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 > 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 >= 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.

Answer 1

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 "[0:v] [0:a] [1:v] [1:a] [2:v] [2:a] \
concat=n=3:v=1:a=1 [v] [a]" \
-map "[v]" -map "[a]" 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' & echo file 'second file.mp4' )>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 "concat:input1|input2" -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

Answer 2

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 >  mylist.txt 
echo file file2.mp4 >> mylist.txt
echo file file3.mp4 >> 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'>> 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!

Answer 3

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)

Answer 4

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).

Answer 5

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)

Answer 6

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

Answer 7

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 in bash (Mac, Linux) and does not require an intermediate file:

ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i <(for f in ./*.mp4; do echo "file '$PWD/$f'"; done) -c copy output.mp4

Here, the <() syntax actually creates a temporary file "in the background" so to say

Answer 8

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="output.mp4"

  #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 <(for f in $inputfiles; do echo "file '$PWD/$f'"; done) \
  -c copy $outputfile

  if test -f "$outputfile"; then echo "$outputfile created"; fi
}

Note: had tried some solutions in this thread and none satisfied me

Answer 9

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.

Answer 10

based on rogerdpack's and Ed999's responses, I've created my .sh version

#!/bin/bash

[ -e list.txt ] && rm list.txt
for f in *.mp4
do
   echo "file $f" >> list.txt
done

ffmpeg -f concat -i list.txt -c copy joined-out.mp4 && 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

Answer 11

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()

Answer 12

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/

Answer 13

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 =>
  new Promise((resolve, reject) =>
    fs.unlink(path, err => (err ? reject(err) : resolve()))
  )

const createIntermediate = file =>
  new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    const out = `${Math.random()
      .toString(13)
      .slice(2)}.ts`

    ffmpeg(file)
      .outputOptions('-c', 'copy', '-bsf:v', 'h264_mp4toannexb', '-f', 'mpegts')
      .output(out)
      .on('end', () => resolve(out))
      .on('error', reject)
      .run()
  })

const concat = async (files, output) => {
  const names = await Promise.all(files.map(createIntermediate))
  const namesString = names.join('|')

  await new Promise((resolve, reject) =>
    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(() =>
  console.log('done!')
)

Answer 14

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}

Answer 15

Late answer, but this is the only option that actually worked for me:

(echo file '1.mp4' & echo file '2.mp4' & echo file '3.mp4' & echo file '4.mp4') | ffmpeg -protocol_whitelist file,pipe -f concat -safe 0 -i pipe: -vcodec copy -acodec copy "1234.mp4"

Answer 16

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

Answer 17

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=$((i+1)) ; done \
&& echo "concat=n=$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.

Answer 18

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 "Usage: `basename $0` input_1.mp4 input_2.mp4 ... output.mp4"
    exit 0
fi

ARGS=("$@") # determine all arguments
output=${ARGS[${#ARGS[@]}-1]} # get the last argument (output file)
unset ARGS[${#ARGS[@]}-1] # drop it from the array
(for f in "${ARGS[@]}"; do echo "file '$f'"; done) | ffmpeg -protocol_whitelist file,pipe -f concat -safe 0 -i pipe: -vcodec copy -acodec copy $output

Answer 19

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

Answer 20

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

Answer 21

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)

Answer 22

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
}