[FFmpeg-user] merging or joining videos

[Peter B.]

Rick C. wrote:
> I'm familiar with cat but I believe this only works on .mpg and I would like a way to work on many files such as .avi or .mp4.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think it also depends on which codec you're
using (.avi is just the container).

>  I've also read the instructions in the documentation but I was thinking there's a more updated way than having to convert everything to .mpg first?  Anyways, if someone could point me in the right direction that would be great. 
>   
I've also had the same problem: All documentation I found mentioned
MPEGs and "cat" or yuv2mpeg for piping things together :( This doesn't
work at all for AVI files.

I found a solution that even works bitproof for audio and video, by
using "mencoder" to merge the videos back together. We're using this
method daily in the Austrian national video archive (=Österreichische
Mediathek [1][2]) - but only with intraframe codecs (FFv1 / DV) and PCM
for audio. Additionally, it's also possible to merge *and* transcode the
files in one step! :)
Details can be found in a forum post on "das-werkstatt.com" [3].

Additionally, there's an article on "linuxreview.org" about merging
video files [4] - but I must say that I haven't had a good experience
with "avimerge".

Good luck!
Peter B.

== References:
[1] http://www.mediathek.at/
[2] http://sourceforge.net/projects/dva-profession/
[3] http://www.das-werkstatt.com/forum/werkstatt/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1793
[4] http://en.linuxreviews.org/HOWTO_Merge_video_files