ffmpeg: Combine/merge multiple mp4 videos not working, output only contains the first video

Here is the command I am using to combine multiple videos:

ffmpeg -i 75_540_38HQ2.mp4 -i 76_70_20.mp4 -i 76_173_80.mp4 -i 81_186_35.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy Mux1.mp4

The resulting Mux1.mp4 does not contain all videos. Only the first video (75_540_38HQ2.mp4). The file size of the source and resulting video is below (as you can see, resulting video is slightly larger than first vid):

$ ls -lh
-rw-r--r-- 1 dbaker dbaker  42M 2011-03-24 11:59 75_540_38HQ2.mp4
-rw-r--r-- 1 dbaker dbaker 236M 2011-03-24 12:09 76_173_80.mp4
-rw-r--r-- 1 dbaker dbaker  26M 2011-03-24 12:05 76_70_20.mp4
-rw-r--r-- 1 dbaker dbaker  54M 2011-03-24 12:15 81_186_35.mp4
-rw-r--r-- 1 dbaker dbaker  44M 2011-03-24 14:48 Mux1.mp4

Here is the output of the ffmpeg command. To me it looks ok, showing the multiple source inputs and the single output.

FFmpeg version SVN-r26402, Copyright (c) 2000-2011 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Mar 21 2011 18:05:32 with gcc 4.4.5
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-nonfree --enable-postproc --enable-libfaac --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-x11grab
  libavutil     50.36. 0 / 50.36. 0
  libavcore      0.16. 1 /  0.16. 1
  libavcodec    52.108. 0 / 52.108. 0
  libavformat   52.93. 0 / 52.93. 0
  libavdevice   52. 2. 3 / 52. 2. 3
  libavfilter    1.74. 0 /  1.74. 0
  libswscale     0.12. 0 /  0.12. 0
  libpostproc   51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '75_540_38HQ2.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
    encoder         : Lavf52.93.0
  Duration: 00:00:29.99, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 11517 kb/s
    Stream #0.0(eng): Video: h264, yuv420p, 1280x960 [PAR 1:1 DAR 4:3], 11575 kb/s, 29.94 fps, 29.97 tbr, 30k tbn, 59.94 tbc
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
    Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 127 kb/s
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Input #1, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '76_70_20.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
    encoder         : Lavf52.93.0
  Duration: 00:00:19.98, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 10901 kb/s
    Stream #1.0(eng): Video: h264, yuv420p, 1280x960 [PAR 1:1 DAR 4:3], 10804 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 30k tbn, 59.94 tbc
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
    Stream #1.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 128 kb/s
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Input #2, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '76_173_80.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
    encoder         : Lavf52.93.0
  Duration: 00:03:09.99, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 10393 kb/s
    Stream #2.0(eng): Video: h264, yuv420p, 1280x960 [PAR 1:1 DAR 4:3], 10321 kb/s, 29.96 fps, 29.97 tbr, 30k tbn, 59.94 tbc
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
    Stream #2.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 128 kb/s
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00

Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 119.88 (120000/1001) -> 30000.00 (30000/1)
Input #3, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '81_186_35.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
    encoder         : Lavf52.93.0
  Duration: 00:00:35.00, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 12700 kb/s
    Stream #3.0(eng): Video: h264, yuv420p, 1280x720 [PAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 12620 kb/s, 59.91 fps, 30k tbr, 60k tbn, 119.88 tbc
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
    Stream #3.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 128 kb/s
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Output #0, mp4, to 'Mux1.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
    encoder         : Lavf52.93.0
    Stream #0.0(eng): Video: libx264, yuv420p, 1280x960 [PAR 1:1 DAR 4:3], q=2-31, 11575 kb/s, 30k tbn, 29.97 tbc
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
    Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: libfaac, 48000 Hz, stereo, 128 kb/s
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
  Stream #2.1 -> #0.1
Press [q] to stop encoding
frame=  883 fps=632 q=-1.0 Lsize=   44730kB time=29.40 bitrate=12465.1kbits/s    
video:41678kB audio:2969kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.184548%

Am I doing something blindingly stupid here?

The source videos came from a video camera, and are small snippets taken with ffmpeg -i bigfile.mp4 -ss 20 -t 10 -vcodec copy etc..

Thanks heaps!! Dave


Edit: couldn't solve it so I just use avidemux GUI tool. It seemed to append the MP4's just fine.

Must be a problem with MP4's or just the ones that come off a gopro camera.


Solution 1:

Assuming you want to concatenate the movie, you can use the following command:

ffmpeg -f concat -i inputs.txt -vcodec copy -acodec copy Mux1.mp4

With the following text in inputs.txt:

file 75_540_38HQ2.mp4 
file 76_70_20.mp4 
file 76_173_80.mp4
file 81_186_35.mp4

Note: some distributions (like Ubuntu) do not have ffmpeg in their repository and instead define ffmpeg to be an alias of avconv. This won't work with avconv, so in such a case you have to compile ffmpeg yourself. You can check whether you have the real ffmpeg by running ffmpeg and checking if the first output line ends with "the FFmpeg developers".

Solution 2:

Forget about FFmpeg, use MP4Box instead, it is easy and faster:

    mp4box -add video1.mp4 -cat video2.mp4 -cat video3.mp4 output.mp4

It is available for Windows, Linux and OS X: http://www.videohelp.com/tools/mp4box

If you are on Windows you can use YAMB which is a GUI for MP4Box that works great: http://www.videohelp.com/tools/YAMB

UPDATE Jun-2016: FFmpeg has added a concatenation filter, more info here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11175851/218418