What is a VOB file?

JackW wrote on 2/10/2004, 11:36 AM
Since the only way out of ignorance is enlightenment, will someone please enlighten me: what is a VOB file? What creates it? What's to be done with it.

In the production work we do I've never encountered one, but I gather from a recent posting that it's not uncommon to encounter them in some of the dark alleys of videography. I'd like to be prepared to engage the monster when I meet him, so will someone please fill me in on the details, or perhaps point me to a source of information on the WWW.

Thanks in advance.

Jack

Comments

Former user wrote on 2/10/2004, 11:40 AM
VOB is the video file format that is created on a DVD. It is similar to MPEG2 except it has different formats of audio embedded.

Dave T2
donp wrote on 2/10/2004, 11:42 AM
If you open the Video TS folder on a DVD you will see them. They are the movie that plays on the DVD.
JackW wrote on 2/10/2004, 11:54 AM
You'd think after burning as many DVDs as I have that I would have noticed this, but it has never come up. We normally render to mpg, do the burn and delete all the files associated with it to make room on the hard drive for the next job.

I'm going to search the BB archive now to see how others have worked directly with these files.

Thanks for the info.
johnmeyer wrote on 2/10/2004, 3:43 PM
VOB = Video OBject file. It contains the MPEG2 video, plus one or more soundtracks, plus subtitles. I think it can contain other things as well.

Vegas can create the video and audio (although not the subtitles, at present). DVD Architect then "authors" the various video and audio pieces, plus menus, into the collection of files that eventually get "burned" onto your DVD. Part of this collection is one or more VOB files, which are created by DVD Architect.

Since the VOB file is built upon the MPEG2 standard, you can sometimes use a program designed to view or edit MPEG2 files to view VOB files. Vegas is one such program. You can put a VOB file on the Vegas timeline, and it will play, although sometimes it doesn't play smoothly because Vegas must pick its way through all the other stuff that is in there (the multiple audio files, and subtitles). Also, Vegas doesn't have the additional logic to decode the specific audio track that you want to use (although it could add this in a future release), so you have to use an external program to first extract the audio, and then place that audio in an audio track under the VOB file if you want to edit the file.

Hope that helps.
JackW wrote on 2/10/2004, 10:13 PM
It does, John. Thanks.