Keep movies in VOB format or convert to another format?

I have copied my DVD collection to hard disk in the VOB format as I was unclear which media format I should use. I'm also aware that the conversion process can degrade the video and audio. Hopefully by keeping to the VOB format the quality is identical as that on the DVD.

But other formats exist and I am aware that VOB files take up space and may not play on every device (laptop, PS3, iPod etc). Is there a clear winner in the format wars? Should I convert my VOB files to this format? I would like to keep to the highest quality output possible and be able to play on the greatest range of devices.

Many thanks in advance.

 

In addition, the VOB files are have a resolution of 720x576 which I would like to preserve. I note that other formats (wmv, mp4, mkv) do not have this exact resolution. Is this important?

 

Don't forget, even though they're 720/576,
they're displayed at 4:3 for proper aspect ratio,
or 16:9 if the VOB's are anamorphic.

Most of the typical conversions are done so that the pixel aspect
ratio is the same as the display. For example, 720*576,
or (720*480 NTSC) would be converted to 720*540, or
704*528 (or 704*400 for anamorphic VOB's).

Very good results are reported by those who convert the main movie to
H264, using about 1.4 GB .

You don't mention where/how you'll be watching these movies
(xbox,ps3, home dvd player,PC,etc,etc) and that may be a factor.

 

Many thanks for your reply. This is the reassurance I was looking for. I'll convert a few VOBs to H264 and see if I can spot the difference.
My movie collection has to be able to be played directly from an external hard disk to an attached PC, streamed using TVersity to a PS3 attached to my LCD TV and from an external hard disk attached to a Western Digital TV Media Player connected to a TV. The format I use has to be able to play as described, VOB does this but the files are large.

 

I have produced a mp4 file using H.264 and changed the resolution setting to 720x480. There are other settings I could change. These are the settings I used:

Video:
Resolution: 720x480
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps
Encoder: H.264
Bit Rate: 1500 kbps
Audio:
Sample Rate: 44100 Hz
Channel: 2 Channels Stereo
Encoder: AAC
Bit Rate: 96 kbps

Are these OK to use? I'm using Wondershare Video Converter Platinum.

 

How did it come out?

Did the resolution you used produce the proper aspect ratio ?

 

The resulting file is 30% of the size of the original VOB file - excellent! However, when played I get the movie in a letter box - not good! I don't seem to be able to change this. Any ideas?

 

I don't understand. Was there a letterbox in the DVD?
If there was then it needs to be trimmed as a part of the encoding so
the black space disappears.

 

There was no letter box on the DVD or in the ripped VOB file when played on my laptop, apart from a black border top and bottom but filling the full width of the screen. Convert to mp4 720x480 and it does not fill the full width of the screen and has a black border all the way around. I'm unable to expand to remove the black border in VLC.

 

It shouldn't normally happen. Something in your conversion
program? Can you post a screen shot showing the problem ?

 

I have tried a screen shot but it saves as a black image when saved as a jpeg.
I have also thought that it might be the conversion program so I will try a few more. Can you recommend any?

 

Try Megui - uses Avisynth. Here's the guide:
http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/dvd_to_avc_megui_part_1.cfm

 

Many thanks. I'll download and give it a go and let you know how I get on.

 

Well I have had a long go and it works! The MKV file that MeGUI produces is 20-25% of the size of the source VOB file and plays well in VLC on my PC and on my son's PS3 streamed via TVersity. It keeps the resolution of the VOB so no more letter boxing!

That's the good news, the only bad news is the time taken to produce the MKV file! I'm finding on my three year old Sony Vaio VGN-FE11S laptop with 2Gb ram and 5400rpm hard disk running XP SP3, that it is taking 1.25 to 1.5 times the running time of the VOB file to produce the MKV file. Perhaps with a faster CPU and hard disk these times would be reduced.

The other downside is that it is still BETA and has some rough edges. When 2 or more VOB are queued up it seems to preprocess all of them before finalising them which means that if you have to cancel, despite all the processing that has taken place, all is lost. This I found when I left MeGUI running over night and found that it had not finished in the morning when I had to go to work. Unfortunately it refuses to run on my 5 year old low spec. Dell desktop which is just running TVersity and so could be used to produce the MKV files.

I will stick with MeGUI and hope that through purchasing new hardware (when my existing laptop gives up) and updates to MeGUI, the time taken to process will no longer be an issue. Only another 342 VOBs to go!

Thanks again for your help.

 

Yes unfortunately a laptop is not designed for heavy conversion work. You need to go the quad route for the best speed.

I have a phenom x4 9750 and that works quite fast, using h264 codec and 2-pass mode it can convert a movie in 1.5 to 2.0 hours.

If your vob's are inside an ISO, you can also consider fairuse wizard as a avi converter. It has the capability of batch processing ISO's and will even turn off your computer when it's done. That's all I ever use and you can crop out the blackbars also from your video.

 

SPAM removed

 

Thanks for the link to DVD Ripper by Pavtube. I have given it a go with astonishing results: a 6min 22sec clip took 46min 10sec to convert off a DVD to a lossless avi file with the resulting file size of 9,851,732,498 bytes. VLC then had trouble playing it.
I think I will stay with my combination of 1ClickDVDCopy Pro/DVDFab 6 to rip to a series of VOB files (1Gb max. size), VOBMerge to combine the individual VOB files into one single VOB file, MeGUI to convert to a mkv file and then mkv2vob to convert to a mpg file for playing on a PS3 streamed from a 5 year old PC running TVersity. The whole process takes approx 1.5 times the running time of the DVD on my three year old Sony Vaio laptop and results in a file size 25% of the single VOB file produced at the start of the conversion process! It might have a number of steps but it works and within an 'acceptable' time. Faster and by using a single application would be better but you can't have everything!

 

try

ps3 Media Server

Been using for ages since dumping TVersity and works like a dream. Should allow you to skip the last step (ie it will play mkv straight to PS3)

 

Thanks for the information. I'll have a look.
It there a way for the PS3 to play mkv files directly off its own hard dive and will I still need to convert to mpg first?

 

I do not encode files for ps3 playback, but MeGUI has ps3 presets. I believe you have to use a .mp4 container to get playback on the PS3 however.

Encoding time depends on your CPU. For me, I get 2.5x real time encoding. So a 2 hour movie would take me about 48 minutes. I have a quad core CPU, so all 4 cores encode. Generally you will get about 3.7x faster encoding time with a Quad Core over a Single Core CPU.

From what you stated about encoding time, your laptop appears to be a Dual Core at about 1.67GHz - 1.83GHz. You can make the encoding faster, but at the cost of quality.