Merge files FEATURE REQUEST

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njcogliati
New User
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Oct 11, 2016 3:36 pm

Merge files FEATURE REQUEST

Post by njcogliati »

Please describe what you would like to see added to HandBrake:the ability to select multiple files, put in deisred order, and merge to output a single file

Why would you like to see this added:USING AVC to merge files but like handbrake much better

What version of HandBrake are you currently running:latest

What operating system and version and you currently running (e.g. OSX 10.11, Windows 7, Ubuntu 14): VISTA
Woodstock
Veteran User
Posts: 4614
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:39 am

Re: Merge files FEATURE REQUEST

Post by Woodstock »

Such a feature has been requested before (searching for "merge" finds lots of hits), and rejected every time. It's outside the scope of a video encoder; you want a video editing application.
nukeworker
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Dec 21, 2011 12:29 am

Re: Merge files FEATURE REQUEST

Post by nukeworker »

I'd like to also request this often requested and often rejected feature.

It's a pain in the neck that I can't use Handbreak on my "Full Season" TV show disks to make one file. They have (20) 7 min files that should really be one large file. I believe it IS within the scope of video encoding, and would be very simple to implement.

As it is, I have to use the very inferior "FreeMake" to do it, because it does have a merge option with the Video Encoding.

Version I'm using: 1.0.1 on Windows 10.
WhatZit
Experienced
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Feb 13, 2016 2:45 am

Re: Merge files FEATURE REQUEST

Post by WhatZit »

"All" (quotes intended) you'd need to do is to batch encode to TEMP all the source streams into the target properties first, then append all the respective temp streams into their single respective output stream before your final muxing. I doubt this process would be compatible with HB's disk handling policies, queue scheduling or task management engine without a major re-write to a whole bunch of modules, because it wasn't designed to do this.

Something that already does this, because it was designed to do this, is Freemake Video Converter. This freebie will merge a whole bunch of files together, even ones with disparate stream formats. It is very much a low-end transcoder, though, both in features and output quality. In fact, the merge function is about the only reason you'd want to use it.

MKVToolnix (also free) will merge many files into one, through use of MKVMerge GUI -> Multiplexer. Add a single source file, right-click on it and select "Append Files" from the context menu. The more each source file's properties differ from each other, the less likelyhood that the resultant monolith will work, because MKVMerge doesn't recode, it only copies/appends the streams. If the merged file does work, you can then run it through HandBrake. Or you can merge a bunch of files that have already been HandBraked (presumably with identical settings for each).
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s55
HandBrake Team
Posts: 10350
Joined: Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:05 pm

Re: Merge files FEATURE REQUEST

Post by s55 »

@nukeworker
Unless your point HandBrake at a folder of vob files without the ifo structure files, It can understand the DVD structure and you'll get full episode per file.

DVD's usually have 1 title per episode and that's what HandBrake encodes.

Don't select individual vob files and make sure the ifo's are present and it should work fine.
mduell
Veteran User
Posts: 8187
Joined: Sat Apr 21, 2007 8:54 pm

Re: Merge files FEATURE REQUEST

Post by mduell »

Hmm if we only had logs...
brigrigg
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2015 1:30 am

Re: Merge files FEATURE REQUEST

Post by brigrigg »

I was going to request queuing up multiple input files to be merged into one file as well, but it looks like this has been requested many times. I would think it would be easy enough, to just be able to add multiple start-stop times to the queue, and then just merge them all together at the end.

My purpose is to be able to record kids movies (mostly animated) via HDHomeRun, manually find the commercial breaks and have HandBrake convert the actual movie portions to a single file. I have MCEBuddy, it does a decent job, but not perfect (as it will sometimes remove some of the actual content and also leave some commercials in). I did find MP4 Tools (http://www.mp4joiner.org), which has both a splitter and joiner. But in addition to doubling the output length (2nd half is just output is "dead air" that then needs to be trimmed via the splitter), only Windows Media Player seems to be able to play the entire output. Both VLC and Plex will only play the first clip, but then barf as soon as the 2nd clip should start. I have tried it's "re-encode audio" feature but not the "re-encode video" option yet. I'm assuming the latter may fix the issue, but it also means that the entire video needs to be re-encoded.

I'm going to try MKVToolNix, although it only outputs to MKV, which I've heard some devices may have issues with depending on what audio format is used (although I haven't decided on which devices I'm going to use for bedrooms yet). I did see that "Woodstock" posted a warning about their hoster on another thread on here though:
"The problem is that the author normally has you download from "fosshub", which was compromised months ago and still trips warnings from antivirus software. The work around is to go to the DOWNLOADS page, scroll down to the version for Windows, then find the link marked "All Windows builds for olders versions are available on my site." In the "releases" directory, find the latest version."
mduell
Veteran User
Posts: 8187
Joined: Sat Apr 21, 2007 8:54 pm

Re: Merge files FEATURE REQUEST

Post by mduell »

Yea, HB is not a tool intended for editing.
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