I have recently started watching the fab serialized movie Bloodspell, which is created entirely in Neverwinter Nights.
Bloodspell is released in a series of 6-7 MB files. So far they’re up to part 7. This certainly makes it easier to download on to my laptop and enjoy 10 minutes of Bloodspell at a time. However, I want to burn this to a DVD and watch all seven at once on my home DVD player. Before I did this I just wanted to string together the 7 .avi files into one larger file. (I can’t stand a mess!) Sounds like a simple request? Guess what, in my distro, Ubuntu, it is!
This will most likely work on just about any linux distro that includes the ability to install mplayer/mencoder.
First, let’s get the right programs.
sudo apt-get install mencoder mplayer
Now that the hard part is out of the way, we’re going to make use of the wonderful cat command. I’d renamed each Bloodspell video as b1.avi - b7.avi. Now to string them all end to end.
cat b1.avi b2.avi b3.avi b4.avi b5.avi b6.avi b7.avi > bloodspell.avi
Now we’re 2/3 of the way there! Stringing together .avi files can cause a breakdown in the sync between video and sound. So, we’ll use mencoder to sort things out.
mencoder -forceidx -oac copy -ovc copy bloodspell.avi.avi -o bloodspell_final.avi
That’s it! You’ve got one contiguous .avi file now containing all seven bloodspell releases to date. This will of course work with other .avi files. It will also work with .mpg or .mpeg files as well.
Later we’ll discuss getting this .avi file on to a DVD so you can watch it anywhere.
geek out.
Technorati Tags: linux, ubuntu, avi, mpeg, join avi, i(heart).avi
August 7th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
This will also work:
mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy file1 file2 file3 … -o final_movie.mpg
and please stop talking about ubuntu like it was a godsend, everyone knows that archlinux is much much better
August 7th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
Hey, thanks for the mencoder tip. And what is this Archlinux that you speak of? Damn. Now I’ve got another distro I’ve got to go install and check out.
November 5th, 2007 at 8:03 am
avimerge from the transcode package was designed for this task. and as far as i know, it was created before ubuntu. ;P
avimerge -i b1.avi b2.avi b3.avi b4.avi b5.avi b6.avi b7.avi -o bloodspell.avi
http://www.transcoding.org/cgi-bin/transcode
November 5th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Excellent suggestion Phil. Thanks!
February 4th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
How can i fix this¿?
root@guille-desktop:/home/guille# apt-get install mplayer mencoder
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
mencoder: Depends: libasound2 (> 1.0.14) but 1.0.10-2ubuntu4 is to be installed
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.6-1) but 2.3.6-0ubuntu20.5 is to be installed
Depends: libdvdread3 (>= 0.9.6) but 0.9.4-5.1 is to be installed
Depends: libfontconfig1 (>= 2.4.0) but 2.3.2-1.1ubuntu12 is to be installed
Depends: libfreetype6 (>= 2.3.5) but 2.1.10-1ubuntu2.4 is to be installed
Depends: libgcc1 (>= 1:4.2.1) but 1:4.0.3-1ubuntu5 is to be installed
Depends: liblame0 (>= 3.97) but 3.96.1-1 is to be installed
Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.6) but 5.5-1ubuntu3 is to be installed
Depends: libpng12-0 (>= 1.2.13-4) but 1.2.8rel-5ubuntu0.3 is to be installed
Depends: libstdc++6 (>= 4.2.1) but 4.0.3-1ubuntu5 is to be installed
Depends: libx264-54 but it is not installable
Depends: zlib1g (>= 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-1) but 1:1.2.3-6ubuntu4 is to be installed
mplayer: Depends: libasound2 (> 1.0.14) but 1.0.10-2ubuntu4 is to be installed
Depends: libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.13.2) but 1.11.4-0ubuntu1 is to be installed
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.6-1) but 2.3.6-0ubuntu20.5 is to be installed
