Merged parse vs. what alternative?

[Viridiana]

What's the difference between a merged parse, and, the alternative that I don't really know about. Why is it preferable/more popular, and how would I go and set it up to use it?

Well, a merged parse, if one were to use a parser, would not parse the downtime that's causing the encounter to split. If we take Ravana EX as an example, there are some breaks in there where you go 20 seconds or more without having anything available to attack. If your hypothetical parser has a setting that says "End encounter after X seconds with no action" and it's set to default at, like, 6, then you have 14 seconds or more of your encounter that aren't being counted in the "per second" part of DPS when you merge the encounters. This would, of course, inflate the ratio of damage to seconds, and make one's DPS bigger than it should be.