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  1. Main Objective: To join 20 movie files (.mov) into one movie to watch on TV screen.

    A friend of mine has about 20 .mov files that he wants to be able to watch on his big screen TV. He uses an XBOX to connect to the TV and then plays the DVDs from the XBOX.

    I installed Windows Movie maker and know that I need to first convert the 20 .mov files to another format such as wmv. Since he gave me 3 DVDs that contains the 20 movies, I am assuming that I will end up having to have 3 separate movies since the DVDs only hold about 4GB.

    So, my question is what format do I need to end up with for him to be able to watch the movies on his TV?

    Also, are my assumptions correct in that I need to:

    1. convert .mov to .wmv
    2. Join individual files to one file, with size being about 4gb
    3. If Windows Movie Maker doesn't join files, get a utility that does.

    Yeah, I'm a real noob when it comes to messing with this stuff) I've been reading through the forum and haven't been able to figure out too much yet.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
    Last edited by zeekstern; 1st Sep 2014 at 13:38.
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  2. DVD players are only guaranteed to play movie DVDs. That's MPEG 2 video in a VOB container with proper authoring. Depending on the properties of your MOV files you may have to double or triple the size of the videos to maintain picture quality. Try something like AVS2DVD.

    Some HDTVs have built in media players that can play videos of of USB thumb drives. They accept a variety of containers and codecs but support varies from TV to TV.
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  3. Thanks for the quick response jagabo. That AVS2DVD utility looks great.

    I was wrong in thinking that they had a DVD player. I called them to see what type they had and what type of TV. Come to find out, they don't have a DVD player. They put it in a XBOX, and then connect the XBOX to the TV. So, my original post is wrong.

    Do you, or anyone know what format an XBOX uses? Geez, I thought I had my ducks in a row.
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  4. Member
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    Originally Posted by zeekstern View Post
    Thanks for the quick response jagabo. That AVS2DVD utility looks great.

    I was wrong in thinking that they had a DVD player. I called them to see what type they had and what type of TV. Come to find out, they don't have a DVD player. They put it in a XBOX, and then connect the XBOX to the TV. So, my original post is wrong.

    Do you, or anyone know what format an XBOX uses? Geez, I thought I had my ducks in a row.
    http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-360/system/watch-dvds-movies
    http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-360/system/audio-video-playback

    The XBox 360 plays DVDs, mov files and wmv files. See the above link for more information about restrictions on media files.
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  5. Hey thanks much usually_quiet!!

    Since the XBOX supports mov files, then all I need to do is to find a utility to join the multiple mov files into one file, and I'll be done. Does that sound right?

    Glad you weren't quiet today
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  6. Originally Posted by zeekstern View Post
    Since the XBOX supports mov files, then all I need to do is to find a utility to join the multiple mov files into one file, and I'll be done. Does that sound right?
    You should check what audio and video codecs are used in the mov files. Some may not be supported. If the Xbox can play the files there's no need to join them unless they are multiple parts of the same movie. If they are episodic you can just burn data discs with as many individual files as will fit on each disc. They'll get at least a text menu when they browse the disc.
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  7. Thanks again jagabo!

    I looked at the Properties of the movie file, and there isn't anything saying what codecs were used. Under Origin, there is an "Encoded By" parameter, but it is blank. There isn't anything about codecs under the Audio or Video section.

    The movies are all of her daughter playing in a basketball game, so I guess I'm stuck joining them. I have started the join process and it takes about 1.5 hours to join 10 movies on the system I am using (only has 4gb mem). I found a joiner called Freemore and am using that.
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    Too late for this project, but there is a tool called MediaInfo that will show the video and audio codecs and other specifications of your media files. Be careful of the installer, but it is a free program many around here use.
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    Originally Posted by zeekstern View Post
    Thanks again jagabo!

    I looked at the Properties of the movie file, and there isn't anything saying what codecs were used. Under Origin, there is an "Encoded By" parameter, but it is blank. There isn't anything about codecs under the Audio or Video section.

    The movies are all of her daughter playing in a basketball game, so I guess I'm stuck joining them. I have started the join process and it takes about 1.5 hours to join 10 movies on the system I am using (only has 4gb mem). I found a joiner called Freemore and am using that.
    The second link in my earlier post tells how MOV files must be encoded for the XBox360 to play them, which is why I told you to look at it.