Depends: libcaca0 (>= 0.99.beta11-1) but it is not installable
Depends: libcairo2 (>= 1.4.0) but 1.0.4-0ubuntu1.2 is to be installed
Depends: libcucul0 (>= 0.99.beta11-1) but it is not installable
Depends: libdbus-1-3 (>= 1.1.1) but it is not installable
Depends: libdbus-glib-1-2 (>= 0.74) but 0.60-6ubuntu8.1 is to be installed
Depends: libdvdread3 (>= 0.9.6) but 0.9.4-5.1 is to be installed
Depends: libfontconfig1 (>= 2.4.0) but 2.3.2-1.1ubuntu12 is to be installed
Depends: libfreetype6 (>= 2.3.5) but 2.1.10-1ubuntu2.4 is to be installed
Depends: libgcc1 (>= 1:4.2.1) but 1:4.0.3-1ubuntu5 is to be installed
Depends: libggi2 (>= 1:2.2.1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.14.0) but 2.10.3-0ubuntu1 is to be installed
Depends: libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.12.0) but 2.8.20-0ubuntu1.1 is to be installed
Depends: liblame0 (>= 3.97) but 3.96.1-1 is to be installed
Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.6) but 5.5-1ubuntu3 is to be installed
Depends: libpango1.0-0 (>= 1.18.2) but 1.12.3-0ubuntu3 is to be installed
Depends: libpng12-0 (>= 1.2.13-4) but 1.2.8rel-5ubuntu0.3 is to be installed
Depends: libpulse0 but it is not installable
Depends: libsdl1.2debian (>= 1.2.10-1) but 1.2.9-0.0ubuntu2 is to be installed
Depends: libstdc++6 (>= 4.2.1) but 4.0.3-1ubuntu5 is to be installed
Depends: libx264-54 but it is not installable
Depends: libxcomposite1 (>= 1:0.3-1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libxdamage1 (>= 1:1.1) but 1:1.0.2.2-0ubuntu2 is to be installed
Depends: libxfixes3 (>= 1:4.0.1) but 1:3.0.1.2-0ubuntu3 is to be installed
Depends: libxrandr2 (>= 2:1.2.0) but 1:1.1.0.2-0ubuntu4 is to be installed
Depends: zlib1g (>= 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-1) but 1:1.2.3-6ubuntu4 is to be installed
E: Broken packages
root@guille-desktop:/home/guille#
February 4th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
guille, what version of Ubuntu are you running this on? Are you using non-stable repositories?
February 28th, 2008 at 3:48 am
Listen to what Mr. Pr0n said. Forget that UUOC and use mencoder directly
April 29th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Try using Jfuse (http://www.jfuse.com). It joins all types of media files.
October 15th, 2008 at 12:30 am
using ubuntu 8.04, with mencoder installer. I joined the mpeg files using cat then encoded both ways first tried arsgeek instructions and joined 1 file, then used Mr Pr0n instructions and made a second file. The issue is that I have sound but no video ? any ideas….. thanks for the help
November 4th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
lalo: totem movie player does not show the video, but it is there. Try opening the file with mplayer or avidemux. However, there seems to be something wrong with the file created that way: both mplayer and avidemux refuse to fast forward it; I don’t know what causes that problem.
November 4th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
OK, I figured it out. If you want to merge mpg files you must use this:
mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy -of mpeg part1.mpg part2.mpg -o all.mpg
November 22nd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
come on… buy a real computer and use iMovie/Quicktime/After Effects/Nuke/…
January 4th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Yea, what nic said! Blow all sorts of money on inferior crap that’s locked down hard and is prone to breaking just so you can be a fanboy too!
February 16th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Thanks for the tutorial. it works great !
August 16th, 2009 at 10:23 am
works great, thanks.
September 14th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Typo:
mencoder -forceidx -oac copy -ovc copy bloodspell.avi.avi -o bloodspell_final.avi
Should be:
mencoder -forceidx -oac copy -ovc copy bloodspell.avi -o bloodspell_final.avi