Best way to join avi files before encoding to mpeg?
 

:? I'm a bit confused with joining avi files together. I have a few films from the net but unfortunately they are in two parts. I have tried to join them a few different ways but I am looking for some software reccomendations and a few tips if anyone has some. :roll:

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Thanks

There is a post on vcdhelp in the DVD ripping forum about this... I believe the following turned out to be the recommended way to go about it:

1. Open up the first .avi in VirtualDub.

2. Save the audio in uncompressed format (File->Save WAV after turning on Audio->Full processing mode)

3. Set Audio->No Audio, and set Video->Direct Stream Copy and save the .avi (this will save the video without audio).

4. Repeat steps 1-3 for the second .avi.

5. For each .avi, mux the no-sound video with the uncompressed audio. (Not sure which tool does the mux here... I think TMPGEnc can do it)

6. Now, load the first remuxed .avi in VirtualDub, then use File->Append AVI to attach the second. Then save out the resulting full avi.

Remember, this will take a huge amount of disk space! Two 700meg DivX files will turn into two ~600meg DivX files + two ~900meg .wav files, and then that amount of space again for the remuxed file (3GB .avi file). Phew! So 1.4GB + 3GB + 3GB = 7.4GB overall. Obviously, you can delete some of this once you're done, but you probably don't want to do that until you know everything works :)

They did mention that after doing this, if you play the .avi and skip around within it, you might see a/v sync issues. However, after encoding and burning to vcd/svcd, the sync issues seems to disappear. So don't panic if things are out of sync after the combine process.

:D Thanx Daagar, I will give it a go and see what happens.

Join

Open the first videoclip, then select File->Append Video Segment to add other videoclips.
Select BOTH under Audio and Video Direct Stream Copy.
Lasthit File->Save AVI and save the new joined movieclip.

Cut

Open the video
Select BOTH under Audio and Video Direct Stream Copy.
Select the first part by:
1. Drag the bar to the start
2. Select Start
3. Drag the bar to the end
4. Select End
Last save the the new clip with File->Save as AVI
Select the other part and save it.

This is the guide that I followed, which works great to a point. Only , half the audio is missing from the second half of the film. I have tried this with three different films and have the same problem. If anyone can help, please do.

If the AVI files have identical formats (frame height ,width - same compression codec and identical codec settings- also same audio format)
then they can be joined using append in VirtualDub(FREE) using direct stream copy on both audio and video streams.

(divX 5.x files might be an exception )

Files of differing formats need to be re-formatted to identical then joined.

Alternatives are assemble differing format files in Adobe Premier and export the timeline as AVI or whatever