mpgtx(1)							    User manual 							  mpgtx(1)

NAME

       mpgtx, mpgsplit, mpgcat, mpgjoin, mpginfo, mpgdemux - manipulate mpeg files

SYNOPSIS

       mpgtx command [ options ] file [ range | file ] ...

DESCRIPTION

       mpgtx  can  split  and join MPEG files in various ways. Three file types are currently handled (more to come): MPEG 1 Video files, MPEG 1/2
       Audio files (mp1, mp2, and mp3), MPEG 1 System files (audio and video files), MPEG 2 Program files (Experimental), MPEG 2  Transport  files
       (demultiplex  and  info	modes only).  mpgtx is a GOP (Group of Pictures) based editor. This means that mpgtx cuts MPEG files on a Group Of
       Picture basis, not on a frame-by-frame basis. A typical GOP duration is about 0.5 sec (approx. 15 frames), limiting the maximum accuracy of
       mpgtx.

COMMANDS

       -i     prints information about files, such as duration, dimention, bitrate, etc.

       -j     joins files (ranges may be specified, see the RANGES section).

       -s     splits files according to the specified ranges (see the RANGES section).

       -d     demultiplexes composite mpeg file.

       -T     manipulates ID3v1 tags from mp3 files (see tagmp3(1)).

       -h     prints a (not so) short help message.

       -v     prints version and exit.

       -#     where # is a number, splits the given files in # parts.

       --force
	      enables joining of incompatible files (some players are very robust)

       --no-parachute
	      prevents mpgtx to try to catch SIGSEGV signal. This is usefull for debugging.

       In  addition,  when  invoked  with the names mpgjoin, mpgcat, mpgsplit, mpgdemux, tagmp3 or mpginfo, mpgtx will modify its behaviour in the
       following ways:
       mpginfo behaves as mpgtx -i
       mpgsplit behaves as mpgtx -s
       mpgjoin behaves as mpgtx -j
       mpgcat behaves as mpgtx -j -o -
       mpgdemux behaves as mpgtx -d
       tagmp3 behaves as mpgtx -T

OPTIONS

       -f     force overwriting of files, never ask.

       -Ax    Change aspect ratio of mpeg. Valid are 1,2,3,4 for 1:1, 4:3, 16:9, 2.2:1

       -P     Keep junk or unusual headers in splits

       -X     Desperate mode, search the whole movie for a valid PACK. In addition with Option -N no search infos will be displayed, only end sum-
	      mary.

       -N     Suppress progress output to the console. Speeds up operation a little on most Systems and much on Macintosh OS9.
	      Suppress time line check in mpginfo mode.

       -b NAME
	      each output file will have the basename NAME

       -o FILE
	      FILE will be used as the output file (used with the join command). if FILE is -, standard output will be used.

RANGES

       Each  range  must follow a filename or another range.  A range in an MPEG file can be specified using one of this three notations: Note for
       OSX Users: Ranges must be enclosed in single or double Quotes!

       [a-b]  from value a inclusive to value b inclusive. If you want half opened ranges, you may want to use ]a-b], [a-b[ or ]a-b[.

       [n/ntot]
	      the n th part out of ntot.  [1/4] would result in the first quarter of the specified file.

       {a-b-...}
	      with a , b , ...	in ascending order. Split specified file at given boundaries. {55M} therefore  means  from  beginnig  of  file	to
	      55Megs and from 55Megs to the end of file.

VALID VALUES

       Values of ranges can be specified in seconds or as a byte offset.

       Time Format
	      HH:MM:SS.SS where the HH: part can be omited

       Offset Format
	      a number optionally followed by M for Megabytes k for kilobytes

       Omitted Values
	      An empty value is valid and is equivalent to the corresponding file boundary:
	      [-10M] are the first 10 Megabytes of the file.
	      [1:10:04-] from 1 hour 10 minutes 4 seconds to the end of file.

RETURN VALUE

       All programs return 0 upon successful completion and 1 on failure.

EXAMPLES

       mpgjoin movie1.mpg [-0:32] [45M-75M] movie2.mpg -o joined.mpg
	      joined.mpg  will	contain  the  first 32 seconds of movie1.mpg followed by 30 Megs of movie1.mpg starting at 45 Megs followed by the
	      whole file movie2.mpg

       mpgtx -124 myfile.mpg -b output
	      will split myfile.mpg in 124 parts with names output-001.mpg to output-124.mpg

       mpgtx -i Wazzup.mp3
	      will print infos about given file such as duration, bitrate, but also album, track, song name if this file has an ID3 tag.

       mpgcat myfile.mpg [2/2] | lpr
	      will redirect the second half of myfile.mpg to your printer, emptying it from toner and paper and make you be fired by your  boss...
	      Use carefully.

BUGS

       Plenty of them :)
       GOP  (Group of Picture) based: well this is not a bug but it's a limitation. As explained in the DESCRIPTION section, this limits the accu-
       racy of mpgtx on joins and splits to approximately 15 frames, or 0.5 seconds.
       Some artifacts can be seen with bad MPEG players playing joined files.  These players don't take into account the broken link flag used	to
       discard the first B frames they encounter. This is a bug in their MPEG decoding engine, not mpgtx.

AUTHOR

       Laurent Alacoque <laureck@users.sourceforge.net> CopyLeft 2001.
       Modified by Chris Danis <danish@debian.org>, copyleft 2001.
       Philipp Biermann <philipp@biermann.org>, copyleft 2002.
       Erik Schanze <schanzi_@gmx.de>, copyleft 2004.
       Get new releases and information from, and send patches, bugs, girls, money etc. to:
       http://mpgtx.sourceforge.net/

THANKS

       for your attention. Have a good day.
       Godmar Back and Brent Phillips helped me to tune the command line interface.
       Volker Moell patiently teach me how to build rpms. Danke Volker.
       Jean Fransisco Sytem (alias Nicolas Schieli) helped me correct some nasty bugs.
       Thank you guys.

Linux								   DECEMBER 2004							  mpgtx(1)