Create a 10 hour loop video from a short one and export it fast

Help/How To
1

Hi, I have a 50 second long video and want to create a long 10 hour loop video. I copied the short video in the timeline, created transitions, tried to copy and paste this sequence but it doesn’t work in Shotcut. Therefore I created a 10 min video in order to create a 1 hour video and so on, but maybe there is an easier way to do it?

Also, what can I do before exporting the video to compress it or reduce its size without reducing its quality and maybe there is another software which does it better and faster than Shotcut? It looks like it could take more than 24 hours to export the 10 hour video…

I really appreciate all your advice.

2

You can simply export a mp4 file of it, and use a mp4 to gif converter to make it loop. And it will loop for lifetime.

3

Thank you for your response. I explored some gif converters but it seems to me that the principle is about the same, at least in those which I found, I have to manually add the video as many times as to create a 10 hour video and also add transitions, besides when exporting the video it may also take long time. Can you suggest any free converter where it is easy to make that kind of loop and export fast? Thank you once again.

4

What is your version of Shotcut?
The latest version allows to select, copy and paste multiple clips.

You could copy your sequence of clips, then use Append (shortcut = A) multiple times to add the sequence end to end on the track. When you got a few minutes worth, you can select all + copy that new sequence + start using Append again… until you get your 10 hours video.

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Worth trying, but I fear this will require a computer with a lot of RAM and CPU. And exporting a 10 hour video will take a lot of time.

To reduce the size of the resulting file and export time, you can go to Codec in the Export tab and reduce the 55% quality value. Lowering it down to 45% for example should not affect the image quality too much.

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You could test by exporting a few seconds at 55% then at 45% and check the difference in size, export time and visual quality.

5

Yeah, I guess I have an older version of Shotcut, I will try doing as you suggested. Actually, while seeking solutions, I realised that copying and pasting isn’t the biggest problem, it’s really the export time and on my pc it’s 3x longer than the video itself. Though I’m glad Shotcut does have the simple option of copying and pasting sequences. Thank you!

6

Don’t loose hope, someone else may come up with a better solution.

7

I use cloudconvert.

8

A gif works when you open it in a photo viewer, and it loops unlimited times, A gif is technically a picture, but a video.

Here is an example (It will loop until you press the pause) :-

love-you

9

Thank you, I’ll be looking until I find it :wink:

1 Like
10

Why not create the basic video with Shotcut then create the 10 hour video of the amalgamation of multiple copies using: MP4Joiner downloadable here: MP4Tools - Home

There is a short tutorial called " How to Make a Looping Video with MP4 Joiner" here:

3 Likes
11

Thank you, I’ll try cloudconvert. I haven’t explored all the gif options yet but I just want to understand if after creating the gif I can then export it as a precisely 10:00:00 long mp4 file and faster than it would take with a video editor, because I want to then upload it on youtube. Sorry for the time it takes for me to understand all the technical stuff, it’s just that from your explanations I don’t see if it’s possible to proceed to an mp4 file creation.

12

By default MP4Joiner does not re-encode the video so it is considerably faster to loop your video using this utitlity than using Shotcut.

13

Thank you, I tried what you suggested, but unfortunately it still makes a small pause between the videos. I had also tried Mkvtoolnix, it did the same, but I guess all these apps are pretty similar. Besides, the export time is still quite long. I guess I’ll have to just go by my video editor and export the whole file as it is.

14

I tried cloudconvert, converted my mp4 file to gif, tried to open it in Windows Photo viewer, but it doesn’t read the file well, there’s some kind of transparent grid appearing, besides it doesn’t play sound so I cannot evaluate the quality or change the duration. Maybe I’m missing something, but anyway, thank you again for trying to help me, I think most probably I’m going to just use my video editor to make the video.

15

In some recent updates away on YouTube, they added a loop feature, you can use that, which requires a normal video, and then it will loop unlimited times.

16

Would it be like one of those live videos playing 24/7 on yt? I was intending to make them too. Anyway, thank you again, I guess I’ll proceed with creating my video the classic way.

1 Like
17

I’d do it at the command line with ffmpeg.

ffmpeg -f concat -i list.txt -c copy out.mp4

See Concatenate Videos Together Using ffmpeg! — Donald Feury

I’d first concatenate the 50s clip to say a 10min clip, which means list.txt in the command above would have the original file (say myclip.mp4) listed 10x60/50 = 12 times, then do the same combining the 10 minute clips to a 1 hour clip, then combining the 1 hour clips to 10 hours.

You could of course do it all at once by having the original clip 10x60x60/50 = 720 times in list.txt, which would be pretty easy to create by cut/paste in a text editor.

18

Thank you for taking time to respond to me. I tried following instructions but this is a little bit too complicated for me as I’m not a programmer.

19

How far did you get ? What output or errors ?

I tried with a 58s clip of my own, and using:

$ cat list.txt
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’
file ‘demo.mp4’

got a 16 minute clip using the command:

$ ffmpeg -f concat -i list.txt -c copy out.mp4

-rw-rw-r-- 1 bryanb bryanb 648504410 Nov 23 05:31 out.mp4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 bryanb bryanb 38118319 Nov 23 05:30 demo.mp4

20

I’m truly thankful for your efforts trying to help me but as I wrote, I think I need some programming skills and I’m not that good at it, because basically all I can do is download a software and let it do its job but what you’re offering is a bit complicated for me :slightly_smiling_face: