best way to combine quicktime files?

J

James Bond

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I have a bunch of quicktime files (from Evocam) that I want to combine into one single file with the same (or possibly different) compression characteristics.

What is the best way to do this?

So far, I have discovered that I can drag and drop them into iMovie but this is manual, timeconsuming and when I save/share as quicktime it seems to change/decrease the sharpness of the images.

Ideally, I would like a CLI option that I could combine with the cron job that starts and stops the EvoCam.
 
Well, by importing an already compressed movie file, then exporting it again to a compressed format, you can't expect the quality to go up (or even stay the same). That's like taking an MP3 at 128kbps and re-encoding it to 192kbps: the quality isn't going to be any better than it was at 128kbps, and since you've recompressed an already compressed file, there's a good chance that it'll be even worse than at 128kbps.

If I understand your question correctly, you want to know if it's possible to export one movie file with different kinds of compression throughout -- and the answer is no. If you've got one movie file, then you've got one compression format that the movie file is in. If you're asking if you can concatenate multiple movie files with different compression algorithms, then yes you can, but the end file will be in one format or another, not multiple formats.

As for concatenating multiple files, you can do this with QuickTime Pro very easily by opening the movies and copying and pasting them one after another. As for a command-line utility or batch utility, I don't think I've ever seen one.
 
Hm; here I thought that he was asking how to knit the files into one movie, with the final product having, perhaps, different compression than the original files.

I'm not too sure of a way to weld them together without manual intervention. iMovie is the only way that leaps to mind.
 
Yes - that is exactly what I want to do....to combine multiple quicktime files into one.

Pity that quicktime pro seems to be EUR 42 vs USD 30....on what planet is that exchange rate?

Anyone else know of a freeware or cheaper way to achieve the above??
 
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