Request help for merging split files.

[Daniel Bragg]

I have *finally* gotten an (at this point) moderately manual process together that works for me to get the .MPG files that are created from GBPVR burned onto DVD. The process currently requires PVAStrument to demux the file and convert it into the MPV format that Cuttermaran seems to require.

It's worked great for 11 movies that I can now finally remove of my hard drive. However, there's two movies that had synching errors in the demux process, and PVAStrumento created multiple sequentially numbered MPV files after it detected and re-synched the audio, but now I don't know where in the process to merge those files back to one, or how to do it, for that matter.

I'd like to very briefly explain my current process, and offer it up to those who can tell me where I need to re-merge these files (and how), but also see if there's anyone who can suggest how to automate the steps more. So far, I'm happy with the process as a whole, but am open to optimizations of any sort.

1) Demux - PVAStrumento
2) Remove Commercials - Cuttermaran
(Includes Remuxing via ImagoMPEG and Encoding via TMPGEnc)
3) Convert to ISO - DVD Flick
4) Shrink VOB files if necessary to fit on DVD - DVD Shrink
5) Burn to DVD - ImgBurn

Thank you in advance to anyone who chooses to offer help or an opinion,

Daniel

[martint123]

I use VideoRedo as a first step with my mpeg files. I use it to chop commercials (manually at present) and as part of rewriting to disk it seems to get rid of any audio glitches. Not a freebie though. Quick as well and might save you getting the smaller chunks from your other app.

Hmmm, there might be a freebie http://downloads.zdnet.co.uk/0,100000037...51s,00.htm

Their "TV Suite" might even do everything on your list.

[HtV]

MpegStreamClip is a free one:
http://www.squared5.com/
It works fast and without demuxing etc. Cuttermaran works fine but is not very user friendly.

Hans

[Daniel Bragg]

Had a look at VideoRedo and their TV Suite, and decided to give it a pass if I could find something suitable for free.

MpegStreamClip works like a charm for merging together the split files, and as soon as I have a new (unprocessed) movie, I'll give it a run for the cutting. I've gotten used to Cuttermaran now, and don't find it that difficult, but not being able to use MPG format files by default is a little bit of a pain. I see that ComSkip can now generate some Cuttermaran support files, so I'll see if that eases the pain a little.

Thanks all, for the above help - if there's any more out there, I'm all ears!

Daniel

[ACTCMS]

Google "free fast mpeg cut" - not much use for joining, but great for cutting files into segments (like spiltting a concert up into individual songs)

[daveid]

ProjectX is my choice for combining steps one and two. It cuts commercials and de-muxes. I would then just use ImagoMPEG muxer to re-join those files if not further processing. Myself, I take those demuxed files and create a d2v with DGIndex and compress my audio (with dbpoweramp). Then using GordianKnot, compress that video to h.264, and finally mux back in my audio (ogg vorbis) to a mkv file.. But this is for viewing on computers not standalone dvd players.

[ilovejedd]

Similar problem. Mommy dearest has asked me to record one (or three) of her Lifetime movies and wants it converted to DVD (for watching on her portable DVD player). Files were recorded with a WinTV-PVR-USB2 using the default "High" quality setting (target bitrate: 5500, max bitrate: 9000).

Is it possible to just cut the commercials from the recordings and go straight to DVD authoring or do I have to re-encode the file? If it's yes to the former, what (preferably free) tools would you recommend?

[HtV]

You might want to check out her dvd player, it might very well be capable of playing mpg's. That would save you the hassle of converting to dvd-format.

Hans

[ilovejedd]

You might want to check out her dvd player, it might very well be capable of playing mpg's. That would save you the hassle of converting to dvd-format.

Hans

Unfortunately it's not. It requires DVD Video structure. It's actually the only DVD player in the house not capable of MPEG-4 SP playback, otherwise, I'd have converted them all to XviD and burned onto one DVD5. Methinks it's time to gift her with a new portable player, but I've still got to recover from all of my recent spending (3 new PC builds, GPS, lotsa anime & manga).

Besides, it's not the DVD authoring itself that I'm finding problematic. That one's easy assuming the MPEG streams are already DVD compliant (which I think the recordings should be). It's finding a decent, easy to use, preferably free or inexpensive MPEG cutter and joiner. I've tried mpg2cut2, mpeg2schnitt and cuttermaran but I was having problems with them. To be fair, though, I was working on a somewhat messed up OTA HD recording (bunch of corrupted frames due to lost signal) so I'll probably give them another try. Can you guys recommend other decent MPEG cutters?

For my own archive, I convert recordings to h.264 and commercial cutting is done via Avisynth.
1) Automatic Post-processing - ComSkip + DGIndex
2) Remove Commercials - VirtualDub + Notepad
(double-check comskip generated file with vdub for accuracy and add fixed start and end frames to avisynth script)
3) Convert to h.264 - MeGUI

If I can't do a straight cut and join, I figure I'll just go with the same method I use for my own recordings with the following modifications:
3) Convert to DVD compatible stream - ffmpeg
4) DVD Authoring - TMPGEnc DVD Author

Thanks for all the help.

[daveid]

musta missed my post.
ProjectX, followed by ImagoMPEGmuxer. burn and go.