Program needed: Lossless adding of several video files!

Hello friends,

I´ve once posted a similar topic to this one and I did find some solutions, too...

My movie consists of 13 6 minutes mpeg-1 files. For my DVD program it is best to have just ONE video file that the movie consists of. So now I need a program that can attach several mpeg-1 files to each other. Not re-render them, just attach them. I already found such a program but sadly it made the file bigger. I don´t know why? two 150 MBs files didn´t make 300 MBs but like 600 MBs. So in the end the final file was to big for a DVD.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks


P.S:

Someone know if there´s a way to copy the movie on a self-made DVD to a tape? Like... connecting a videorecorder to a DVD player and just pressing PLAY and the RECORD button?

 

Well, you might want to start by doing things properly...

Go back into your editing app, and render out a SINGLE uncompressed AVI of your film. Then take THAT into your DVD program, and let IT convert the file into a single MPEG-2 file (not MPEG-1, MPEG-2, unless you're trying to make your DVD at Stone-Age level), and then let it burn it.

There is absolutely no reason to have a bunch of smaller files. If your computer can't handle larger files, then get a new computer, yours is obviously far too old to be doing this kind of work.

 

The only reason you would want to have multiple clips is #1 they are all different and not part of the same footage, or #2 you are using Adobe Encore and are wanting to setup a PLAY ALL function.

Just a little extra info there, but JEdi2016 is correct. Pull all your un-compressed footage into your editing app of choice and put them on the same timeline and render out with your choice of encoder.

 

The movie is 78 minutes long. That´s QUITE long. The computer will have to render more than 8 hours to do that! And it will be 12 or so if it has to be AVI! And the "uncompressed AVI" will be larger than 2 DVDs at once!

I´m using Pinnacle Studio (9.3.X) for editing and rendering and Ulead Movie Factory 3.0 for making DVDs.
And here are the specifications of my computer:

Windows XP
AMD Athlon 64 processor 3000+
2.00Ghz, 1,00 GB ram
Raedeon 9800 XT
Creative Audigy 2 ZS

Isn´t that enough? I guess yes.

Anyway. I pretty much believe that Studio 9 will brake down if I tell him to edit a 78 minutes file...

 

Eight hours is nothing for a render.

 

Have you tried? You're aware, of course, that the file isn't all loaded into memory at once, so the program doesn't really care how long it is.

The size of the exported video is unimportant. It doesn't matter if it's larger than a DVD, when you take it into your DVD app, it will convert it to MPEG-2 at the proper compression settings to fit it all on the disc.

Rendering time is also unimportant. 12 hours, huh? Oooooo.. I've rendered shots that took WEEKS, for thirty seconds of footage.

It sounds like you're thinking too much into it. The programs you have know what they're on about, just let them do their jobs.

 

8-12 hours to render is very common to render out a movie un-compressed to AVI, which I will add is what youwant to do anyway. I am not sure what, if any, built in encoder Pinnacle has, but your DVD app "should" be able to encode it for you. I know Encore will do this, and you can adjust the settings since it's default settings are quite high. You can expect your un-compressed movie to be around 18GB or so when it is done. This is normal. Let your DVD app/encoder do what is supposed to do.

Also, when I encode movies of this lenghth, I generally use these bit rate settings. They are fair settings especially if you intend on putting other content on your DVD such as BTS, commentary track, etc...

Min: 1.9 Mbs
Target: 2.5-3.2
Max: 3.5- 4.0

And MPEG Audio is essentially useless. Most apps now have the ability to encode in AC3, Dolby format. Or choose PCM. PCM will make your audio file large, it is an un-compressed format, however use AC3 if you have it everytime. I can go into more detail as to why if need be.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: I just read your post again, and if you think Pinnacle 9 will break with a movie that long, (and it wont) then it is time to step up to another editing app. It can handle it...

 

Pinnacle can handle it. I was able to do an 108 min movie on Pinnacle 8. If you're worried about rendering times just hit render before you go to bed. Then you wake up and it's done.

 

You must wonder why I seem so pissed...

Actually there´s a much bigger problem than I first said there was:

I´m going to have to send in a DVD on Febuary 15th in order to join a movie competition. I thought the DVD that I already have got (containing 13 MPEG-1 files) would be enough for them, but they said to me: "Some DVDs in MPEG-1 can´t be played on our DVD players. Please give us a tape or a DVD with MPEG-2s" Then I thought: Oh no. There´s this big school project [...] AND I´ve got only 10 days left to make a new DVD, preferably with only ONE BIG movie file on it. So I wanted to join all these 13 files to one and get it on the DVD. Didn´t work. Then I tried to join all the vids INSIDE the DVD app which made a big file that didn´t fit on the DVD anymore (there was a red bar).

Then you said I should render out a big MPEG2 (Where´s the sense of AVI?) in Pinnacle Studio 9 to get rid of the damn file sizes and all the crap... To have one original big file.

There´s the prob:

All my camera audios where recorded in the left mono channel (by Pinnacle) I don´t know why?! And I couldn´t change it. I made all the 13 video projects in Studio 8. When I want to open THESE PROJECTS in Studio 9 several time consuming problems occur:

-the color correction bars got a new order with the update. All the videos look just odd and not "corrected".
-the audio tracks are a mess because the volume lines and vertexes do no longer follow the same rules as in Studio 8!
-Studio 9 allows you to "surroud sound". Means that I can have the original sound come out in stereo, not in mono. It makes me angry that this is so f.... complicated and it takes SO long.
-The way the titles are rendered and prerendered changed in Studio 9. That makes me go crazy because some letters are not at the same position as before and there are black stripes around certain images that you involve in your title. And I made some "matte effects" with the title function, so black lines arround a matte painting usually looks like crap!

Together with files created in Studio 8 Studio 9 comes up with much more disadvantages than real improvements. It just sucks.


QUESTION

If I load MPEG1 files in Ulead´s Movie Factory 3, does it make them MPEG2s when I burn the DVD? So that I can say: "you won´t have any probs with the DVD" to the jury of that competition?

 

Just copy it onto a tape. Get a VCR and a DVD player. Connect the output RCA cables from the DVD player to the input RCA ports on the VCR, and make sure the VCR's input is set to the RCA inputs(should be Video1 or something). Then put in a blank tape and hit record then play the DVD and it will copy over.

 

Yeah, but you'll lose oodles of quality...

 

That´s what I told these Competition people, too, Funk-E. But they don´t care they just want "the movie to see how it is edited, in terms of camera, music choice..." they say they don´t think about the quality unless I can send them a "high quality version if the movie is good". I can´t imagine that a jury is not at all influenced by the picture quality of a movie. Of course I´ll have better cards when I send them a good quality copy

Anyway. It just took me 4 hours to create/burn another DVD copy. Allthough I chose "100% quality" and ALLTHOUGH there was a red bar that said "more than 4,7 GBs!!!" I could make the DVD. There´s just 2 things that suck in the result:

- the program seemed to mess up all the thumbnails in the chapter menu. I think you can imagine what it looks like... a credit title in the beginning and something from the end can be seen at the beginning... a total mess.
-in some scenes the movie seems to flicker as if the framerate was just 22 or so... looks stupid. (By the way, the flickering occurs in some of the videos that were joined earlier in the DVD app.


Okay. But I´ll check if my manual DVD player (tv...) shows up the flickers, too. If not I´ll really consider sending them this DVD.

EDIT:

Alright. The flickering or shake or whatever you wanna call it is STILL THERE.