merging clips

[Phalter]

There are multiple options for merging clips, however which is the best one without intrusive hooks?
I am currently capturing it with Vegas and m2t format but later will be doing 4k with mpg 4
I realise that I can do it with Vegas, but wanted something simpler, quicker, + reliable without editing or format changing etc
thanks

[Baldrick]

You can try join/merge with tsmuxer. Add the first m2t, join the rest, output as a new m2ts.

[Phalter]

Thanks Baldrick. I'll have a go at it.

[Phalter]

Hi Baldrick I have not yet tried it with the m2t file but tried it with an MP4 which it reported was not compatible. Do you have a suggestion what I should do with those files.. These come cut up straight off the camera via usb3 I suppose this comes from the fact that USB 3 as opposed to Firewire does not provide continuous data transmission.. Is that the issue?
Thanks

[Phalter]

@baldrick. Since my earlier posts I went off and found MP4Box which supposedly joins MP4 files. and have tried repeatedly to join video clips without finding any output from the programme. I watched the uTUBE VIDEO and think I am following the plan. I can see the files waiting to be joined, give an out put file, and click join.. ?Then the programme runs showing :"joining" at the bottom of the screen, however when it stops, I can't find a file.
I wonder whether the problem is that I am joining 4K UltraHD files? Do you have a suggestion about another joining solution or any recommendations?
Thanks

[Baldrick]

mymp4boxgui? or some other mp4box gui?

[Phalter]

Thanks for your suggestion. That is what I was trying repeatedly yesterday.. Perhaps I am doing something wrong, but so far it has not worked. i have a surface pro3 with 500 gig SSHD and quad core I7 so I thought it would be fast enough.The video file i was working on is 35 gigs. ie not so large but is in 25 clips in my file, I just wanted to put it together to get an overview of it. The camera stores the video in clips on the card which I transferred to the computer.
Thanks

[Baldrick]

Must it be mp4?

If MKV is okey could you try mkvtoolnixgui, open/add the first mp4, open the rest mp4 files by right click under input and choose Append files. Last start muxing to make a new mkv.

[Phalter]

My camera is the panasonic Lumix GH4. I think it only puts out 4K as an mp4 file. I am not familiar with the other file format. I am enquring at Panasonic about a programme that will handle their output, and will report back. I tried running mp4Box which loaded the files and ran to completion, but all I found were shortcuts to nothing.Avevid also just died.( I may have misspelled its name)
I think I will have to load the clips into Vegas and see what happens there.That is supposed handle 4k

[Baldrick]

You can still use your mp4 files. But the joined file will be a mkv if you use mkvtoolnixgui...it should be much easier than joining with vegas.

And if you must have mp4 as output could you try mkv2mp4 after.

[Phalter]

@ Baldrick Thanks for all of that information. It will take me time to digest and try it.Do you know of a book that covers this subject. I hate ploughing ignorantly through all of this There are so many formats, and wrappers that are being used, and the technology is so sophisticated that I feel like the sorcerers apprentice. Yesterday I was reading that the wrapper is a critical component and I suppose that anincompatibility there might be fouling up the programmes So far Panaonic has not replied to my questions..
Thanks for your interest and willingness to teach.

[Phalter]

p.s. I just want something that is viewable. To make a formal video, I would need to edit, and provide titles etc for which I was thinking of using Vegas. Another issue lurking in the shadows is whether Windows and Vegas with currently available machines are even adequate for 4 K videos. I am thinking of installing a ssolid state drive and am also wanting to get a sufficiently fast NAS system . With all of these issues it is difficult to make informed decisions. I was really concerned by the failure of the surface pro to do this simple task.

[smrpix]

p.s. I just want something that is viewable. To make a formal video, I would need to edit, and provide titles etc for which I was thinking of using Vegas. Another issue lurking in the shadows is whether Windows and Vegas with currently available machines are even adequate for 4 K videos. I am thinking of installing a ssolid state drive and am also wanting to get a sufficiently fast NAS system . With all of these issues it is difficult to make informed decisions. I was really concerned by the failure of the surface pro to do this simple task.

Vegas is fine. But to edit 4K at this time you need a fairly beefy leading edge machine and a RAID, a simple NAS and tablet is insufficient. Even top post production facilities are using HD or lower for actual editing and then linking back to their high resolution source material for non-realtime final output.

[Phalter]

@smrpix Thanks for your insight.. When you say leading edge machine what do you mean? I have a quad core I7 with 16 Gb Ram and will install a Terabyte of SSHD in a Dell . the NAS could provide RAID with striping, but that is not a good option for data security. I have been recommended a to look at a USB 3 Raid system which is faster than 1 Gigabit /sec ethernet. (10 Gigabit/sec ethernet is still prohibitively expensive for me. )That is certainly not as much processing power as I would like to have, but I was hoping thatwith a Terabyte of SSD I would be able to keep most of the work in that memory. I wish Windows would allow machines to be integrated to provide me with some increased parallel processing, however there is no software around that I know of ( .My tablet is a surface pro and also has an I7 with 0.5 TB SSHD but only 8 gig RAM. and I would like to be able to utilise both machines. )
It seems that Apple provides more powerful machines.. but where should I go with a PC?
Thanks indeed for your comments.

