I have tried several different ways to get the WD LIve player to play VOB files from a ripped DVD continuously with intervention but with no success.
At the end of each vob file, the player stops and returns to the folder for me to select the next file in the sequence. I have tried placing all files from the ripped DVD including the TOC files and IFO files and then only the vob files but neither method works.
Several users have reported here that they do not have this problem. Since it must not be the player, possibly the media streaming program–I use Tversity. I would like to hear from several who have this working and I would like know what media streaming program you are using and/or any other DVD file structure you may be using in the video media folder.
I just want to find out what is causing this to happen on every attempt to continuously play all Vob files.
You have two choices. You can either combine the .VOB files into a single file or convert the .VOB files to a .AVI file. Either will work.
I recommend combining the .VOB files because it is much faster and maintains the original video and sound quality. You can do this using a free piece of software called VOB Merge by Evilmaster. Note: Make sure that your harddrives are formatted with the NTFS file system if you are going to output files larger than 4 GB! VOBMerge is a tool for merging several .VOB files into one big VOB. This is useful for seamless playback and/or editing of DVD video on your WD TV HD Media Player or computer. Don’t use it to join several DVDs, just use it to join a VOB set from the same DVD. You can give the new file any name you like, such as the movie name. You can save the original files somewhere else if you like, but remove them from your USB drive so that the individual .VOB files don’t show up in your movie list.
To convert the movie to an AVI file, I recommend AoA DVD Ripper . It isn’t free, but it creates the AVI file using the .IFO file, so that the whole movie is included in one step. Depending on the speed of your CPU and the length of your movie, it may take 5-7 hours to create the AVI file. Again you can give the new file any name you like and you will want to remove the original files from your USB drive.
Good luck. Let me know if you have any problems with this.
OK I am answering my own post–since I finally figured out the subtleties associated with the original issue.
With all files ripped files from the DVD placed into the Video_TS folder, if that is the name of the folder you decided to call it, simply click on PLAY on the remote NOT ENTER and the player will go to the first VOB file and play all of them in the proper sequence with only a slight pause between each which is normal–that cannot be avoided unless you are willing to go to more steps that could lead to other problems.
It’s that easy–why this was not explained here before is beyond me.
When a DVD is ripped, the ripping software has no way of knowing the intended use of the media so it should retain the original video structure as specified in the DVD standard. There is a specific file structure that is necessary if the movie is to be played on a standard DVD player. In this case we are not attempting to play the files on a DVD player which the WD device is not. If one only wanted to place the VOB in the folder, that would be fine too but would require the extra step of removing all the other files which are not that large anyway. These additional files are not needed at thsi time since the player does not behave as a DVD player–at least until WD adds a DVD player feature— but for now, the VOB files are the only ones actually necessary to play the movie. If all the other files that are part of the DVD structure are placed in the folder–no harm done–the WD player will ignore them and only play the VOB files.
As to combing them for better quality–that is not true and is a complete unnecessary waste of time.
There you have it–JUST HIT THE PLAY BUTTON INSTEAD OF THE ENTER BUTTON WHEN YOU SEE THE MAIN VIDEO_TS FOLDER —DO NOT OPEN THAT FOLDER TO SEE THE VOB FILES OR THE CONTINUOUS PLAY WILL NOT WORK!
Cool down on the capitals, will you? Better get your facts straight: the Live recognizes a DVD as such only when VOBs/IFOs are placed in an VIDEO_TS folder as is mandated on original DVDs. However, since the Live does not read from discs the mandatory file order
IFO
VOB
BUP
is irrelevant.
As long as the files are in the VIDEO_TS folder you will get continuos playback without any pauses during playback and it’s irrelevant whether you press ENTER or PLAY. However, if you do press PLAY instead of ENTER you can save yourself one click for playback to start. So if your folder structure looks like this:
My Movies\The Matrix\VIDEO_TS\VOB, IFO, BUP
you can either start the movie with PLAY on the VIDEO_TS folder or with ENTER on the first file inside this folder. In both cases you’ll get continuous playback.
EDIT: so how about actually marking the solution as such?
When trying to play a group of VOB files, there is a lag between the files and difficulties rewinding to locations in different VOB files. The WD TV Live HD Media Player may also show the length of the individual VOB file instead of the length of the movie.
Cause:
Many encoding programs will put VOB’s in a VIDEO_TS folder. The WDTV Live requires these VOB files to be in a VIDEO_TS folder to play correctly. If the files are located in a folder with a different name this behavior will occur.
Solution:
This issue is solved by simply placing the files into a properly named folder. Follow the instructions below if you need assistance doing this.
Connect your storage device to a computer
Navigate to the folder (using My Computer / Computer on a PC or Finder on MacOSX) that contains the video VOB files
Create a folder in this directory called VIDEO_TS
Copy the VOB files to the VIDEO_TS folder
From the ‘Did You Know? Quick WD TV Tips’
Play multiple files in a row
Instead of pressing the Enter button while a file is selected, you can press the Play button to play all of the files in the current folder sequentially, beginning with the currently selected file.
OK I am answering my own post–since I finally figured out the subtleties associated with the original issue.
With all files ripped files from the DVD placed into the Video_TS folder, if that is the name of the folder you decided to call it, simply click on PLAY on the remote NOT ENTER and the player will go to the first VOB file and play all of them in the proper sequence with only a slight pause between each which is normal–that cannot be avoided unless you are willing to go to more steps that could lead to other problems.
It’s that easy–why this was not explained here before is beyond me.
