Join multiple series of mpg files?

[Chasden]

Hello,
I've searched on here (using google site:forum.videohelp.com and many different search terms), and couldn't find exactly what i need. I also can't figure out how to do this in VirtualDub or AVIDemux.

I want to easily merge many separate series of mpg files. I know how to merge files in VirtualDub; it's actually quite easy. The problem is, I can only merge one set of files at a time, which is extremely time consuming!

I'll give an example:

I have a set of files in a directory:
video1-01.mpg
video1-02.mpg
video1-03.mpg
............
............
video1-12.mpg

video2-01.mpg
video2-02.mpg
video2-03.mpg
............
............
video2-10.mpg

video3-01.mpg
video3-02.mpg
video3-03.mpg
............
............
video3-15.mpg

This goes on and on all the way to video 175! Thousands of small files that must be merged into hundreds. Right now I know how to merge video 1, then close, delete small files, and start over again with video 2. This will take hours or even days if i work on them one at a time. Is there a way to make VirtualDub (or anything else) merge all the video1 files, then the video2 files, and so on for all 175 series? Notice also that each series has a varying number of files to join (sometimes ten, sometimes 12, sometimes more).

Thanks for your help.

[Baldrick]

Use videoredo(free trial), file->open video and hold in shift to select ALL mpg files.


If you are looking for a free method you can try a file joiner. Use for example vobmerge, add all mpg files, save as video.mpg file. Then you must "fix" the header data in the mpg, open it for example it in avidemux and save as new mpg. It might not work perfect though.

[Chasden]

You say select ALL mpg files. I assume this means it will then create 175 separately joined files in this case? Or one HUGE mpg?

[Baldrick]

No, both methods will create one file. In videoredo you choose Join after you opened all files.

And remember that ALL mpg files must have same properties like resolution/video size, framerate, etc.

[Case]

While this is not true for most video files of other kinds, some MPEG files can be concatenated without errors. Just 'glue' them together.

cat file1 file2 file3 file4 [...] > file_all

[Chasden]

No, both methods will create one file. In videoredo you choose Join after you opened all files.

And remember that ALL mpg files must have same properties like resolution/video size, framerate, etc.

Then essentially this is exactly the same as what i'm already doing with VirtualDub. Select 10-15 files, join, delete, repeat hundreds of times.

[Baldrick]

No, you can select ALL files directly in those apps.

Or you can try find a batch file renamer that can rename all files to video001.mpg, video002.mpg, etc.

[Chasden]

VideoReDo says it's unable to open the files because "AVI files are not yet supported" (i guess my mpg files are actually avis). I just had to hold the enter key for about 4 minutes while it gave me two error messages for every file i had selected!

And somehow holding the enter key while no error message is up CLOSES the program, and the window behind it is (of course) my Explorer window with VideoReDo.exe selected, so of course i ended up opening like 25 instances of VideoReDo!

Hmmm....i think i will NOT be buying this software!

[Baldrick]

Well. Videoredo is a mpeg1/mpeg2 only editor.

Try find a batch file renamer that can rename all files to video001.avi, video002.avi, etc.

[Chasden]

I have a mass file renamer already, but I'm not sure how it will help me in this case. How am i going to distinguish video1 from video2?

Am i renaming video1-01.mpg to video001.mpg? Then what do i rename video2-01.mpg or video47-04.mpg? I don't want them to overwrite each other.

[hech54]

It's time for some "tough love"...
The odds of your 175 mpeg files all having the same EXACT video properties in order to join them was ridiculously low. Now you say they may be AVI files?....175?....same EXACT video properties?....impossible.

[Chasden]

It's not 175 mpeg files. It's 175 SETS of mpeg files (about 10-15 mpegs per set). The 10-15 files within a set are all from the same video, and i'd say definitely have the same video properties.

VirtualDub accepts them just fine.

1. Open the first file (example: video13-01.mpg)
2. Append video13-02.mpg. VirtualDub automatically adds on the rest of the files.
3. Save, and VirtualDub creates video13.avi

Except now i have to do this again, and again, and again!

I'm working with my file renamer now. I'm going to try to work each file into having a .001, .002, etc extension and use HJJoin.

[Chasden]

File renamer successfully renamed every file. I used "1-4a Rename" (that's what the window title says, i don't remember much about it as i downloaded it at least 7 years ago).

1. Replaced .mpg with (nothing), removing the file extension.
2. Replaced - (dash) with .mpg.0

This changed video1-01.mpg into video1.mpg.001, and made the same change for every other file.

Then i placed HJJoin (Join32.exe) in the directory and double clicked it. It joined each set of files and created video1.mpg, video2.mpg, etc. all the way to video175.mpg

EDIT: This only worked successfully for one set of files. For the others, the filesize is correct, but only the first part of the video actually plays. So for video1.mpg, i only see video1-01.mpg, and the video ends. Re-saving in AVIDemux does not solve the problem. In fact, saving in AVIDemux creates a file exactly the same length and size as video1-01.mpg!

Thankfully i backed up the directory, so i can start over. Still looking for a way to batch join these sets of videos.

[Cornucopia]

Here's what I'd do:

Create a batch script (with for/while loop) that creates 175 folders, named 01...175.
Move the each group of files to their corresponding folder (with a 2-panel file manager & drag+drop, shouldn't take too long).
Use 1-4-a-rename to rename files in each folder to video01.mpg...video15.mpg
use mpgtx or similar batch mpg file joiner.
end up with 175 master files that you can use a search tool to find and mass pull back to the root folder (or whatever)

Note: if you ARE using files that aren't similar enough, then you WILL have problems with ANY of those kinds of joiners and you HAVE to do it by hand (and probably re-encode).

Scott

[Chasden]

I've been working with one video at a time in VirtualDub (direct stream copy), and got the first 37 done so far.

Thanks for the help everyone. It's surprising that no utility exists for this purpose, though!
(that can support avis, anyway)

[jm169896]

I'm having the same frustration as you Chasden. I record 100's of really short videos and when I'm ready to create a DVD of them, I'm over the 99 title limit. I'm stuck with having to merge them a few at a time by hand, which is really tedious. I was hoping that since my camcorder places all of the video files into folders named by the date that they were recorded, I could find some software to relieve me of the boring duty of joining them. Ideally there would be software that would scour through each folder and merge whatever video files it finds inside that folder. Then it would move on to the next folder, merge again, etc... I've searched high and low, but haven't found anything. I suspect that some of the open-source editors might do the trick, but I'm not tech savvy enough to know how to write scripts for them. Please please please let me know if you find anything that solves your problem.

[Baldrick]

Nope, no such thing.

Have you searched for some file organizer that can move all files to same folder? Then can you easiler join with for example vobmerge, import and select all files, order them by date, open all, merge as a new mpg.

edit: Search for all mpg files in the windows explorer, copy all, move to a folder. Then join with vobmerge. If you now have mpg files.

[char5564]

VOBMerge worked perfectly for joining my MPGs; super easy, and i didnt have to repair any timecodes or header errors.