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I wonder if it's possible to merge video files using the cat command? I mean will the resultant file play seamlessly?

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Have you tried? – Mr Lister Jul 25 '12 at 7:10
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I did actually. But somehow the result did not contain the second file although the file size was sum of both. – Hamed Momeni Jul 25 '12 at 7:14

4 Answers

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Yes, it is possible. But not all formats support it.

ffmpeg FAQ:

A few multimedia containers (MPEG-1, MPEG-2 PS, DV) allow to join video files by merely concatenating them.

When converting to RAW formats you also have a high chance that the files can be concatenated.

ffmpeg -i input1.avi -qscale:v 1 intermediate1.mpg
ffmpeg -i input2.avi -qscale:v 1 intermediate2.mpg
cat intermediate1.mpg intermediate2.mpg > intermediate_all.mpg
ffmpeg -i intermediate_all.mpg -qscale:v 2 output.avi

But using cat in this way created intermediate files, which are not necessary. This is a better approach to avoid creating those intermediate files:

ffmpeg -i input1.avi -qscale:v 1 intermediate1.mpg
ffmpeg -i input2.avi -qscale:v 1 intermediate2.mpg
ffmpeg -i concat:"intermediate1.mpg|intermediate2.mpg" -c copy intermediate_all.mpg
ffmpeg -i intermediate_all.mpg -qscale:v 2 output.avi
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Nice answer. Thanks a lot. – Hamed Momeni Jul 26 '12 at 7:40
up vote 3 down vote

No, it is not possible, because every video file has a header. To merge videos you need to use a tool (like for example ffmpeg or mencoder).

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Not quite correct. There are video formats without header, e.g. rawvideo or yuv4mpegpipe which output raw data. That's why you have to provide the frame size when reading those formats, since the size is unknown due to the missing header. – Marco Jul 25 '12 at 13:24
How come I just did it successfully with DV files then? – Pithikos Mar 17 at 16:05
@Pithikos no idea. maybe you practice magic :) – BЈовић Mar 18 at 7:16
up vote 1 down vote

cat video1 video2 > video

Did you try that?

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up vote 0 down vote

As BЈовић said, in general, each file has its own header. Try with this example from Ubuntu How To's:

mencoder -ovc copy -oac copy video1.avi video2.avi -o completevideos.avi
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