Use multiple files as input with ffmpeg for Windows

On Linux, cat is a good way to combine multiple files, and pass them to ffmpeg, as explained in FFMpeg open a DVD VOB chain? :

cat first.VOB second.VOB third.VOB | ffmpeg -i - outfile.mp4

This does not seem to work for Windows.

Question: how to use multiple files as input for ffmpeg, with Windows?

These solutions do not seem to work:

ffmpeg -i a.VOB b.VOB c.VOB d.VOB -c:v copy -c:a copy out.avi
ffmpeg -i a.VOB -i b.VOB -i c.VOB -i d.VOB -c:v copy -c:a copy out.avi

Solution 1:

The simplest way seems to be:

copy /b e:/video_ts/vts_*.vob temp.vob

and then encode temp.vob.

Solution 2:

• You can easily resolve it using this answer from @Gyan

ffmpeg -i "concat:a.VOB|b.VOB|c.VOB|d.VOB|...| nn.VOB" -c:v copy -c:a copy out.avi

In the same way that it is done in mp4, explained here

>input.txt (for %x in (*.VOB)do @echo file '%~x') && ffmpeg -safe 0 -f concat -i input.txt -c:v copy -c:a copy out.avi

This can be done by one line:

>input.txt (for %x in (*.VOB)do @echo file '%~x') && ffmpeg -safe 0 -f concat -i input.txt -c:v copy -c:a copy out.avi

1. Create/Overwrite file >input.txt with (command block) output

     >input.txt (for %x in (*.VOB)do @echo file '%~x')
   

2. List all files with Name.Extension to output with layout file '%~x'

     >input.txt (for %x in (*.VOB)do @echo file '%~x')
   

3. Only if last (block command) execution return 0 (by operator &&), then run ffmpeg command:

   ... && ffmpeg -safe 0 -f concat -i input.txt -c:v copy -c:a copy out.avi
   

• You can also work with different drivers/folders:

  >"%temp%\input.txt" (for %x in ("d:\movies\last\*.VOB")do @echo file '%~x') && "c:\ffmepg\bin\ffmpeg.exe" -safe 0 -f concat -i "%temp%\input.txt" -c:v copy -c:a copy "d:\movies\last\concat\out.avi"