Combine mpeg2 videos on mac

[mattr]

Hi. I have 4 720p MPEG2 videos from my tv card that I want to combine into a single video. The first video is 40 minutes and the other three are about 20 minutes in length.

After reading something on the internet (which i've forgotten where it was), my first idea was to transcode all the videos into h.264, then use MPEGStreamclip to combine them, but after close inspection i couldn't find the option in MPEGStreamclip to append video. The other problem with that solution is that h.264 transcodes take forever unless you have a powerful Mac Pro, which I don't.

If anyone can help me out here, that would be fantastic

[mhar4]

It's inelegant, but you should be able to copy, cut and paste MPEG2 videos straight in MPEG Streamclip without transcoding.

Something like open - select all - cut - open no.2 - paste clipboard - repeat

[mattr]

I forgot to mention, I don't have the Quicktime MPEG2 plugin.

[mhar4]

That makes it more complicated.

[tomlee59]

What type of video do you need/want for the final version? Standalone MPEG2? MPEG2 in the context of an authored DVD? Divx? h.264? Don't care? This information is important, because the answer to that question constrains the choices of software.

Operating directly on MPEG2 requires the MPEG2 component from Apple, basically (there are other options, but no workable free ones that I'm aware of). So, you can transcode into an intermediate format (like h.264, as you thought of), stitch the result together with some appropriate tool, and either view the result, or finish off by transcoding to another format.

So, just as an example, you could use ffmpegX (not free, but certainly inexpensive) to convert to DivX in an avi container, merge the avi's, and then do whatever you want to do with that (including leaving it alone).

Or, you could pay Apple a modest sum, get the MPEG2 component, and use MPEGStreamclip to do the joining.