I'm trying to concatenate multiple video files. They all use the same codec and frame rate. Anyway concatenation isn't a problem. I've done it before.
The problem is to automate it?
The answer here shows method 2 to be used in windows to concatenate files. It's really easy:
(echo file 'first file.mp4' & echo file 'second file.mp4' )>list.txt
ffmpeg -safe 0 -f concat -i list.txt -c copy output.mp4
First, we make a list of video files (by manually tying them out). Second, we execute.
The problem is that I have multiple video files located in a single directory. The video files are named similar to this:
\450_01_videoName.mp4
\450_02_videoNameFoo.mp4
\450_04_videoNameMoo.mp4
\451_01_videoNameRoo.mp4
\451_02_videoNameHoo.mp4
Now look at the above list and imagine that it's 200 lines big in a single folder. I'm trying to concatenate video 450 into 1, then video 451 into 1 file, etc.
I'm trying to automate this process with a good thousand video files.
I can do it semi manually. Use cmd to create a list of file and folder path. But then I would manually, file by file, have to copy and paste it to create that list.txt.
Is there a way to automate this? I've done this manually with 20 video files and it was painful (but better then using a stand alone software, as all the videos were done in a batch after all was set up).
Cheers.
I've done the process semi manually. It worked, but took more time that it needs to take.
------UPDATE
This is how I tackled the problem. It was slow and painful.
Firslty, I used cmd "dir /b > file.txt" to extract all the names of video files in that directory.
Then I painfully wrote the BAT file manually (for videos up to 500) for each video I wanted to merge. I used a few notepad++ shortcuts, for example, replacing the number '45' with 'echo file 45', this ensured I didn't need to type 'echo file' manually for every line. Then I also copy-pasted manually for every line '>>list.txt'. I painfully had to write out the output file name 50 different times.
h:
cd "h:\video directory"
echo file 450_01_video.mp4 > list.txt
echo file 450_02_videoMoo.mp4 >> list.txt
echo file 450_03_videoFoo.mp4 >> list.txt
echo file 450_04_videoLoo.mp4 >> list.txt
ffmpeg -safe 0 -f concat -i list.txt -c copy 450Video.mp4
echo file 451_01_video.mp4 > list.txt
echo file 451_02_videoMoo.mp4 >> list.txt
ffmpeg -safe 0 -f concat -i list.txt -c copy 451Video.mp4
Now imagine a line for every single video file that I had to do manually.
There has to be a simple for loop solution.
ANSWER - SOLVED
I've used Armali's solution.
h:
cd "h:\video directory"
SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
set number=999
for %%f in (???_*.mp4) do (
set name=%%f
set before=!number!
set number=!name:~0,3!
if !number! gtr !before! call :concat
echo file !name! >>list.txt
)
:concat
ffmpeg -safe 0 -f concat -i list.txt -c copy %before%Video.mp4
del list.txt
The output video files were named 412Video.mp4. I used the dir /b file.txt command to extract the list of original files. I then copied them into excel, delimited them and used the tricks to extract the number, name, and remove duplicates etc. I then combined each record with output video as a ren command. E.g. ren 412video.mp4 412.name.location.mp4. I copied that into cmd for a fast rename.
