Converting and merging multiple files and retaining quality

[techmot]

Anyone know if there's a programme that can merge multiple video files and retain much of the quality?. I have been using Lossless Cut but it only merges files of the same format and codec, obviously as it merges the files together without reencoding. I have a couple of home video files but some have been recorded on different cameras in two formats, one from my Panasonic HD camcorder in the .MTS format, and the other recorded in MP4, and these files are in date order so it becomes abit of a pain to merge them all together unless I encode them to a different format, ie MP4, MPEG-2, AVI, etc which will know doubt lose quality. There's also the issue with framerates, my Panasonic files were recorded at 25FPS, and the Samsung camera files in MP4 where recorded at 30fps (no idea why it records at 30 frames). Handbrake would be too confusing as it seems to give only the option of 108030fps, 57625fps, 480p etc (the MTS files were recorded in 1440x1980, and the Samsung camera file were recorded in 1280x720), plus if you set the quality to the highest number the outputted file size is double the original.

[_Al_]

Different formats cannot be joined, because each format has a specs on how it should be read. Rules are different and cannot be changed in the middle of a video.

Create a directory, dump your files there and rename them: 01 some video, 02 other video etc.

After your setup, all devices will play them in order. Or if using a PC, upon dumping them all, playlists will be created and player will play them all in order (if a decent player is used).
No re-encoding is needed.

To get an one file out of different formats, you need to re-encode, so you must choose final delivery stats and a high bitrate enough, or better low CRF constant quality if using x264 encoder, about 18 or lower.

If it's for YouTube, join them in YouTube editor etc.

[techmot]

Different formats cannot be joined, because each format has a specs on how it should be read. Rules are different and cannot be changed in the middle of a video.

Create a directory, dump your files there and rename them: 01 some video, 02 other video etc.

After your setup, all devices will play them in order. Or if using a PC, upon dumping them all, playlists will be created and player will play them all in order (if a decent player is used).
No re-encoding is needed.

To get an one file out of different formats, you need to re-encode, so you must choose final delivery stats and a high bitrate enough, or better low CRF constant quality if using x264 encoder, about 18 or lower.

If it's for YouTube, join them in YouTube editor etc.

I prefer encoding them and burning to a DVD, and I know that current versions of Windows allows you to drag and drop files (AVI or MP4, not sure about MPEG-2) into the disc drive and burn to a disc as it is without re encoding to play on a DVD player, but not every DVD player will play the files. The problem with encoding as the variation of framerates, audio and video bitrates and frame sizes, and this creates a problem for me in knowing what should encode the merged files to. I tend not to just rely on an external HDD to store and play the files from, I always back them up on a physical DVD. I have previously re-encoded the files in Nero Recode as MP4, but I'm guessing there would've been some loss.

[Lord Rakim]

convert the files to a lossless codec or a intermediate format for editing like Pro-Res.....

then load them in a NLE like vegas, shotcut, etc and render it and you should be good....