Joining WMV/Other Movie Files at different resolutions : Best Software

[Alterego]

Hello Dear All,

I am a total newbie to the world of Movie Editing, Cutting and Joining. Still have some confusions about the way File Formats, Various Codecs and File Types are linked and interdependent. However I am trying to steer my way through.

I have a number of (some new and old) Movie Clips in WMV format (some in 480 x 360 at 500Kbps Bit Rate and some in 352 x 240 at 317Kbps Bit Rate). I am trying to join the relevant clips together to form a big movie and have got varied results. I would like someone to guide me how to go about it. My experience is as follows ;

I downloaded and installed the following software ;

1. Windows Media Encoder Series 9 with Windows Media Runtime and VCM.
2. DivX 6.0 from DivX Website.
3. K-Lite Mega Codec Bundle in Standard Mode (without customzing codec selection)

I searched around and found following software for Merging / Joining AVI,DIVx,WMV files ;

1. Advanced X Video Converter (www.aoamedia.com) ;

The good thing about this software is that I can select multiple file sets and add them to a task list. So my individual file sets can be joined in batch mode. However even in this and other softwares I don't have a selection in the Output File WMV Codec box for my file sizes and bit rates (e.g, 480 x 360 or 352 x 240) it only has a selection of profiles like WMV NTSC/PAL 700/1400 Kbps 640 x 480 and WMV 8 LAN/CABLE T1, which are higher than the video clips I have. So when I used these profile to join my clips the resultant file is relatively bigger with the same quality and takes a WHOLE LOT OF TIME (around 1 hour or so) to join just three clips of roughly 50MB.

2. Ultra Video Joiner (http://www.aone-soft.com/joiner.htm) ;

This software does not have a batch mode, which means I have to select individual file groups manually and have to wait till one resultant file is churned out , before selecting the other file set. Meaning being up all night instead of giving the batch command and leaving it on its own. However the joining speed of this software is relatively much less the other softwares. It joins three 50MB WMV clips in around 20 Min. The same limitation of pre-configured profile selection is here too, so I have to choose a given resolution and bit rate for my output WMV file. One problem with this software is that the resultant file is nstable as well, it cannot be dragged along the time line in the media player. For a remedy i used the "Video Fixer" but that is not a good remedy.

3. Blaze Media Pro (http://www.blazemp.com/video_joiner.htm) ;

The same limitations of not having a batch mode for joining (although there is one for format conversion). The same limitation of not having freedom to select the output resolution and bit rate for WMV, so as to save capacity and time keeping in view the properties of the source files. The resultant files sometimes are fine and sometimes not.

4. Video Fixer (http://www.video-fixer.com)

I had to get this , because some of the output WMV files were not playable correctly in any media player (Jet Audio and Windows Media Player 11) , they cannot be dragged on the timeline and sometimes there is so much lag in the screen output if the time line is dragged. Sometimes if stretched along time line, the existing movie frame is freezed and repeated over and over again. Anyways this software does an OK job of repairing such file, but with me the success rate is 50% only.

Now my question is that can somebody guide me what am I doing wrong over here. What is the best software for joining such media clips with total freedom of resultant file size/bit rate/resolution (which is always dependent upon what source files am I using). And yeah TIME and ability to do in BATCH MODE are important factors. Any guidance is appreciated in selecting a software which can do it in reasonable time with stable and correct output.

Thanks in advance for reading and any response.

Reagrds,
AlterEgo.

[guns1inger]

Pretty much all of the software you are trying to use is, frankly, crap. K-lite will only make things worse.

If all the videos are WMV, then the simplest way to join them is with Windows Movie Maker. It is designed to work with WMV, and is one of the few programs that handles the format reasonably well.

That said, trying to join various clips that all have different resolutions and bitrates, and that are all stored in a highly compressed format, is not going to produce nice clean results. You will have to decide on whether to upsize everything to highest resolution clip, or down scale to the lowest. Same with bitrate. And WMM doesn't batch, however if you are joining them all into one big file, why do you need to batch encode ?

Realistically, you have very little freedom over resolution and bitrate given the relatively low quality of your source.

Another choice might be avisynth using DirectShowSource(). At least you can script up the resizing and joining and run the script (s ?) overnight.

To put it very simply - WMV was not intended for anything but viewing. It wasn't built for editing, joining are working with further. Everything you do with it will degrade the quality to some degree, and starting with such disparate sources means the quality will vary wildly within the final clip.