[PLUG] VLC experts?

[John Jason Jordan]

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 10:28:35 -0700
wes <plug at the-wes.com> dijo:

>> >On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 08:40:06PM -0700, John Jason Jordan wrote:
>> >> I am trying to watch an old Korean movie. I do not speak Korean.
>> >> The movie is not available anywhere, and is probably out of
>> >> copyright. I found and downloaded a copy, but it is in two CD
>> >> files of 700 MB each. The person who created the files did not
>> >> include a file for subtitles.
>> >>
>> >> Separately I found two versions of subtitles for the movie. In VLC
>> >> they work great with the first CD file, but when I try to continue
>> >> with the second CD file the subtitles start over from the
>> >> beginning. VLC extended controls offer an offset, but only up to
>> >> 60 seconds.
>> >>
>> >> I've poked around for the past half hour, but haven't hit on a
>> >> solution. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to get VLC to
>> >> play both CD files in sequence automatically using the same
>> >> subtitles file?

>> >Why not split the subtitles file so you have one for each CD?
>>
>> That was my first thought, but I didn't do it because I know nothing
>> of how subtitles files work. 
>>
>> Another thought I had was to concatenate the two CD files, which are
>> in .avi format. Once again I am short of clues. But considering how
>> many people work with video I suppose there is a tool somewhere in my
>> Fedora 11 repos which will do the job.

>I agree that the easiest solution is likely to combine the two video
>files. The fact that the filename ends in ".avi" doesn't tell us
>anything about what format the video is in. But, there is nothing
>wrong with trying and seeing what happens.
>
>cp cd1.avi movie.avi
>cat cd2.avi >> movie.avi
>
>now see if movie.avi plays in VLC, and if you can seek past the end of
>the first movie. Then add in the subtitles and you're golden.
>
>If this doesn't work, it's probably in a non-linear video format. You
>"might" be able to correct this by converting it. You can use a tool
>such as ffmpeg to convert the part files to raw MPEG, then combine
>them with the above method.

The cat solution did not work. It appeared to work, the hard disk
blinked for a long time, but the resulting file played only the first
CD.

Then I started looking around. First I tried Pitivi video editor, but it
was incapable of much of anything. Then I tried Avidemux, and success!
It took awhile poking around in the menus to figure out how to
concatenate two files (File > Open, then File > Append), and it
successfully created one .avi file. VLC is happy to play it, and the
subtitles work continuously. I note that on both the File > Open and
File > Append operations Avidemux complained that the index was
incorrect, offering to correct it. I let it do so. 

This is not the first time I have encountered a movie split into more
than one file so it would fit on CDs. Now I know how to put them
together. Per aspera ad astra.