video_ts and folders

All my movies are stored in separated folders. Each folder contains a movie (.avi) and a movielabel (.jpg) so I can choose a movie by click on the label in the WD-menu.

Now my problem: I have a movie (TheProposal) but it’s not an .avi , it’s a VIDEO_TS folder with .vob .ifo .sub .  In my WD-menu on the television,  I can see al my movies (.avi)  but not my movie in the subfolder VIDEO_TS. Between all my labels from the .avi-movies I can see five .VOB-files without a label (TheProposal.jpg). I can not play them either.

The folderstructure is

Z:\WD\Movies\TheProposal\VIDEO_TS (this folder contains also TheProposal.jpg)

Z:\WD\Movies\Avatar\Avatar.avi (+Avatar.jpg in same folder)  

Z:\WD\Movie…

(All my movies are like Avatar and that works fine!)

Can someone tell me how I have to make my folderstructure right and where I have to put my TheProposal.jpg ?

Thanks a lot!

Peter

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.

VOB files are MPG files! You can simply change the file extension.

joining VOB files is simple in a windows cmd window

Start, Run, Cmd (this opens a DOS window)
cd \Videofiles (“Videofiles” is the folder where your VOB files are)
copy /b vts_01_1.vob + vts_01_2.vob + vts_01_3.vob + vts_01_4.vob new.vob

new.vob is now 1 VOB file of the movie.

you may also drag and drop the file into the window and it will add the file names, just put the space and + between them and choose output file name

vobMerge is great! It does what it should do!

I’m very thankful for this solution you posted.

kind regards,

Peter