Organising DVD copies on external HD?

[terrypin]

After buying a 1 TB external HD I'm about to copy my DVDs onto it. Mainly as backup but also with the idea that I can then quickly access clips for re-use when making new DVDs. I suppose a third use might be to play them directly from HD occasionally, although I'd normally plump for taking the DVD downstairs to my widescreen TV. Or take a couple of steps away from the PC to get the DVD disc original.

What do others do in similar situations please? First thought is to just copy the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders into newly created folders with appropriate names ('2003 Holidays' etc)? One downside with that is that any multiple tracks/chapters are not identified, like 'Spain 2003' etc. (BTW, are there any utilities that will scan a VIDEO_TS folder and make a simple text file showing all the contents?)

Anyway, given that the IFO/BUP/VOB structure is therefore not a priority, I'm favouring the idea of copying only the individual VOBs, renaming them and changing the extension to MPG. Would that make sense? And if so, is there a utility that will do it automatically, renaming the VOBs to match their track/chapter labels? Or at least prompt me for them?

Any advice would be much appreciated please.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[MysticE]

Anyway, given that the IFO/BUP/VOB structure is therefore not a priority

It is if you want to play then as DVDs instead of mpegs with no chapter stops, menus, subtitles etc.

[redwudz]

And VOBs are just arbitrary divisions of a MPEG file, usually about 1GB. This may span different chapters, scenes. Changing the filename to .MPG, as mentioned, may lose all the chapter info, subs and alternate languages. A VOB is a lot more than just a MPEG file.

Assuming you want to keep menus, chapters, etc., intact, you would want the whole VIDEO_TS folder. Or if you just wanted simple playback with most any software player, extract the MPEGs to one large MPEG file with a program like VOB2MPG.

[lordsmurf]

A VOB is more than an MPEG, and renaming the file extension is a mistake.

[terrypin]

And VOBs are just arbitrary divisions of a MPEG file, usually about 1GB. This may span different chapters, scenes. Changing the filename to .MPG, as mentioned, may lose all the chapter info, subs and alternate languages. A VOB is a lot more than just a MPEG file.

Assuming you want to keep menus, chapters, etc., intact, you would want the whole VIDEO_TS folder. Or if you just wanted simple playback with most any software player, extract the MPEGs to one large MPEG file with a program like VOB2MPG.

Thanks redwudz, I'll experiment with that VOB2MPG approach.

However, on many past occasions, if all I wanted - as in this case - was the main movies, not the menu, I've changed a single VOB (e.g. VTS_01_1.VOB) to MPG and never had any problem. Isn't all that other stuff in each BUP and/or IFO? Have I just been lucky, and there's something I'm missing here please?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[redwudz]

You've been lucky. From 'WHAT IS' DVD to the upper left on this page. (Worthwhile reading. Scroll down a bit to see the DVD structure.) From that page:

. VOB = The VOB files contains the actual video,audio,subtitles and menus.

In other words, just about everything in a DVD is stuffed into the VOBs.