    On second thought, to save you the trouble of looking at the link, here are the restrictions on MOV files....
    Video Codec: H.264 a.k.a. AVC
    Video profiles: Baseline, main, and high (up to level 4.1) profiles
    Video bitrate and resolution (maximum): 10 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 x 1080 at 30 fps
    Audio profiles: two-channel AAC low complexity (LC)
    Audio max bitrate: No restrictions


    Download MediaInfo and open the MOV file with it. It will tell you the codecs used and other information that you need to determine if the file is playble as is. MediaInfo comes with adware, but as I recall if someone goes to the trouble of reading the installation windows while installing and pays attention to what they say instead of blindly clicking through everything, it is possible to avoid installing the adware. Otherwise they will need to uninstall the adware manually later.
    Last edited by usually_quiet; 1st Sep 2014 at 15:59.
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  10. Originally Posted by Kerry56 View Post
    Too late for this project, but there is a tool called MediaInfo that will show the video and audio codecs and other specifications of your media files. Be careful of the installer, but it is a free program many around here use.
    Thank you Kerry56. I'll grab it as soon as I can.
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  11. The second link in my earlier post tells how MOV files must be encoded for the XBox360 to play them, which is why I told you to look at it.

    On second thought, to save you the trouble of looking at the link, here are the restrictions on MOV files....
    Video Codec: H.264 a.k.a. AVC
    Video profiles: Baseline, main, and high (up to level 4.1) profiles
    Video bitrate and resolution (maximum): 10 Mbps with resolutions of 1920 x 1080 at 30 fps
    Audio profiles: two-channel AAC low complexity (LC)
    Audio max bitrate: No restrictions


    Download MediaInfo and open the MOV file with it. It will tell you the codecs used and other information that you need to determine if the file is playble as is. MediaInfo comes with adware, but as I recall if someone goes to the trouble of reading the installation windows while installing and pays attention to what they say instead of blindly clicking through everything, it is possible to avoid installing the adware. Otherwise they will need to uninstall the adware manually later.
    I did read both links. #3 in the second link said it supports mov files, so I did not read any further. Being a noob in this area, much of the stuff on those pages do not make too much sense yet to me. I figured if it is a .mov file, it must have the correct parts (codecs etc) otherwise it wouldn't be able to be a .mov file. Probably a stupid/incorrect assumption, but for now that is the best I can do)

    Thanks very much for taking the time to post those restrictions for me. It certainly will make it easier for me to check when I get MediaInfo downloaded. Since they have watched movies before, I think they will be in good shape, but will still check the restrictions out for my own education. Lord knows I need it)
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  12. Originally Posted by zeekstern View Post
    The movies are all of her daughter playing in a basketball game, so I guess I'm stuck joining them. I have started the join process and it takes about 1.5 hours to join 10 movies on the system I am using (only has 4gb mem). I found a joiner called Freemore and am using that.
    I don't know that program but 1.5 hours to join 10 files indicates it must be reencoding them. If the audio/video properties and codecs are already suitable for the Xbox they don't need to be reencoded, just appended. That should only take a few minutes. You want to avoid re-compressing the video whenever possible, or recompress as few times as possible. Every compression with a lossy codec will reduce the quality. It's also very common for programs to mishandle the data and create audio/video sync problems, corrupt video frames, etc. The market is full of crap programs that screw up video.

    Originally Posted by zeekstern View Post
    I did read both links. #3 in the second link said it supports mov files, so I did not read any further.
    Mov is a "container", a "box" that holds audio and video, ie, just a method of organizing audio and video data. That audio and video can be compressed with a number of different codecs. The properties of that audio and video can also differ. For example the frame size and frame rate can differ. The audio sampling rate and sample size can differ. All those things must be suitable for the Xbox to play it.

    Originally Posted by zeekstern View Post
    I figured if it is a .mov file, it must have the correct parts (codecs etc) otherwise it wouldn't be able to be a .mov file.
    That couldn't be further from the truth. Say I make a machine that carefully opens a box, picks up a cake, and places it on a rack. What happens when I give it a box full of nuts and bolts? A box full of jello? Even if it's exactly the same type of box it will not be able to deal with those other substances.

    Also, are we talking about the original Xbox, the Xbox 360, or the Xbox One?
    Last edited by jagabo; 1st Sep 2014 at 18:35.
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  13. Thanks very much for the good info. Your example with the container and the nuts makes sense and really helps to unconfuse me, if there is such a word)

    According to MediaInfo everything looks good.

    And you answered my question I haven't asked yet. The 10 files were about 4GB total. After I ran them through the Freemore Video Joiner the resulting file is about 1.4GB. I expected the joined file to be about the same, 4gb. There is no option to just join or append the files so I guess it does reencode them and recompresses them just like you said.

    I have a mpg joiner and a wmv joiner that just appends the files. Both of them are Free versions and many times I end up with the crap movies you are talking about. The one I used for the mov files does not give me the option to just join the files. You simply give it the files you want to join, click Next, and sit back and wait until it is done. I watched some of the joined movie on my PC and the quality turned out pretty good.

    Thanks again for your help jagabo. Much appreciated!!
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  14. I don't deal with mov files much. I belive MPEG Streamclip can append them and produce a big mov file. And Quicktime Pro.
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