What's the easiest way to join MPEG-2 segments?

October 4, 2006 9:25 AM

I have a set of about two dozen DVD-ready MPEG-2 files that I'd like to combine into one file without re-encoding. What's the easiest way to do this? I can do under XP or OS X, but XP is preferred.

I am using Sony DVD Architect to build the DVD itself, and it seems that joining separate MPEGs into one title is the only thing it won't do. The MPEGs were created using AviSynth, which craps out if I try to combine them in the source, so it seems I can only do it after the fact. If I Google for MPEG joining software, I get tons of results that all look similarly dodgy. As I said, Mac or Windows is fine, but the Mac is a MacBook and the Windows machine is a Dell desktop with about twice the processor and RAM, so I'd rather use the latter.

posted by aaronetc to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Best answer: Check my AskMe thread here: command line video editing, which will give you several options. I ended up using mpgtx and ffmpeg.

If you aren't comfortable with a command line there are GUI frontends for most of the tools listed in that thread.
posted by voidcontext at 9:30 AM on October 4, 2006

I have used Camel's MPEGJoin for this exact purpose on numerous occasions, until something changed on my machine and the app now crashes when I execute the join. Probably a system-level issue particular to my machine, so you might give it a go.
posted by Danelope at 11:08 AM on October 4, 2006

I generally find videohelp.com to be a good resource for these kinds of questions.

Check the HowTo -> Edit section (on the left side menu) for your particular case.

One phrase to keep in your head when searching around is "direct stream copy", which is what you are looking for.
posted by blind.wombat at 11:41 AM on October 4, 2006

i'm not sure why you want just one file - but of course you can just burn them all on one DVD and then string them together (e.g. at end of 1 jump to start of 2...).
posted by kamelhoecker at 1:01 PM on October 4, 2006

Response by poster: They're meant to be one long video, but DVD Architect won't combine clips into one title. There's a slight search delay between each one as it moves to the next title.

I'll try ffmpeg tonight when I get home -- I use it quite a bit, but didn't know I could use multiple inputs. mpgtx I've used to segment audio so I'll try that if ffmpeg doesn't work.
posted by aaronetc at 3:18 PM on October 4, 2006

Believe it or not, this should be possible just using the "copy" command from the command line. I did it myself with a video, though I can't remember exactly how I did it. I've searched the web for the right syntax, and I think this site has it, though it talks about .vob files:

copy /b A.mpg + B.mpg outputFile.mpg

Try that and see if it works.
posted by kingjoeshmoe at 3:33 PM on October 4, 2006

if you want to try just globbing all the files together, open a "Terminal" window


# go to where your files are...
cd Desktop
# add as many files as you want...
cat 1.mpg 2.mpg 3.mpg > all.mpg

posted by kamelhoecker at 3:16 PM on October 9, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks for everybody's help -- mpgtx did the trick (with Audacity handling the audio) and I'm now ready to go!
posted by aaronetc at 4:46 PM on October 10, 2006