How do I join avis of different dimensions together? Or add borders?

[thedarkness]

I am joining literally hundreds of small family mobile avi videos together which will be added to a final family dvd (which also has photos etc). depending on which way around I have held the camera/mobile, the avis are either 144x176, or 176x144, or larger but in the same similar inverted dimension fashion. I have tried freevideojoiner(.com)'s program to join the avis together into a single file, but when watching it, I notice that the videos with the second different dimensions are stretched out! Obviously this is because the program sets the final file to the dimensions of the first video that was added. Programs such as Avidemux and Virtualdubmod do not help in being able to add borders (and seem to have problems in appending (adding) different files together with different dimensions, even if they are in the same format (avi) - unlike the easy to use freevideojoin program which had no issues........

So I am now looking for a simple tool that can add black borders of a custom size to all my avi files, without stretching the video? A program that can do this AND be able to add borders to a group of files at once is also necessary, as then I will only have to use the "add custom borders to avi program" twice (two batches-for each of the above dimensions). I have around 70+ files to add, and dont want to have to add borders to them all one at a time lol

I would then have two batches of videos, now both with the exact same dimensions (including borders), before joining them all together in freevideojoiner once more, after that to be added to my dvd creation software (which does accept avi). That way they would all be able to merge together without any stretching of any videos. Any help would be great, if anyone knows of such an "border adding program" - as a last resort if anyone knows of a program that can do this but only accepts other video formats, that would be of use too, as I could always convert my movies first to the accepted format, then add the borders-some of these vids are of a low quality that no major loss would be noticable after changing formats

thanks for any help if possible

[jagabo]

There's no need to join them before editing. Just use VirtualDub or AviDemux to add borders and save them all with the same properties. If you give them filenames with sequential numbers they can be easily joined together later.

[thedarkness]

thanks - my fault in thinking "append" was in reference to adding my videos to virtualdub "as a batch", instead of it actually meaning it would join them all together-lol. I wasnt wanting to join them before editing, only afterwards (when they then have borders added to them) for putting into my dvd creation program. virtualdub and avidemux dont seem to let me add my videos as a batch of files - avidemux seems to be the buggiest, and wont accept all my files, even when they are from the same source/camera

I dont want to have to add borders to every file, one by one, as I have loads of small mobile videos to add the same borders to, in the exact same areas of each video. for example, I want to change 40+ video files (around 30 seconds max each) that are all "144x176" to "176x176" by adding extra space (a black border area) to the left and right of the image, and the same borders to the top and bottom of the "176x144" videos (also making them 176x176).

Ive managed to add borders in virtualdub now (found the resize filter!), but can I not add all my files in one go, instead of having to edit them one by one, since I have alot of files? thats why I was looking for a tool that wouldnt even bother with a preview, it would just accept my edit dimensions for the new borders, after I have told it which folder all my files reside in

[jagabo]

VirtualDub does have some batch processing ability. You can open the first file, add borders and compression settings, the put the job in the queue. Open the next file (it will use the same filters and codec settings) add it to the queue. Repeat for each file. The start the batch processor.

VirtualDubMod is used by many other programs to perform batch processing. Maybe you can work out a CLI batch file that will work with that.

[thedarkness]

good to know virtualdub does support it - I will try that tomorrow - thanks

[thedarkness]

yep its working fine

I noticed earlier (when joining-not that Im doing it now) that I was getting errors such as "this segment has a different number of streams"... Im assuming this was because some of my videos have no audio soundtrack, so I am wondering (if I ever needed to do it) how I would go about adding a track of silence?

Is there an easy way to do it? Just incase I join them all later in a different program and receive errors, Im trying to find out the easiest way to add a track of silence, without having to use full processing mode on the video? Perhaps I am better off using a different tool to join them than virtualdub, but if I receive the same error I may have to add a track of silence anyway.

thanks

[sambat]

I don't know if you use Audacity, but you can generate a silent audio track and save it .
Load it into VirtualDub from the Audio menu.


.

[thedarkness]

I have audacity, thats a good point-simply add an audio track to the video using virtualdub! ill try that if I have any problems when joining - I only know of virtualdub and the utility in my first post as freeware to join video, hopefully I wont receive any errors when doing so, but if I do ill post here.

thanks

[jagabo]

AviDemux is more forgiving of slight differences when joining files.

[thedarkness]

I have now tried joining up my bordered avis in avidemux - they join up ok, but only the audio from the first joined file is present - the rest of the video is completely silent! The sound in each individual bordered avi is definately there, so Im not sure why this is happening.

I also want to join mp4 videos to add to the same final dvd - I can add mp4s straight to the dvd creation program, so Im needing to join mp4 without re-encoding. So far, I have tried Format Factory, Imtoo media joiner, Ultra Video Joiner, Free Video Joiner, and AviDemux, and they all fail to join mp4. From google, many users have issues with joined mp4 - are out of synch, some areas of video are missing, or crash/are unable to finish the joining process! Is there something with mp4s that makes them a hard formats to work with? I tried converting to avi first, but with the best settings, Im getting poor quality avis/blockiness. The mp4s I have on the hd now are a fairly high resolution - perhaps thats why some tools cant join them correctly?

Joining mp4 files in avidemux almost works if I set the video to "copy", but it will give errors if audio is also on "copy". It joins them when set to mp3, but is out of synch. my final video in wmp and vlc jumps alot with less frames, although the quality is good. could there be something missing in the original mp4s, causing problems when joining? I have just added a joined mp4 to moviefactory dvd creator - its final dvd preview is a blocky and almost unrecognisable, so it would seem mp4s are not the most compatible format!