Interactively concatenate video files

Question

How to concatenate (join) multiple MP4 video files into one file interactively?

There are a lot of programs that do this for two files from the command line. For instance:

• ffmpeg
• avconv
• MP4Box

But we frequently need a solution to do this interactively.

Answer 1

I haven't tried this method recently but don't see why it wouldn't still work. I believe you can just cat .mp4 files together if you don't want to do anything other than concatenate them.

1. Using cat

$ cat file1.mp4 file2.mp4 > file3.mp4
$ ffmpeg -i file3.mp4 -qscale:v 2 output.avi

I still use ffmpeg all the time, it too can concatenate files.

2. Using ffmpeg

1. Make a list of files to concatenate

   $ cat inputs.txt 
   file sample_mpeg4.mp4
   file sample_mpeg4.mp4
   

2. concatenate

   $ ffmpeg -f concat -i inputs.txt -c copy out.mp4
   
   $ ll |grep -E "sample|out"
   -rw-rw-r--. 1 saml saml 491860 Feb 19 23:36 out.mp4
   -rw-r--r--. 1 saml saml 245779 Feb 19 23:32 sample_mpeg4.mp4
   

   Other methods are covered in the FFmpeg wiki: How to concatenate (join, merge) media files.

   NOTE: Ubuntu does not appear to support the concat format. You have to use the concat protocol. In addition, it has per stream codec options. Thus, using the concat protocol results as follows:

   $ ffmpeg -i input1.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy \
        -vbsf h264_mp4toannexb -f mpegts intermediate1.ts
   
   $ ffmpeg -i input2.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy \
        -vbsf h264_mp4toannexb -f mpegts intermediate2.ts
   
   $ ffmpeg -i "concat:intermediate1.ts|intermediate2.ts" \
        -vcodec copy -acodec copy -absf aac_adtstoasc output.mp4
   

   Ubuntu ffmpeg options are documented here.

Answer 2

I use MP4Box as work base.
The script i suggest reads all the files one by one, verifying each one (weather it's an ordinary file), asks the user for the input filename to create.

#!/bin/bash
printf "###  Concatenate Media files ###\n"
fInputCount=0
# Reading input files
IFS=''
while (true)
do
    let currentNumber=$fInputCount+1 
    printf "File n°%s (\"ok\" to finish): " $currentNumber
    read inputFile
    [ "$inputFile" == "ok" ] && break
    [ ! -e "$inputFile" ] || [ ! -f "$inputFile" ] && printf "\"%s\" : Invalid filename. Skipped !\n" "$inputFile" && continue
    ((fInputCount++))
    inputFileList[$fInputCount]=$inputFile
    printf "\"%s\" : Added to queue !\n" "$inputFile"
done
[ "$fInputCount" == "0" ] || [ "$fInputCount" == "1" ] && echo "No enough input data. BYE ! " && exit
# Listing the input file list 
for ((i=1;i<=$fInputCount;i++))
do
    printf "%2d : %s\n" $i ${inputFileList[$i]}
done
# Reading the output filename
while (true)
do
    printf "Output file without extention (\"none\" to dismiss) : "
    read outputRead
    [ "$outputRead" == "none" ] && echo "Dismissed. BYE ! " && exit
    [ "$outputRead" == "" ] && echo "Try again ! " && continue
    [ -e "$outputRead" ] && echo "\"$outputRead\" exists. Try again !" && continue
    outputFile=$outputRead.mp4
    echo "Output to \"$outputFile\". Go !" && break
done
# Creating a random temporary filename
tmpOutFile="/tmp/concatMedia"`date +"%s%N"| sha1sum | awk '{print $1}'`".mp4"
# Joining the two first input files
MP4Box -cat "${inputFileList[1]}" -cat "${inputFileList[2]}" $tmpOutFile
# Adding all other files
for ((i=3;i<=$fInputCount;i++))
do
    tmpIntermediateFile=$tmpOutFile
    tmpOutFile="/tmp/concatMedia"`date +"%s%N"| sha1sum | awk '{print $1}'`".mp4"
    MP4Box -cat $tmpIntermediateFile -cat "${inputFileList[$i]}" $tmpOutFile
    rm $tmpIntermediateFile
done
mv $tmpOutFile "$outputFile"
# Finished
echo "\"$outputFile\" Saved !"