When I upload a VOB into Google Drive and later view in Google Drive OR Google Photos they support Playing VObs fine. Why can’t Plex play VOB files?
@wspies721 said:
When I upload a VOB into Google Drive and later view in Google Drive OR Google Photos they support Playing VObs fine. Why can’t Plex play VOB files?
Plex plays .vobs just fine - care to be more specific, like what is actually in your .vob container?
That is nice to hear 
I have directories that contain VIDEO_TS folders that in turn have VOB files. Plex appears to be skipping them entirely? I read other postings that Plex does not play VOB files and believed this to be my issue. Perhaps it is something else?
This is where I read that Plex does not support VOB files – but again Google seems to handle it effortlessly in Google Photos. No laborious conversion to some other format outside Google is needed – just upload the VOB file and it plays fine.
How do I get Plex to do this? I have no interest in mass converting my VOB files into MPEG (or other) format. It will take months.
As long as you have
1 video = 1 vob file
you should be good.
But as soon as we go into “real” DVD structures, where
1 video = several “chained” vob files
and more, additional files for metadata and subtitles, then Plex has no support for this.
Use makemkv to convert your VIDEO_TS folders to a much better supported MKV file.
Without quality loss and with all subtitles and audio tracks. And this is a simple copy process, no transcoding involved. So the required time for this only depends on the speed of your disks/network.
I will give makemkv a shot. Thanks very much for the info
So I tried it. It works but it takes about 20 minutes per DVD. I have a fast HD and good Wifi. Just a lot of data. I have near 100 DVDs. This will take me forever. Any reason why like Google can’t just let Plex play VOB files?
@wspies721 said:
So I tried it. It works but it takes about 20 minutes per DVD. I have a fast HD and good Wifi. Just a lot of data. I have near 100 DVDs. This will take me forever. Any reason why like Google can’t just let Plex play VOB files?
as has been stated, there is no issue with .vob files, there is an issue with media in the VIDEO_TS structure. Its a Plex issue, nothing to do with google, and its not something viewed as broken, it’s intentionally not supported.
Plex hasn’t and probably never will support disc structures. Plex does support many different packages however. But each package needs to be named to the appropriate movie.
In MakeMKV usually the largest file is the movie. You can unselect the others and unselect any foreign languages or subtitles you don’t plan on using which helps to process faster.
Use FileBot to rename the movie appropriately after that.
Depending on the clients you use you may want to take the next step and convert this file to a standard format the works better for Plex and allows Direct Play on most devices.
So, Ok. I get it. What I see is that Plex simply ignores any content under VIDEO_TS folders. However, if I move VOB files elsewhere Plex plays them or rename VIDEO_TS to VIDEO the VOBs individually get loaded into Plex. So, I get that MakeMKV combines all the titles into a single video – but I can live with just renaming folders. Not sure why Plex ignores VIDEO_TS folders though and not AUDIO_TS folders. Weird.
@wspies721 said:
So I tried it. It works but it takes about 20 minutes per DVD. I have a fast HD and good Wifi. Just a lot of data. I have near 100 DVDs. This will take me forever.
Nothing good comes without some pain and suffering.
If you think 20 minutes is a long time wait until you have to Handbrake a VC-1 track into submission. That 20 minute ‘eternity’ just turned into a 2Hr (+/-) ‘super-eternity’.
You’ll get used to these things - eventually. What seems shocking now will be commonplace as you get older. Embrace it. Own it. Life happens when you least expect it.
Haha. Well – I go back to writing K&R C in Unix OS’s before Linux was “invented”. Actually, before the Internet was even invented (or popular). I had no patience then and have less now. I’ll stick to my work-around and stuff all the VOBs up where Plex can find them
Wow this is pretty ridiculous. I mean frontrow has been playing vobs for 10 years (while it existed), appletv and Air video combo, vnc, etc all plays them fine… It seems like such an easy fix to allow DVD-based file structures to play if it supports vob files themselves. Totally stupid plex!
Yep. What I had to do is by hand – for each and every individual DVD folder (over 50 DVDs – maybe more) – use makemkv so it shows up in Plex and plays. Really ridiculous.
Can someone explain why its designed to ignore video_ts folders? What if we just batch rename that folder… would it at least play the vobs in order? I suppose it wouldnt get any meta for them.
VOB files, VIDEO_TS, and any other disc formats are not designed for streaming, so therefore Plex doesn’t do anything with them.
Google Photos can do it
@wspies721 said:
Google Photos can do it
So then use Google Photos to stream your VOBs. Plex doesn’t use non-streaming formats.
I do use Google Photos to stream VOBs. I also use Plex. Plex has Apps over Google Photos and better support for various clients (e.g. Roku, FireTV, etc). For as long as Plex has been around so much longer than Google Photos – its surprising Plex hasn’t figured this out.
It isn’t a streaming format. I’m pretty sure Plex understands the container format and I completely agree with not supporting it.
