How to concatenate two MP4 files using FFmpeg

Question

I m trying to concatenate two mp4 files using ffmpeg   I need this to be an automatic process hence why I chose ffmpeg   I m converting the two files into  ts files and then concatenating them and then trying to encode that concatenated  ts file   The files are h264 and aac encoded and I m hoping to keep the quality the same or as close to original as possible  ffmpeg -i part1 mp4 -vcodec copy -vbsf h264 mp4toannexb -acodec copy part1 ts ffmpeg -i part2 mp4 -vcodec copy -vbsf h264 mp4toannexb -acodec copy part2 ts cat part1 ts part2 ts  gt  parts ts ffmpeg -y -i parts ts -acodec copy -ar 44100 -ab 96k -coder ac -vbsf h264 mp4toannexb parts mp4  Unfortunately I m getting the following error message coming back from ffmpeg during encoding   h264   0x1012600 sps id out of range  h264   0x1012600 non-existing SPS 0 referenced in buffering period  h264   0x1012600 sps id out of range  h264   0x1012600 non-existing SPS 0 referenced in buffering period  NULL   0x101d600 error  non monotone timestamps 13779431  gt   13779431kbits s     av interleaved write frame    Error while opening file  This happens about half way through encoding which makes me think that you can t concat two  ts files together and have it work

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Here s a fast  takes less than 1 minute  and lossless way to do this without needing intermediate files   ls Movie Part 1 mp4 Movie Part 2 mp4     perl -ne  print  file          ffmpeg -f concat -i - -c copy Movie Joined mp4   The  ls  contains the files to join The  perl  creates the concatenation file on-the-fly into a pipe The  -i -  part tells ffmpeg to read from the pipe   note - my files had no spaces or weird stuff in them - you ll need appropriate shell-escaping if you want to do this idea with  hard  files

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FOR MP4 FILES  For  mp4 files  which I obtained from DailyMotion com  a 50 minute tv episode  downloadable only in three parts  as three  mp4 video files  the following was an effective solution for Windows 7  and does NOT involve re-encoding the files   I renamed the files  as file1 mp4  file2 mp4  file3 mp4  such that the parts were in the correct order for viewing the complete tv episode   Then I created a simple batch file  concat bat   with the following contents      Create File List echo file file1 mp4  gt   mylist txt  echo file file2 mp4  gt  gt  mylist txt echo file file3 mp4  gt  gt  mylist txt     Concatenate Files ffmpeg -f concat -i mylist txt -c copy output mp4   The batch file  and ffmpeg exe  must both be put in the same folder as the  mp4 files to be joined  Then run the batch file  It will typically take less than ten seconds to run       Addendum  2018 10 21  -  If what you were looking for is a method for specifying all the mp4 files in the current folder without a lot of retyping  try this in your Windows batch file instead  MUST include the option -safe 0       Create File List for   i in    mp4  do echo file    i  gt  gt  mylist txt     Concatenate Files ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i mylist txt -c copy output mp4   This works on Windows 7  in a batch file  Don t try using it on the command line  because it only works in a batch file

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I was trying to concatenate three  mp3 audio files into one  m4a file and this ffmpeg command works    Input command   ffmpeg -i input1 mp3 -i input2 mp3 -i input3 mp3          -filter complex  concat n 3 v 0 a 1  -f MOV -vn -y input m4a   Meanings of   -filter complex  concat n 3 v 0 a 1          concat means use the media concatenate  joining  function    n means confirm total count of input files    v means has video  use 0   no video  1   contains video    a means has audio  use 0   no audio  1   contain audio    -f means force set file format  to see all supported formats  use ffmpeg -formats    -vn means disable video  and also -an would disable audio if not wanted    -y means overwrite output files  if the output file already exists     For more info  use ffmpeg -h full print all options  including all format and codec specific options  very long

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Here is a script I made to concatenate several GoPro mp4 s into a 720p mp4  Hope it s of help      bin sh cmd      for i  do     cmd    cmd ffmpeg -i  i -ab 256000 -vb 10000000 -mbd rd -trellis 2 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -g 100 -f mpeg -    done cmd    cmd      ffmpeg -i - -vb 10000000 -ab 256000 -s 1280x720 -y out- date   F- H M  S  mp4  echo    cmd   eval   cmd

