Handbrake - can it append to dvd tracks together?

Factual Questions
1

This is a little weird. Handbrake reports my movie as two parts. Each about 45 minutes long. Title shows the dvd menu, then 1, 45:00 2, 45:00

I encoded both 1, 2 using the Queue
Sure enough, playing the first mp4 gives half the movie. the 2nd mp4 picks up right after and continues to the ending credits.

Is there a way to tell handbrake to use titles 1 & 2 and create a single mp4?
That way I shouldn’t lose any quality.

I’m concerned appending the two mp4’s (outside handbrake) would require a new encoding. That’s assuming I could even find a utility that does that without messing up the time code.

This dvd played weird. I noticed there were chapters 1-5 and then suddenly 1-6. Somehow the dvd does play both halves of the file.

2

I’m pretty sure Handbrake won’t do that, as it’s just an encoding program; as far as chapters go, Handbrake just copies the existing breaks. I think that Apple iMovie and Windows MovieMaker will both do what you’re looking for.

3

VirtualDub might be able to do this without re-encoding, but it’s been a while since I’ve played with it.

4

Oh well, I thought I’d ask about handbrake. I knew I was asking a lot for it to combine two tracks/titles into one. :wink: It’s still a great encoder. This was a really weird dvd I bought from Ebay. I’m beginning to suspect it didn’t come from a factory. But, I did pay a normal retail price of $18. It was supposed to be legit.

Luckily, my media player lets me select both mp4 files when I open. There’s about a 5 second delay as the first file ends and the second file loads. That’s not too bad.

5

MKV Tools will combine them but I’ve never used it so I can’t vouch for the quality

MKV is pretty much free. It’s what I call nagwhere. It’s free but before you start a box will appear when you start each job and you can only process one job at a time. If you pay the $5.00 to buy it you can run multiple jobs and the nag box drops away

Let us know if it works for you. I’d be interested in hearing

6

I’ll give MKV Tools a try tomorrow. I read some of the documentation. It has a Pass through mode that avoids re-encoding. That sounds like what I need. Under Tools, they have a join option that should do the trick.

I’ll report back after I get it installed and try it.

7

I use ConvertXtoDVD 4 for this.

8

Well, it turns out MKVTools is Mac Software. :smack: The info said it was for intel. I assumed that meant windows. Sure made an ass out of me. :stuck_out_tongue:

Right now, I have Yamb installed. Still trying to get the hang of joining two mp4’s. Yamb seems to do it ok. But, when I launch the movie in VLC, I get two windows opening with video at once. Not exactly what I’m after. :wink:

I’ll have to research the format and figure this shit out. I’m pretty sure it’s me and not the software. When Yamb opens a mp4 it shows several items in the container. A video stream, 2 audios, a txt file - a whole bunch of crap.

I’ll get it figured out eventually. I’ve been needing to read up on mkv and mp4 containers anyhow.

9

Have you tried VirtualDub (mentioned above)?

10

Also, this might not be standards-compliant and may or may not even work… but if you open a command window (Start -> Run -> cmd), you can manually copy two files together into one:



copy /b file1.mp4+file2.mp4 combined_file.mp4
11

I have VirtualDub on my old Laptop. VirtualDub is pretty old, but maybe it supports x264. I’ll look and see what formats it handles.

If nothing else, maybe I can edit & join the two dvd files with virtualdub and then encode with handbrake.

12

VirtualDub should support any codec you have installed on your system. There is a mode specifically for joining files without recompressing them.

13

Thanks. I’ll take a look at it. It’s been years since I used virtualdub. It gets installed with GordianKnot. I used it back around 2007.

under File, there’s an append option. That sounds like what I need. :wink: Found a guide.