How do I join two .rar folders?

[Ignazio Palmisano]

Steven Vollom wrote:
>> cd "/media/sdb5/Films/Swing Vote I"
>> unrar x ssp-sv2008-a.rar

... many lines after...

> ...         Swing.Vote.2008.HDTV.XviD-SUNSPOT-cd2.avi                 OK
> All OK
> steven at Studio25:/media/sdb5/Films/Swing Vote II$          
> 
>> These will probably be either movie files (such as .mpg, .avi, or .wmv)
>> or disk image files (.iso).
> They are .avi files.  So I just join using avimerge then?  
>


yep


> I am going to have to study this command a bit to understand it better.  It 
> appears that once it has been opened to the .avi folder, I can delete all 
> the .rar data that took place when opening it, and retain the .avi file to 
> play the movie.  If that is so, why does it take so much longer for the .avi 
> file produced from a .rar folder to open.  When I open a movie that was saved 
> as a .avi file, it opens much faster than a movie that is opened after 
> unpacking a .rar.  Is there a reason for that?

Uninformed guess (since I never saw a rarred movie open automatically): 
before opening the rarred movie, it must be uncompressed. Opening the 
avi movie does not have to go through that stage, so it is faster.

More relevant question: as far as I know rarring or zipping lossy 
formats is not a great space saver (the formats are already compressed 
themselves), so why bother with rar? I know it's common to find movies 
on p2p networks in that form, but I don't see the point in keeping them 
that way after th download.
HTH,
I.