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Here s my method for joining a directory full of MP4 files using command substitution and the concat video filter  this will re-encode  - figured someone else will get some use out of this one-liner  especially if you have many files  I just joined 17 files in one fell swoop    ffmpeg   for f in   mp4   do echo -n  -i  f    done  -filter complex      i 0   for f in   mp4   do echo -n    i v    i a      i    i 1     done    amp  amp  echo  concat n  i v 1 a 1  v   a     -map   v   -map   a   output mp4   N B  this command joins your files in the order in which they re named  i e  the same order as they re presented if you run ls   mp4  - in my case  they each had a track number  so it worked great

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I ended up using mpg as the intermediate format and it worked  NOTE this is a dangerous example  -qscale 0 will re-encode the video      ffmpeg -i 1 mp4 -qscale 0 1 mpg ffmpeg -i 2 mp4 -qscale 0 2 mpg cat 1 mpg 2 mpg   ffmpeg -f mpeg -i - -qscale 0 -vcodec mpeg4 output mp4

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From the documentation here  https   trac ffmpeg org wiki Concatenate     If you have MP4 files  these could be losslessly concatenated by first transcoding them to MPEG-2 transport streams  With H 264 video and AAC audio  the following can be used    ffmpeg -i input1 mp4 -c copy -bsf v h264 mp4toannexb -f mpegts intermediate1 ts ffmpeg -i input2 mp4 -c copy -bsf v h264 mp4toannexb -f mpegts intermediate2 ts ffmpeg -i  concat intermediate1 ts intermediate2 ts  -c copy -bsf a aac adtstoasc output mp4   This approach works on all platforms   I needed the ability to encapsulate this in a cross platform script  so I used fluent-ffmpeg and came up with the following solution   const unlink   path   gt    new Promise  resolve  reject    gt      fs unlink path  err   gt   err   reject err    resolve          const createIntermediate   file   gt    new Promise  resolve  reject    gt        const out      Math random          toString 13         slice 2   ts       ffmpeg file         outputOptions  -c    copy    -bsf v    h264 mp4toannexb    -f    mpegts          output out         on  end        gt  resolve out          on  error   reject         run         const concat   async  files  output    gt      const names   await Promise all files map createIntermediate     const namesString   names join         await new Promise  resolve  reject    gt      ffmpeg  concat   namesString           outputOptions  -c    copy    -bsf a    aac adtstoasc          output output         on  end   resolve         on  error   reject         run          names map unlink     concat   file1 mp4    file2 mp4    file3 mp4     output mp4   then      gt    console log  done

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based on rogerdpack s and Ed999 s responses  I ve created my  sh version     bin bash    -e list txt    amp  amp  rm list txt for f in   mp4 do    echo  file  f   gt  gt  list txt done  ffmpeg -f concat -i list txt -c copy joined-out mp4  amp  amp  rm list txt   it joins all the   mp4 files in current folder into joined-out mp4  tested on mac   resulting filesize is exact sum of my 60 tested files  Should not be any loss  Just what I needed

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For  mp4 files  I found it works better and faster to use the opensource command line tool  mp4box  Then You can use it this way   mp4box exe -add video1 mp4 -cat video2 mp4 destvideo mp4   Download it here for most platforms  https   gpac wp imt fr mp4box

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The accepted answer in the form of reusable PowerShell script  Param   string  WildcardFilePath   string  OutFilePath   try        tempFile    System IO Path   GetTempFileName       Get-ChildItem -path  wildcardFilePath   foreach     file           Out-File -FilePath  tempFile -Encoding ascii     ffmpeg exe -safe 0 -f concat -i  tempFile -c copy  outFilePath   finally       Remove-Item  tempFile

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FFmpeg has three concatenation methods   1  concat video filter Use this method if your inputs do not have the same parameters  width  height  etc   or are not the same formats codecs  or if you want to perform any filtering  Note that this method performs a re-encode of all inputs   If you want to avoid the re-encode  you could re-encode just the inputs that don t match so they share the same codec and other parameters  then use the concat demuxer to avoid re-encoding everything  ffmpeg -i opening mkv -i episode mkv -i ending mkv          -filter complex  quot  0 v   0 a   1 v   1 a   2 v   2 a                           concat n 3 v 1 a 1  v   a  quot           -map  quot  v  quot  -map  quot  a  quot  output mkv  2  concat demuxer Use this method when you want to avoid a re-encode and your format does not support file-level concatenation  most files used by general users do not support file-level concatenation     cat mylist txt file   path to file1  file   path to file2  file   path to file3         ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i mylist txt -c copy output mp4  For Windows   echo file  first file mp4   amp  echo file  second file mp4    gt list txt ffmpeg -safe 0 -f concat -i list txt -c copy output mp4  3  concat protocol Use this method with formats that support file-level concatenation  MPEG-1  MPEG-2 PS  DV   Do not use with MP4  ffmpeg -i  quot concat input1 input2 quot  -codec copy output mkv  This method does not work for many formats  including MP4  due to the nature of these formats and the simplistic concatenation performed by this method   If in doubt about which method to use  try the concat demuxer  Also see  FFmpeg FAQ  How can I join video files  FFmpeg Wiki  How to concatenate  join  merge  media files

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this worked for me  on windows   ffmpeg -i  concat input1 input2  -codec copy output   an example     ffmpeg -i  concat 01 mp4 02 mp4  -codec copy output mp4   Python  Using some python code to do it with as many mp4 there are in a folder  install python from python org  copy and paste and save this code into a file called mp4 py and run it from the cmd opened in the folder with python mp4 py and all the mp4 in the folder will be concatenated   import glob import os  stringa      for f in glob glob    mp4        stringa    f       os system  ffmpeg -i   concat     stringa       -codec copy output mp4     Version 2 with Python  Taken from my post on my blog  this is how I do it in python   import os import glob  def concatenate        stringa    ffmpeg -i   concat       elenco video   glob glob    mp4       elenco file temp          for f in elenco video          file    temp    str elenco video index f    1      ts          os system  ffmpeg -i     f     -c copy -bsf v h264 mp4toannexb -f mpegts     file          elenco file temp append file      print elenco file temp      for f in elenco file temp          stringa    f         if elenco file temp index f     len elenco file temp -1              stringa                else              stringa        -c copy  -bsf a aac adtstoasc output mp4      print stringa      os system stringa   concatenate

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for MP4 files   If they are not exactly same  100  same codec  same resolution  same type  MP4 files  then you have to trans-code them into intermediate streams at first   ffmpeg -i myfile1 mp4 -c copy -bsf v h264 mp4toannexb -f mpegts temp1 ts ffmpeg -i myfile2 mp4 -c copy -bsf v h264 mp4toannexb -f mpegts temp2 ts    now join ffmpeg -i  concat temp1 ts temp2 ts  -c copy -bsf a aac adtstoasc output mp4   NOTE    Output will be like first file   and not a second one

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Here 2 pure bash solutions using only ffmpeg and not using  an intermediary file perl  python nor javascript  One-liner solution using ls ls video1 mp4 video2 mp4   while read line  do echo file    line    done   ffmpeg -protocol whitelist file pipe -f concat -i - -c copy output mp4  Function which takes 0 or 2  arguments                                           Merge mp4 files into one output mp4 file   usage      mergemp4  merges all mp4 in current directory     mergemp4 video1 mp4 video2 mp4     mergemp4 video1 mp4 video2 mp4   video3 mp4      output mp4                                          function mergemp4       if        1    then return  fi    outputfile  quot output mp4 quot      if no arguments we take all mp4 in current directory as array   if        0    then inputfiles    ls -1v   mp4    fi   if        2    then inputfiles   1  2   fi     if      -ge 3    then     outputfile      -1    Get the last argument     inputfiles      1    - 1     Get all arguments besides last one as array   fi        -y  automatically overwrite output file if exists     -loglevel quiet  disable ffmpeg logs   ffmpeg -y     -loglevel quiet     -f concat     -safe 0     -i  lt  for f in  inputfiles  do echo  quot file   PWD  f  quot   done      -c copy  outputfile    if test -f  quot  outputfile quot   then echo  quot  outputfile created quot   fi    Note  had tried some solutions in this thread and none satisfied me

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I found the pipe operator did not work for me when using option 3 to concat several MP4s on a Mac in the accepted answer   The following one-liner works on a Mac  High Sierra  to concatenate mp4s  with no intermediary file creation required   ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i  lt  for f in     mp4  do echo  file   PWD  f    done  -c copy output mp4

