all know.

-- Matias (petrellm@telefonica.com.ar), January 24, 2000.

Well, I tested the 'copy' method... I found out that it works in some cases: I encoded to small files with LSX 3.0, NON VideoCD compliant... I indeed can glue them together with the dos command.

But now I have two large files (both about 10 minutes), which are VideoCD compliant, but now the DOS command doesn't work. When you load the large file (the two together), it says the length of the video is the length of the first file. I can't seek in the file (not correctly, you can see the frames when sliding the position bar in Windows Media Player, but you can't play the file from a new position, only from start). And the file won't play past the end of the first clip.

So, I don't think the DOS command is working fine for everyone. I'm still searching now for a program to union multiple mpg's. I have recorded a video from television, and have now multiple mpg's (the commercials cut out), and need to glue them together.. *sigh*..

Awhell,

bye, Joris

-- Joris Mak (dippie@operamail.com), January 25, 2000.

IMHO I think that the best choices are: I-Film edit (but I've found that it introduces some random green blocks here and there - not always! - so you will need to inspect the result before proceeding) Mpeg-vcr by Womble Multimedia (this appears to work fine; only trouble is the poor clip quality in window display - but the final result will be ok). Forget VCD Cutter if you need to do something really VDC compliant. Good Luck Brambus

-- Brambus (kdwbr@tin.it), January 25, 2000.

The Dos command:

I got it to work on the PC full screen using Cyberlinks PowerPlayer but my DVD player stopped at the first joint.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), January 26, 2000.

I'm not sure if it will work but I found a patch for Vidcap on the net that allows you to surpass the 2 gig limit. I downloaded it but never tested it

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), January 27, 2000.

I am a bit late coming into this discussion but.....

1) The 2G or 4G limit that exists is very easily overcome when using an editing program like Adobe Premiere, it disappears. The requirement is to use clips that do not exceed 2G's on the timeline (9 minutes). You do your edit and using the Panasonic plugin encoder you can go directly to the mpeg-1 file which of course must not exceed the CD capacity. You need a lot of hard drive space to fill a CD, my 10G drive allows me to make tracks of about 24 minutes, 3 to the CD, accessible by VP4 menu.

2) Another option involves standalone encoders which do have, at this time, a 2G input size limitation, so.... the timeline originals must be resized using another codec such as the Intel 5.11 as an intermediate type 2 avi of less than 2G in size. I have used this method also and the time per track increases slightly to about 33 minutes. That file is then converted to mpeg-1 using an encoder. Time taken to produce the final with this method is much longer.

3) I cannot understand why encoders do not have the ability to batch encode more than one avi into a single mpeg file, LSX promised this months ago and have not delivered yet. That would make a third option available to those who do not want to get involved with the likes of Premiere or it would make for easy combination of files generated in 2) above.

In relation to actual capture, the best analogue capture program by far is the Swiss AV_IO program that has almost unlimited capability, in digital, well thats another story and hopefully one day soon AV_IO will also be DV compatible! I will post the site in the useful downloads string.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), January 27, 2000.

Try out CAMEL's MPEGJoin at http://extra.newsguy.com/~theprof. Works great for me.

-- The Shadow (downtown@netzero.net), January 28, 2000.

Shadow, what is the cause of the second of two files running in slow motion?

Anyone else have that problem?

Pecks AVI joiner did not have that problem.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), January 31, 2000.

If your using Adaptec to creat Vide CD's just leave the MPG's the way they are and when you add them to yout play sequence put them in the right order and they should play seamlessly.

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), January 31, 2000.

i have tested a lot of mpeg cutter/joiner programs and have came to the following reults:

* womble mpeg-vcr is the best and most vcd-compatible but a bit slow. * vcd cutter is really fast but not very vcd-compatible * TMPEGEnc is both fast and compatible (i believe) but complains if the input mpeg file is a bit corrupted. * the reason the dos copy/b command works sometimes is that mepg files have a frame header not a file header, so a part of an mpeg movie is (mostly) playable. but this is NOT A TRUSTED METHOD. some programs will not play such movies at all (Windows MediaPlayer being one). * at this very moment i'm downloading a prog that joins mpegs, ican't judge it yet but try it for yourselves and give me an answer. http://www.webattack.com/php/download.php?id=3527&app=mpgmerger

**** by the way, if anybody can get me (free) info on the "mpeg file format & mpeg header format" i can write a prog to cut/join mpegs. (i have searched a lot but i cannot find anything for free and currently i have a better use for my money (not that i have a lot of it ;-)

sorry for talking too much, hope it's usefulllllllllllllll!!!

-- Joseph Yehie (msy1@scs-net.org), November 03, 2001.