renaming vob files to mpg

[lordhutt]

I have recently ripped a lot of music dvd's.
I just took the individual vob files for each song and changed the file extension to mpg.
I read somewhere that this will work fine.

The files play perfectly in Media Player Classic.

However if I play in Windows Media Player or a few jukebox programs I have like Nordbeat or Ejukebox they play but without sound.

Any idea why?

[bat999]

Hi
Probably there isn't the correct codec installed in Windows Media Player.
Use mediainfo to find out which audio codec is used in those vob/mpg files.

[redwudz]

Changing the extension usually works, especially for what you want to do, but be aware VOBs contain a lot more than just the video and audio. They may have more than one audio track, or language, and contain subtitles and parts of the DVD menu. Not usually a recommended practice, especially if you plan to do some editing with them. You can also extract the MPEG video and audio with a simple program like VOB2MPG.

And, as mentioned, you probably need a audio codec, most likely AC3. Try AC3Filter and see if that works for WMP. DVD videos also may be 5.1 Dolby, but that codec should take care of it. Another option is ffdshow, which can decode the AC3 and also enable playback of most common audio and video formats. It's not a codec pack, so doesn't have their problems. Media Player Classic has it's own codecs, but doesn't share them with WMP.

[guns1inger]

A VOB is not the same as an MPEG. The containers are different, and may not be read the same by all players. Simply changing the name does not change the container, or allow everything to work the way you want. You are better off using VOB2MPG to correctly repackage the VOB content into an MPEG container. No re-encoding takes place, so no quality is lost. You should also check the content with mediainfo and make sure the audio is in a format that your players can play. For example, most hardware players will not play DTS natively, only stream it to a digital decoder.

[Alex_ander]

What is the difference between a VOB file and an MPEG file?
http://www.womble.com/support/FAQ09.html

[lordhutt]

Each of my videos is a separate vob file. I did them one at a time when I ripped each dvd.
I decided to try vob2mpg real quick but can't find any way to load an individual vob file into it.
You seem to need an ifo file or insert a dvd.
How could I just load individual vob files....and would I be able to cue about 600 at one time?

[jagabo]

Mpg2Cut2 can remux VOB to MPG.

[scorpio1959]

i just used hdconverttox to convert my music video vob files to play in ejukebox. you can queue the videos in, then go out while it does its thing. hdconverttox is a free program from the tools section in this site.

[lordhutt]

i just used hdconverttox to convert my music video vob files to play in ejukebox. you can queue the videos in, then go out while it does its thing. hdconverttox is a free program from the tools section in this site.

Does this do any re-encoding? I don't want to lose any quality...

[lordhutt]

Just installed ac3filter as per redwudz suggestion. Everything working great now!

Thank you!

[scorpio1959]

i think it does re encode, i left the same file size 720 x 576 and converted to mkv with ac3 audio, did 10 in a row, one had audio sync problems , so i did it again, and it worked fine. took about 10 minutes for each clip. i have the trial version of ejukebox, would be good if it played the vobs, i have many mkv files, which it does play, its the best jukebox program i have found so far, for mpeg, avi, and mkv music videos.\, as i would rather not convert the vobs as they are taken straight of my dvds, and i dont like to loose quality, but the conversions did look pretty good..

[lordhutt]

scorpio, like I mentioned above the vob files I have that I simply renamed to mpg work fine now that I installed ac3filter. They work in WMP as well as both jukebox programs I tried...Nordbeat and Ejukebox. I really like AlbumPlayer the best out of the jukebox software but it does not support video!
As for the renaming I use 'Betterfilerename' ....works great for this and many other similar things.

[jagabo]

Media players, when given misnamed files, are good at figuring out what the file type really is. But renaming your .VOB files .MPG is sloppy and could lead to some problems in the future because they are not .MPG files. Why not just leave them with a .VOB extension?

[lordhutt]

Media players, when given misnamed files, are good at figuring out what the file type really is. But renaming your .VOB files .MPG is sloppy and could lead to some problems in the future because they are not .MPG files. Why not just leave them with a .VOB extension?

These are primarily for jukebox software like the ones I mentioned which do not support vob files.

[lordsmurf]

Renaming VOB files is like over-inflating the tires on your car. It only "works fine" until you have problems. And you WILL eventually have problems. What you've done is not the proper way to do things.

[lordhutt]

Renaming VOB files is like over-inflating the tires on your car. It only "works fine" until you have problems. And you WILL eventually have problems. What you've done is not the proper way to do things.

Well, its working fine with the program it will need to work with. These were ripped solely to be used with my touchscreen jukebox. So if they work with it now I can't see why they would stop?
However, I am not against doing it properly as this never actually seemed to me the proper way anyway.
But I already have about 600-700 files.
Is there a 'simple' automated way to do this? I don't want to re-encode if I don't have to.
I looked at vob2mpeg but could not find a way to load vob files...you seem to need to be ripping from a dvd with this program?
Can this or any other program simply do what I want? I am not worried about a few bucks to do it right so it does not have to be freeware either.

Thanks.

[lordsmurf]

So if they work with it now I can't see why they would stop?

If this is a closed system, and won't get any software updates, it should be fine.
Just do it properly from now on, when ripping from discs.

[jagabo]

I think Mpg2Cut2 supports command line options for batch processing.

[lordhutt]

So if they work with it now I can't see why they would stop?

If this is a closed system, and won't get any software updates, it should be fine.
Just do it properly from now on, when ripping from discs.

Well, I just tried vob2mpeg with a dvd and that was effortless. I wish I had used this before instead of ripping with DVD Decryptor.

But now that you have brought it up I would like to do the conversion if it is not going to be a huge hassle.
Is there a way to do this with vob2mpeg?...or other software?

Hopefully there is a simple way to do this with the vob's I have already ripped since I am anal enough to re-rip all of the dvd's with vob2mpeg if there is not....although I would prefer not to do this!!!

I think Mpg2Cut2 supports command line options for batch processing.

This will do vob to mpeg?

[lordhutt]

It seems like mpg2cut2 should do this fine. I did a single file....but if I load multiple files I can't figure out how to make it save them as individual files....it keeps making them into 1 big mpeg.

[lordsmurf]

VobEdit can do it.

[jagabo]

Maybe Mpeg Streamclip. Yes, I just tried it. It's "list" processing lets you select a bunch of VOB files and convert them to a bunch of MPG files without reencoding.

[lordhutt]

Maybe Mpeg Streamclip. Yes, I just tried it. It's "list" processing lets you select a bunch of VOB files and convert them to a bunch of MPG files without reencoding.

Yes, that does seem to work quite nicely.
Was just curious though....and I'm sure it makes no difference.

Using VOB2MPG to re-rip with a dvd the resulting mpegs are the exact same size as my previous vob files.

Using Mpeg Streamclip with my vob files the resulting mpeg files are about 3-5 meg smaller per file.

Any thought on this or should I not even be thinking about it.!

Is either one of these just as good as the other? All the vobs I have (over 600) were ripped with DVD Decryptor.
Am I better off to start over with VOB2MPG or will the Mpeg Streamclip do the job just as well?
VOB2MPEG will involve quite a few hours of work compared to MpegStreamclip taking about 3 minutes to cue up the files!
I wish I was not so O.C. about this shit!

BTW: there were 3 options for converting to mpeg
Convert to MPEG
Convert to MPEG with MP2 audio
Convert to Headed MPEG

I'm assuming the regular MPEG is the one I want....I don't know what headed mpeg is.
Also assuming to leave 'fix timecode breaks' unticked?