Avidemux/VirtualDub help!

[tigerb]

1) Is Avidemux more or less the same thing as Virtualdub? I can see both can do just about the same thing.......I know how to use Avidemux to "append"/join three files and convert/resize to a new file, can I use VirtualDub to do the same thing? I can only do one file at a time with Virtualdub, as I don't see the "append" option? or it's not called "append" in Virtualdub?

2) I used Avidemux to join/convert/resize 3 files into a new file, MPC plays that file no problem, however my the other two players wouldn't play it and I'm getting this message (attached) from Virtualdub when trying to open the file..what did I do wrong and how to prevent this from happening again?

Thanks.

[AlanHK]

In VirtualDub, open one file, select, copy.
Open another, put the cursor at the beginning, end or wherever, paste. You have appended.

And in AviDemux, perhaps you can get a more usable file using Tools/Rebuild Frames.

[tigerb]

Thanks AlanHK, I'm bad....still couldn't figure it out...I see now there is "Append avi segment", but I'm trying to merge/append 3 .wmv files...is that the reason I couldn't do it in Virtualdub?

[poisondeathray]

if you have the vdub .wmv plugin, you should be able to import, but you cannot export as .wmv; you have to re-encode and use .avi container if you use vdub (or sometimes you can put wmv video in .avi container)

another option is joining .wmv files with asfbin first

[AlanHK]

Thanks AlanHK, I'm bad....still couldn't figure it out...I see now there is "Append avi segment", but I'm trying to merge/append 3 .wmv files...is that the reason I couldn't do it in Virtualdub?

VDub is primarily for editing AVI files. It isn't a good choice to operate on WMV.
It doesn't operate on them at a low level.
As poisondeathray recommended, try Asfbin.

[DarrellS]

If you have the WMV plugin and the newer versions of Virtualdub, it works fine with WMV. You can't append WMV in Virtualdub but you can use direct stream copy to save the file in an AVI container which Virtualdub will then append or you can use asfjoin (asfbin) to join the WMV files in an asf container with wmv extension.

[tigerb]

Thanks poisondeathray, DarrellS and again AlanHK.

Asfbin is excellent for my other identical .wmv files, however it wouldn't let me join my these particular 3 .wmv files cause the "audio blocks aligns are different", or is there a way for Asfbin to ignore the audio part, so that it can join those 3 .wmv parts?

My other option is to use VirtualDub/Avidemux to convert all 3 .wmv files separately into .avi files first and join all three again, is this my best option? cause it's only 1 conversion and the joining will not involve 2nd/additional conversion, and it's the same as using Avidemux to append all three .wmv files first and then convert (also one conversion), right?

Thanks again for your help.

p/s yes, I have the WMV plugin and the latest version of Virtualdub

[DarrellS]

If the files are different then you'll probably have problems in any program. You could try a simple repair in asftools. That's the program I meant instead of asfbin. There are other options in there like saving a wave file or even recoding the file if you have to do that

I'd be tempted to open the files in Virtualdub, direct stream copy just the video into avi files and save the audio as wave files and use Goldwave or Audacity to join the audio files, then append the avi files and add the joined audio file. This way you don't have to recode the video.

You could try to direct stream copy the video and compress the audio but VDub would probably still refuse to append the avi files since it's very picky about what it will and will not append. Avidemux might append them though.

[tigerb]

Thanks again DarrellS.

You could try to direct stream copy the video and compress the audio but VDub would probably still refuse to append the avi files since it's very picky about what it will and will not append. Avidemux might append them though.

That's what I did in the 1st place using Avidemux to join/append all those 3 .wmv files and I got the non zero start position thing (attachment on 1st msg).

I reprocessed all 3 .wmv files separately into 3 .avi files the long way using VirtualDub and join them together again using VirtualDub 8) and now all 3 media players including Avidemux/VirtualDub can open that file with no errors!

Best regards.