Joining large video files

Hello all. I'll give a cookie to whoever gives me an answer to this question. First of all, I have the 3 boxed sets of the lord of the rings extended versions, they are nice, but sometimes i would rather have them in my hard drive to give my superdrive a breather. I know I can use Handbrake to rip the dvd's to h.264 or mpeg4, which format is better to watch on my macbook?

Also, each of the three movies is split into two dvd's. Is there a good app that will let me smoothly join these two files and make it a big one?

thanky

*quickly bakes some cookies*

 

I recently did this with my Samurai Jack DVD collection.

I used Handbrake to rip each episode into a MPEG Xvid .avi file. I am a fan of DivX/Xvid because of its compatibility with many standalone DVD players, and its playback is very smooth on a computer as well.

You can actually use Quicktime Pro (believe it or not) to piece together video files. It often takes me a few tries to actually get the application to do what I am telling it to do, but it eventually works. All you do is open up both video files (#1 & #2) in Quicktime, Edit->Copy #2, then move your selection points to the very end of the timeline in #1 and Edit->Add to Movie--this is the part that may take a few tries to get it to work.

After you have both #1 and #2 in the same timeline, you can either Save As a self-contained quicktime file, or re-export it into your preferred format.

Hope this works for you. Feel free to post any troubles back on here.

 

H.264 is actually a sub-category of MPEG-4. What Handbrake calls MPEG-4 Video is actually Xvid. Additionally, Handbrake uses the x264 codec for H.264 compression. So, they're both MPEG-4.

MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Information @ Doom9.org

H.264 will give you better quality than Xvid, but it will also take substantially longer to encode.

I use QuickTime Pro to join video too. Another way to do the same thing as sagebrush suggested is to drag the video file into the player and QuickTime will append the movie. By default, when you open a video in QuickTime Pro the selection markers should be at the beginning. So if you have a 2 part movie, just open part 2 first, then drag part 1 into the player and the movie should be appended sequentially. Since you already encoded the movie in Handbrake, you can just use the Save As option in QuickTime. The format of the video from Handbrake should remain unaltered; all that really changes is the file extension. QuickTime will Save the joined movie as .mov.

This method of dragging video directly into the QuickTime window used to work for the free version too. The only difference was that you couldn't directly select Save As. Instead you would need to Quit QuickTime. Then the application would ask you if you wanted to save the changes. I haven't tried lately though, maybe Apple "fixed" that.

Oh, and when working with various MPEG-4 video formats in QuickTime you may need to install Perian.

 

OK guys I am trying to rip the first dvd of fellowship of the ring, but I am kinda confused.



I am supposed to select a file to encode, but there are all those there. I have no idea what to do. Do I do anything with the audio ts folder also?

This is the first time ive ripped one of my dvds so i have no idea what to do...

Edit:

VTS_01_1 to 6, they are all about 1gb in size, so i have no way to tell which one is the movie :S maybe i am missing something.

 

Use MacTheRipper to extract the DVD to your hard drive:

1. Put the dvd in your mac.
2. Quit dvd player if it starts up
3. Run Mac The Ripper (MTR)
4. MTR will default with full disc rip (Movie only doesn't currently work correctly.)
5. Hit "GO" and MTR will rip the disc to your hard drive.

Then follow the HOWTO Rip DVD Movies To Your iPod Using Free Software Guide except make whatever modifications you think are necessary. Like in the first step, choose DVD Folder/Image then browse to the location of the ripped DVD on your hard drive. You do not need to decrease the Picture Size to 320x240 either.

FYI, the movie is actually multiple .VOB files and you can basically ignore the AUDIO_TS folder.

 

Hi Xander thank you! But I was toying around with it a couple of minutes before you posted, and i tried opening the entire folder with handbrake instead of trying to choose a single vob file, and it worked. I chose an ipod touch preset to try it out, and it's ripping away now! it's using both cores @ 80%! yikes!

If this doesn't turn out well I'll give mtr a try. Why do you like it more btw?

 

Apparently they've updated Handbrake. MacTheRipper used to be necessary. I actually prefer to use Windows for DVD backup. I haven't used Handbrake in ages !

EDIT: Handbrake has improved since the last time I used it. Are you planning to watch the video on an iPod Touch? The iPod Touch Preset has a fairly small resolution and the bitrate is low too. The Normal Preset seems like a better choice if you want to watch the movie on your Mac.

 

No I won't be watching it on an ipod touch. At least not for the time being.

I plan on getting one before christmas so I might want to have them converted before that. But I guess I can still convert them normally to my mac and still use the same 720x480 file on an ipod touch?

To be honest I'm not sure why I chose the ipod touch. Just wanted to try something quickly.