[MEncoder-users] How to join avi files with x264 streams?

[Another Sillyname]

On 8 May 2010 20:57, Grozdan <neutrino8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 8:06 PM, Josef Wolf <jw at raven.inka.de> wrote:
>> On Sat, May 08, 2010 at 05:06:44PM +0200, Grozdan wrote:
>>> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 4:50 PM, Josef Wolf <jw at raven.inka.de> wrote:
>>> > On Sat, May 08, 2010 at 03:31:53PM +0200, Grozdan wrote:
>>> >> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 3:29 PM, Josef Wolf <jw at raven.inka.de> wrote:
>>> >> > On Sat, May 08, 2010 at 01:41:05PM +0200, Grozdan wrote:
>>> >> >> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Josef Wolf <jw at raven.inka.de> wrote:
>>> >> >> > On Fri, May 07, 2010 at 10:29:31AM -0500, Laine Lee wrote:
>>> >> >> >> On 5/7/10 1:00 AM, "Josef Wolf" <jw at raven.inka.de> wrote:
>>> >> >> >> > I have captured my old VHS recordings with mencoder and created x264 avi's
>>> >> >> >> > using two-pass with those options:
>>> >> >> >> >
>>> >> >> >> >   -ovc x264 -x264encopts
>>> >> >> >> > bitrate=800:pass=2:subq=7:frameref=15:subq=6:frameref=15:me=umh:partitions=all
>>> >> >> >> > :8x8dct:direct_pred=auto:me_range=64:trellis=2:bframes=5:b_pyramid:weight_b:th
>>> >> >> >> > reads=auto:nr=1000
>>> >> >> >> >
>>> >> >> >> > In the next step, I want to join some of those files. I tried:
>>> >> >> >> >
>>> >> >> >> >   mencoder -ovc copy -oac copy -o outfile.avi file1.avi file2.avi
>>> >> >> >> >
>>> >> >> >> > But the resulting file has some strange artefacts in the first ten seconds
>>> >> >> >> > after the join position (that is, in the first ten seconds of file2.avi)
>>> >> >> >> > which are _not_ present in the original file2.avi.
>>> >> >> >> >
>>> >> >> >> > Why does "-ovc copy" do any manipulations on the stream?
>>> >> >> >> >
>>> >> >> >> > Any ideas?
>>> >> >> >>
>>> >> >> >> Can you use "MP4Box -cat"?
>>> >> >> >>
>>> >> >> >> http://gpac.sourceforge.net/doc_mp4box.php
>>> >> >> >
>>> >> >> > jw at ubuntu:MP4Box -cat 01.avi -cat 02.avi t.avi
>>> >> >> > H264/AVC Video format not supported in AVI - please extract to raw format
>>> >> >> > first
>>> >> >> > Error appending 01.avi: Feature Not Supported
>>> >> >> >
>>> >> >> > Do I have to re-encode into another format first? But then I would loose
>>> >> >> > quality?
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> No, you have to do exactly as it says above. Extract the video from
>>> >> >> the avi container. Done like this
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> MP4Box -aviraw video yourfile.avi
>>> >> >
>>> >> > Yeah, this seems to work. But now I loose A/V-sync again =:-(
>>> >> >
>>> >> > This is what I do:
>>> >> >
>>> >> >  MP4Box -aviraw video file1.avi
>>> >> >  MP4Box -aviraw video file2.avi
>>> >> >
>>> >> >  MP4Box -aviraw audio file1.avi
>>> >> >  MP4Box -aviraw audio file2.avi
>>> >> >
>>> >> >  MP4Box -cat file1_video.h264 -cat file2_video.h264 out.h264
>>> >> >  MP4Box -cat file1_audio.mp3  -cat file2_audio.mp3  out.mp3
>>> >> >
>>> >> >  MP4Box -add out.mp3 -add out.h264 out.mpg
>>> >> >
>>> >> > What am I doing wrong?
>>> >>
>>> >> You need to pass the correct -fps value to MP4Box, which by default uses 25fps
>>> >
>>> > Umm, the recordings _are_ 25fps...
>>>
>>> And I'm supposed to know that how?
>>
>> Oh, sorry ;-)
>>
>>> There must be some other problem..
>>>
>>> What kind of sync problem? Does it start right away or does it
>>> gradually build up over time?
>>
>> At the start is is OK, but after a while it gets out of sync. Then sync
>> gets better again, then worse again, and so forth.
>>
>>> If this doesn't work, you can always try it with ffmpeg instead of
>>> mencoder. Just use multiple -i option, eg
>>> ffmpeg -i file1.avi -i file2.avi ...
>>>
>>> and copy audio and video with -acodec copy -vcodec copy
>>
>> So now I tried
>>
>>  ffmpeg -acodec copy -vcodec copy -i file1.avi -i file2.avi out.avi
>>
>> but here I get only the first file, the second seems to be ignored.
>
> That's because the -i option must always come first! ;)
>
>>
>> Seems to be a really hard to join avi files :-(
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Mate

x264 can have problems in an avi container due to size related issues
which are far too boring to go into here....

x264 can sit in an mkv container very happily however.

So depending on the distro you are using install mkvtoolnix

then use a line like.....

mkvmerge -o /path/to/outputfile.mkv /path/to/first/inputfile.avi
+/path/to/second/inputfile.avi

there is also a gui frontend that allows you to see the tracks etc.....

I use it in scripts to merge files that have had the adverts stripped
and it works great.