[EricReesor]

When all else fails sometimes the command line is the answer. Split up vob files can be a pain to deal with when using a dlna media server. Getting past the menu can also be problematic.

Here is how to do it with Mint Linux, or any other distro that has the libdvdcss and the codecs installed. For this purpose I use brasero to first create an iso of the dvd to my /home directory then I extract the VIDEO_TS folder from the iso. Brasero will retrieve the dvd keys and create a dvd iso file. This will take about 20 minutes on my p111 1700 ghz pentium m laptop. Which is actually faster than running an iso creator on my Windows Vista machine which is much newer.

Then after I extract the Video_TS I go through to find the indexed vob files and figure out which ones will need to be stitched together to create a single large VOB

The command line is then used to cd to the VIDEO_TS folder and do the deed. The command to concatenate the files is very specific and has very simple syntax.

cat

space

Then (the name and extension of your first file) space (second) space (etc) as many as make up the movie or episode. they are usually numbered and will start with 1 the ones that are indexed with a 0 usually are menus or timed blanking screens.

space

Then the > character to set the file output name with extension and destination where the new concatenated file is to go. You can redirect the file output elsewhere however it will just put it in the current directory that you are in if you just assign the name and not a place, the same as most other software.

If you do redirect the output be careful to not put it somewhere that they will not fit or to an essential directory if you run as root. The output can be huge. The three into one below came out to 2.9 gig. Movies will top out around 6-7 gig!

space

Then the name you chose with the file extension .VOB

hit enter and wait till the job completes.

...............

Some DVDs will put extraneous characters after the .VOB so watch out for them ...just remember that you can use tab to complete with bash so the cli will pick them up.

Single large VOBS work really well with the Serviio java based dlna server that I use with my laptop. I resorted to this because getting the allshare to read continuously through a sequence of .vob files caused server dropout trouble, even with the Windows only pc media server software from Samsung.

Here is a picture of the actual process

 

[admin]

Nice work. Thanks Eric for sharing

 

[madhi19]

Could you just use Avidemux and append the files? You could also convert the result at the same time to a more media player friendly format. And also reduce the size considerably by the way! I bet there is a ffmpeg command line to do all this if you insist on using the terminal.

 

[EricReesor]

I was just trying to simplify streaming video UPnP DLNA

Could you just use Avidemux and append the files?

I am sure there is but like most software that is multipurpose there can be trouble finding the core cat process and doing simple things quickly

You could also convert the result at the same time to a more media player friendly format. And also reduce the size considerably by the way!

HandBrake is really well suited for this task and has a CLI for purists that like to reduce the x11 overhead or invoke what can be more flexible and faster shell scripts of their own making. Same as how .bat made msdos and the original NT so popular with admins....and most real NT sys admins still do it by choice instead of using buggy over blown guis to do simple things.

I bet there is a ffmpeg command line to do all this if you insist on using the terminal.

Trying to demux a dvd can be a pain so yes the ffmpeg lib will do it but I find it more reliable to do it manually. Then transcode the unified vob. I am not talking about doing video editing like you can with Avidemux just simple stuff to help a menu use limited dlna client play your library without the menus. Which really speeds up the streaming choice function...because this way the client does not have to wade through extraneous vob files over your local net to work.

For me Linux excels at letting the user choose to do things without needless processor overhead...I guess this is why most TVs and BD players today run exclusively an OSS RT tuned embedded version of Linux like Busy-Box "http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-busybox/"

Cheers Eric