HOWTO: easily join separate mpeg files into one file.

[fleshnblood]

To join separate mpeg files (for example a movie) into one smooth mpeg file:

cat file1.mpg file2.mpg file3.mpg... > filename.mpg

Pay attention to the order of files after the cat command, it will determine the sequence within the final file.
This will ONLY join the files! It has NO EFFECT on the quality.
It DOES NOT work with AVI files!

[poptones]

Actually, it does work with avi files or ANY files split with something like hjsplit.

It will also work on ANY AVI files so long as you have mplayer installed. After joining some arbritrary group of AVI files via "cat," tell mplayer to rebuild the index

mencoder -forceidx -oac copy -ovc copy infile.avi -o outfile.avi

[fleshnblood]

Actually, it does work with avi files or ANY files split with something like hjsplit.

It will also work on ANY AVI files so long as you have mplayer installed. After joining some arbritrary group of AVI files via "cat," tell mplayer to rebuild the index

mencoder -forceidx -oac copy -ovc copy infile.avi -o outfile.avi

Thanks for the tip, I haven't tried it through mplayer. When I joined AVI files with cat, the final file was OK in terms of picture but the audio was shifted. So I guess mplayer fine-tunes it, right?

[poptones]

I will try. If a file is made with MP3 (especially vbr mp3) it may not be able to do so. MP3 doesn't have a fixed frame size and so is ill suited to video soundtracks, but that doesn't stop people from (mis)using it.

If you cannot get audio and video to synch (because someone made the audio mp3) an easy way to correct this is to save the audio to a file as pcm, then use mplayer to add it back (you can specify separate audio and video files). I use 4 bit ADPCM for audio - it's larger than MP3 but it is fixed size, synchs perfectly, and the distortion it adds is much more tolerable than the darth vader whooshing added by mpeg codecs.

[bluebyt]

Thank you very much! I was looking for that since I installed Ubuntu 1 month ago.

cat Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.001 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.002 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.003 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.004 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.005 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.006 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.007 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.008 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.009 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.010 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.011 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.012 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.013 > Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `('

Where is the syntax error, please?

[dude2425]

Thank you very much! I was looking for that since I installed Ubuntu 1 month ago.

cat Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.001 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.002 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.003 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.004 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.005 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.006 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.007 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.008 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.009 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.010 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.011 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.012 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.013 > Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `('

Where is the syntax error, please?

Try \'ing before all the ('s and )'s.

Can this method be applied to mp3's like audiobooks?

[nmyrick]

Thank you very much! I was looking for that since I installed Ubuntu 1 month ago.

cat Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.001 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.002 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.003 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.004 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.005 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.006 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.007 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.008 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.009 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.010 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.011 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.012 Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg.013 > Madonna\ -\ Hung\ up\ (live\ at\ EMA).mpg
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `('

Where is the syntax error, please?

You need to change directory into the \Madonna file by entering 'cd Madonna' in the terminal. Then you don't have to put the directory in for every file. That's probably your syntax error.

[fleshnblood]

I will try. If a file is made with MP3 (especially vbr mp3) it may not be able to do so. MP3 doesn't have a fixed frame size and so is ill suited to video soundtracks, but that doesn't stop people from (mis)using it.

If you cannot get audio and video to synch (because someone made the audio mp3) an easy way to correct this is to save the audio to a file as pcm, then use mplayer to add it back (you can specify separate audio and video files). I use 4 bit ADPCM for audio - it's larger than MP3 but it is fixed size, synchs perfectly, and the distortion it adds is much more tolerable than the darth vader whooshing added by mpeg codecs.

Can you please write a "step by step" for the above to get it work.
I'm still very new to these things

Thanks.

[DirtDart]

It will also work on ANY AVI files so long as you have mplayer installed. After joining some arbritrary group of AVI files via "cat," tell mplayer to rebuild the index

mencoder -forceidx -oac copy -ovc copy infile.avi -o outfile.avi

Sweet...this will come in handy; thanks for the info.

[DonVla]

or easier:

mencoder -oav copy -ovc copy -o output.avi 1.avi 2.avi