[Phalter]

Baldrick Thanks for your recommendations about tsmuxer and adding one file then adding the others. I am adding m2t files. but find that as soon as I attempt to paste it into the pager there is an error message to the effect " cannot detect stream type" It happens whenever I try to enter the files. I did not press the Add icon beofre doing it thinking that I would do it after the first file had been acceptedl.Perhaps I should have presed Add first?? I will retry it. However I am clearly doing something wrong. Could you help please
Phalter.
p.s I went back and used the add button to search for the video clips however the programme did not recognise the clips that were in the folder they were labelled in sequence like this. Clip 001.m2t
I tried clicking on the different descriptive options like Blue Ray etc but it made no difference. I don't know why it is like this. The clips are easily read into Vegas and play with the sound.
pps
I have subsequently done more searching and found that perhaps the M2T format needed to be converted to MTS
I don't know whether this is the way to go nor which converter is simple and not going to insert unwanted files or cookies etc on my machine. Perhaps there is a muxer for M2T????????
Thanks
Thanks Terence

[Baldrick]

Can you post the details from the m2t. Open it in mediainfo, View->Text and copy everything. Because Tsmuxer supports most formats...

[Phalter]

Thanks Baldrick I got median info running , but found that I could neither save the output nor copy it. I therefore typed it into Word which I am appending. There may be some typos but I didn't see them. I did not copy the sheet or tree views etc though will do that if you need it.
I really appreciate your prompt response and help
The fie is titled container and general info I am afraid the formatting is not exactly like the screen output, but I think it will make sense
Thanks

[Baldrick]

You can copy from mediainfo if you choose View from the menu and change to Text. Then Ctrl-a(Select all) and Ctrl-C(copy).

[Phalter]

General
ID : 255 (0xFF)
Complete name : C:\Users\xxxxxx\Videos\HD Videos remaning images\Phase 2\2008\August Seafair\Clip 001.m2t
CompleteName_Last : C:\Users\xxxx\Videos\HD Videos remaning images\Phase 2\2008\August Seafair\Clip 104.m2t
Format : MPEG-TS
Commercial name : HDV 1080i
File size : 10.6 GiB
Duration : 59mn 6s
Start time : UTC 2008-08-04 02:19:57
End time : UTC 2008-09-15 02:46:18
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 25.6 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 33.0 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2008-08-04 02:19:57

Video
ID : 2064 (0x810)
Menu ID : 100 (0x64)
Format : MPEG Video
Commercial name : HDV 1080i
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@High 1440
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Custom
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=15
Format settings, picture structure : Frame
Codec ID : 2
Duration : 59mn 6s
Bit rate : 24.0 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 25.0 Mbps
Width : 1 440 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 (30000/1001) fps
Standard : Component
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.514
Stream size : 9.89 GiB (94%)
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 2068 (0x814)
Menu ID : 100 (0x64)
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 2
Codec ID : 3
Duration : 59mn 6s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 162 MiB (1%)

Menu
ID : 129 (0x81)
Menu ID : 100 (0x64)
List : 2064 (0x810) (MPEG Video) / 2068 (0x814) (MPEG Audio) / 2069 (0x815) () / 2065 (0x811) ()

[Phalter]

Here it is.
Thanks

[Phalter]

Hi Baldrick, While you are looking at my m2t files , I thought I would return to the other problem that I gave you namely muxing UHD mp4 files. You recommended that as I was having difficulty with MP4BOX gui, that I should merge them into an mkv file with mktoolnixgui and then if necessary convert them back to an MP4.. Well I downloaded the programme and ran it on a full i hour video. It ran well and finished in about 10 minutes and produced a 30 gigabyte output file. I thought I would view it and tried VLC-media-player and windows media playe. I don't know whether they are actually able to play that format. Anyway they ran though the VLC player had no sound, and both stalled at the end of the first clip. In the case of VLC player the cursor coninued to run. It may be that they do not play that format. However I would appreciate your guidance on where I should go from here. At least the programme ran quickly to completion and generated a reasonable sized file. So this is progress. The images seemed pretty good though I could not tell whether they were still UHD or just HD.
Thanks for allowing me to ask so many questions.

[poisondeathray]

Since you are using vegas , it can smart render HDV

This means it passes through (stream copy) sections that you just do cuts only editing on. Which means same quality , same filesize (minus the bits you cut out), same format, very fast. For sections that you have done more manipulations (eg. color correction, transitions), it will re-encode, but it will still pass through the other sections untouched

[poisondeathray]

I haven't used HDV in years, but it appears old versions 8,9 are better at smart rendering. Some good test data here
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/showmessage.asp?messageid=915317

If you're just concatenating them end to end, you can probably use ffmpeg. It's not the easiest to use (command line), but the concat demuxer method will join them seamlessly without problems
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Concatenate

[Phalter]

thanks PDR I am just working with the clips that came off the camera. I wanted to show what I had taken. I tried the two muxers that Baldrick recomended and the mp4Box just failed and the second one worked but seemed not to get the clips assembled properly . They would not plan in VLC. Thanks for your suggestion I will try the options you suggestred. I have Vegas 12 not the latest, but I can only feed it the clips that I have which may not all be of the same length.
Anyway I'll give it a go.

[Baldrick]

OKey. I would also try Vegas if it can stream copy when you join.

If that fails can you try poisons ffmpeg suggestion, but it's not that super easy(command line), you can see an ffmpeg concat guide here: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/376939-Join-MTS-files-with-tsMuxeR?p=2432682&viewfu...=1#post2432682 . YOu can try output as .ts or. mkv.

[Phalter]

Thanks Baldrick. I will do that, and thanks for helping me with both of these problems.. You would think that Sony and Panasonic would have thought a bit of the users needs when they created these great cameras. THe images and sound are great, but everyone has to processs these clips. I would have thought that the software would have been set up at the same time.here must be a booming market for it.