When a DVD is ripped, the ripping software has no way of knowing the intended use of the media so it should retain the original video structure as specified in the DVD standard. There is a specific file structure that is necessary if the movie is to be played on a standard DVD player. In this case we are not attempting to play the files on a DVD player which the WD device is not. If one only wanted to place the VOB in the folder, that would be fine too but would require the extra step of removing all the other files which are not that large anyway. These additional files are not needed at thsi time since the player does not behave as a DVD player–at least until WD adds a DVD player feature— but for now, the VOB files are the only ones actually necessary to play the movie. If all the other files that are part of the DVD structure are placed in the folder–no harm done–the WD player will ignore them and only play the VOB files.
As to combing them for better quality–that is not true and is a complete unnecessary waste of time.
There you have it–JUST HIT THE PLAY BUTTON INSTEAD OF THE ENTER BUTTON WHEN YOU SEE THE MAIN VIDEO_TS FOLDER —DO NOT OPEN THAT FOLDER TO SEE THE VOB FILES OR THE CONTINUOUS PLAY WILL NOT WORK!
Combining the vob may indeed be unnecessary but it is very quick to do (vobjoin program below), there are no ‘slight pauses’ in playback, you can put them in any folder and not worry about any of your CAPITALISED instructions.
Cool down on the capitals, will you? Better get your facts straight: the Live recognizes a DVD as such only when VOBs/IFOs are placed in an VIDEO_TS folder as is mandated on original DVDs. However, since the Live does not read from discs the mandatory file order
IFO
VOB
BUP
is irrelevant.
you can either start the movie with PLAY on the VIDEO_TS folder or with ENTER on the first file inside this folder. In both cases you’ll get continuous playback.
Don’t say they are irrelevant. More data is never irrelevant, they are needed to retrieve certain information and if you want to use the DVD structured. What if WD does one day add it and then you are stuck without them. It takes up something like 0.000000001% of the space of the DVD to keep these files, they are tiny but important.
Oh and the original poster has more options. He could put all the files into an ISO file with retains the DVD structure but is just one single file (and that plays smooth)
or he could convert them to MKV files - since that is basically just wrapping them in an MKV container it doesn’t reduce quality nor take that long.
Don’t say they are irrelevant. More data is never irrelevant
Reading helps. I never said that. I said that the file order is irrelevant and that holds true even if WD would add DVD menu support which I very much doubt. Besides, apart from being mentioned here countless times MKVs are no option in this particular case sine the OP specifically mentioned VOB files.
On an iMac, when I rip a DVD using RipIt I get 1 “file” which has the name of the DVD, and a “dvdmedia” extension. This plays on the Mac, including menus, scene selection, and so forth,… just like using the original DVD. Great.
For use with the WD TV Live, I have put all my videos (some .dvdmedia, others mostly .avi) in one folder on a drive attached to the iMac. I can connect to this folder with the WD TV Live just fine, and see all the files listed.
The .avi files always play fine through the WD TV Live, but not the .dvdmedia files:
some play,
some won’t, (even though the vob file name, the “subtitles available” splash appears, and the film’s length shows correctly!)
some play sometimes, then won’t play unless I unplug and reboot the WD TV Live.
When selecting a file which I know is a .dvdmedia file, I already knew about the need to press ENTER to get to the VIDEO_TS folder and then to press PLAY. (The files within the .dvdmedia file are not usually visible on the iMac, but can be seen on WD TV Live.)
This inconsistent behaviour is frustrating. Any suggestions, please, to get VOB files to play consistently? Thanks.
EDIT: I just noticed this topic is SOLVED, so I have moved this to a new topic.
“Solved” is a relative term. What is the significance of a VIDEO_TS folder!?!?!
It would be way better to have all the VOB files in a folder named for the title of the movie. The VIDEO_TS folder just gets in the way and adds another level of browsing.
We are not playing DVDs here, if we wanted to play a DVD we would use our DVD player.
We want to play **digital video**. Please free us from this crazy convention.
“Solved” is a relative term. What is the significance of a VIDEO_TS folder!?!?!
It would be way better to have all the VOB files in a folder named for the title of the movie. The VIDEO_TS folder just gets in the way and adds another level of browsing.
We are not playing DVDs here, if we wanted to play a DVD we would use our DVD player.
We want to play **digital video**. Please free us from this crazy convention.
The fact is that you are playing DVD’s if you keep your videos in VOB’s. The accompanying files also tell the WDTV about the length of the movie and info on subtitles. The VIDEO_TS folder tells the WDTV that the files within are based on the DVD spec. Obviously if you have one vob in your folder then you can call it whatever you want but if you want to play a complete movie with multiple vob’s and no interruption then you need to put it into the folder VIDEO_TS.
Despite all the bickering back and forth, I’ve managed to glean the following from this thread:
WD TV Live WILL play DVD’s that have been ripped to disk. BUT they need to be in a VIDEO_TS Folder, and then it will play the .VOB files in sequence. So far this is from a USB Drive connected to the unit.
Now, my question is: Will it do the same over a shared folder on a computer networked to it?
And if yes, now all I have to do is figure out how I can get it to recognize network shares on my XP Pro system…sigh…
PS. I’ve shared the folders that contain the DVD’s. Permissions is Everyone can read (When it starts working, I’ll try to figure out how to get only the TV WD unit to read them…can’t wait for that challenge). I can SEE the USB drive and contents that I plugged into it. I can copy files from my computer to said USB drive…however the unit refuses to see my network shares…I’ve started both Network DDE Services…even checked the Guest Account to on (whaterver that is supposed to accomplish is beyond me)…double sigh…z