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A one-liner snippet for bash  Linux  that does not require an intermediate file   ffmpeg -safe 0 -f concat -i  lt  find  quot  PWD quot  -name    mp4  -printf  quot file   p  n quot    sort  -c copy output mp4  Here  the  lt    syntax actually creates a temporary file  quot in the background quot  so to say

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ffmpeg     -i input 1 mp4     -i input 2 mp4     -filter complex   0 v pad iw 2 ih int   int  1 v overlay W 2 0 vid       -map  vid      -c v libx264     -crf 23     -preset veryfast     output mp4

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Merging all mp4 files from current directory  I personnaly like not creating external file that I have to delete afterwards  so my solution was following which includes files numbering listing  like file 1 name  file 2 name  file 10 name  file 20 name  file 100 name           bin bash filesList    for file in   ls -1v   mp4  do  lists even numbered file     filesList    filesList   file    done filesList   filesList      removes trailing pipe ffmpeg -i  concat  filesList  -c copy   date   Y m d  H M S  merged mp4

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The concat protocol described here  https   trac ffmpeg org wiki Concatenate protocol  When implemented using named pipes to avoid intermediate files  Is very fast  read  instant   has no frames dropped  and works well    Remember to delete the named pipe files and remember to check if the video is H264 and AAC which you can do with just ffmpeg -i filename mp4  check for h264 and aac mentions

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After various tries below script worked for me on windows 10 powershell         files Get-ChildItem -path e   -Filter   mp4        files  ForEach-Object    file       FullName      Out-File -FilePath e  temp txt -Encoding ASCII       if  -not  test-path  e  ffmpeg bin ffmpeg exe     throw  e  ffmpeg bin ffmpeg exe needed        E  ffmpeg bin ffmpeg exe -safe 0 -f concat -i  e  temp txt  -c copy -bsf v hevc mp4toannexb -an e  joined mp4        Conversion Cleanup     Remove-Item e  temp txt   Here first two lines create a text file temp txt which has following content  file  e  first mp4  file  e  second mp4    3rd  4th lines checks if ffmpeg is available at path and create the  joined mp4   The key differences from other answers are as below   usage  of -bsf v hevc mp4toannexb -an   for my mp4 file above worked  you may need to use other alternatives like below depending on your video encoding    h264 mp4toannexb   All such possible Bitstream filters can be found at https   ffmpeg org ffmpeg-bitstream-filters html

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Detailed documentation on various ways of concatenation in ffmpeg can be found here   You can use  Concat filter  for quick concatenation   It performs a re-encode  This option is best when inputs have different video audio formats   For Concatenating 2 files     ffmpeg -i input1 mp4 -i input2 webm   -filter complex   0 v 0   0 a 0   1 v 0   1 a 0  concat n 2 v 1 a 1  v   a     -map   v   -map   a   output mp4     For Concatenating 3 files     ffmpeg -i input1 mp4 -i input2 webm -i input3 mp4   -filter complex   0 v 0   0 a 0   1 v 0   1 a 0   2 v 0   2 a 0  concat n 3 v 1 a 1  v   a     -map   v   -map   a   output mp4   This works for same as well as multiple input file types

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Late answer  but this is the only option that actually worked for me   echo file  1 mp4   amp  echo file  2 mp4   amp  echo file  3 mp4   amp  echo file  4 mp4     ffmpeg -protocol whitelist file pipe -f concat -safe 0 -i pipe  -vcodec copy -acodec copy  quot coNvid19 mp4 quot

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Here is a script  works for an arbitrary number of specified files  not just all in the working directory   without additional files  also works for  mov  tested on macOS      bin bash  if      -lt 1    then     echo  quot Usage   basename  0  input 1 mp4 input 2 mp4     output mp4 quot      exit 0 fi  ARGS   quot    quot     determine all arguments output   ARGS    ARGS    -1     get the last argument  output file  unset ARGS    ARGS    -1    drop it from the array  for f in  quot   ARGS     quot   do echo  quot file   f  quot   done    ffmpeg -protocol whitelist file pipe -f concat -safe 0 -i pipe  -vcodec copy -acodec copy  output

[ffmpeg] How to concatenate two MP4 files using FFmpeg?

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