How do I join MPEG2 files?

[t_shirley]

I've recently captured a home movie from a VHS tape using PixeDV and Ads Instant DVD for Mac. Because of the bad quality of parts of the tape, PixeDV kept on crashing so I have had to capture 12 bites sized MPEG2's adding up to about 3 hours of footage. I am now in a position where I want to join all the MPEG2 files together. No editing or fancy stuff just bolted together. Once this is done I was going to use Capty to make some menus etc. and then export to ts-video/audio folders which I can import into DVD2One and compress onto a 4.5 Gb DVD. My question is how do I bolt them together? and is the route I am going afterwards the best way? Thanks in advance for any help.

[galactica]

depending on the type of dvd you plan to make, the authoring process itself will "bolt" them together for you automatically

otherwise, anything like ffmpegx or mpgtxwrap should connect them into one large .mpeg for ya

[t_shirley]

When you say the authoring process what do you mean? There doesn't seem to be a way in CaptyDVD to import multiple MPEG2.

[Frobozz]

One option is to use MPEG2 Works join tool. Another is to place the different MPEGs in CaptyDVD and choose the continuous play mode.

And you can drag multiple MPEG2 files into CaptyDVD. The problem is each one shows up as an individual title. After you have six on a title page you need to add another title page to fit up to six more, and so on. There may be a way to hide the titles from showing up on the title menu, but I'm not certain. There is no way that I know of to join MPEGs together in CaptyDVD, but using the continuous play mode creates that effect.

[t_shirley]

I'll have to have a play with Capty. Not too familiar with it and the manual isn't much good. Once I export to Video_TS files though, DVD2One will compress it for me won't it?

Thanks for your help.

[Frobozz]

You're not going to like me saying this after the struggle to get the video captured, but why didn't you just capture the video in PixeDV at a low-enough bit rate to fit 3 hours of video on one disc?

I don't use DVD2One so I don't know if if it's processing will interefere with CaptyDVD's continuous play function.

What I'd do in your situation is put the movie on two discs. After all, you already have the movie split into smaller pieces. This way you retain the quality and lessen your grief preparing the DVD.

[t_shirley]

You're right of course but I wanted the highest quality I could acheive and if I could have captured the lot in on go I would have but as I say PixeDV kept bombing out when the video got dodgy and i've ended up with these 12 MPEGs. I think as long as I can create a Video_TS, Audio_TS file then DVD2One will compress it for me. I've done this with DVDs that i've backed up. I think Capty will acheive the results I want it's just the manual is so awful it's difficult to figure out how! I have burnt captured MPEGs straight to DVD and found that the audio is out of sync.

[sickdimension]

thats funny, if you check not too long ago, i had the exact same problem, except i had 29 parts. i used mpeg2works to join them.