Some of you may be thinking, “what are VIDEO TS folders and VOB files and why would I ever want or need to play them in Media Center?” VIDEO TS is the folder on a DVD movie. It holds VOB files that contain the contents of a DVD, such as video, audio, menus, extras, and even subtitles. Think of them as the file and folder structure of a DVD movie. By ripping these files to your hard drive and playing them in Media Center, it’s just like having your DVD collection loaded onto your system. But, you don’t have to go through the hassle of swapping discs. We are going to take a look at how to play them in both the WMC Movies Library, and Media Browser plugin for Windows 7 Media Center. One of the many great things about Media Browser is it’s ability to recognize and play not only VIDEO TS folders, but to Mount and play ISO files as well. You may want to check out my post on Media Browser for Windows Media Center if you aren’t familiar with Media Browser. Even if you don’t plan on watching Video TS or ISO files, it is still a great  way to manage and display your movies and TV shows in Windows 7 Media Center.

Why Would I Want to Do This?

Typically, I prefer just to have the movie files because with most movies I don’t really need all the extras. I have my DVD collection ripped and stored as MP4 or AVI files on a hard drive. However, there are some DVDs that have a lot of extra content, commentaries, interviews, etc. In these cases I prefer to have everything. By ripping the contents of the DVD and playing back the VIDEO TS folder contents, I get everything you’d get on the DVD (including the Ads… Grrr!) and I don’t have to get up and swap DVDs when I want to watch a different disc. There is a trade off, of course. These raw Video-TS files will take up much more space. For example, a single DVD in the Band of Brothers set is 7 GBs.  Normally, I can store 8 – 10 movies ripped as MP4s in that amount of space and that disc is two hour long episodes, plus some extras.

How do I get a Video TS file?

You will find VIDEO TS and AUDIO TS folders on every DVD. The problem is the copy protection. Assuming your disc is copy protected, you can’t simply copy these files off a DVD with any application. That is where DVDFab comes into play. Note: The AUDIO TS folder is basically irrelevant. It’s typically just an empty folder.

You can rip a Video TS file using DVD Fab’s HD Decrypter. The DVDFab application “suite” is a bit confusing, so just understand that the HD Decrypter part, which is the part we need to copy Video TS folder, is always free. Check out my full post on how to rip your DVD to Video TS. DVDFab has since released version 7 of their application, but the tutorial still works as very little has changed from the application interface aspect.

How to Do It

Step 1 – Install and Setup Media Browser (Optional)

First, if you’d like to use Media Browser, go ahead and install it. I won’t rehash the entire process here, as I already covered it in a previous post. So, if you haven’t read it, or need a refresher, jump on over and read my Media Browser post here. It’ll give you the ins and outs of getting setup. Don’t worry. It’s not too tough.

Step 2 – Download and Install DVDFab

Pretty Straightforward. You can find the latest download here.

Step 3 Rip your DVD w/ DVDFab HD Decrypter

This is another step that I have covered previously so, to see the step by step process, read my Rip a Copy Protected DVD to your Hard Drive with DVDFab post. Again, not very complicated. Copying the VIDEO TS file with DVDFab / HD Decrypter takes only about 20 minutes or so, depending on the disc and your hardware.

Watching in Media Center Movie Library

Add the VIDEO_TS & AUDIO_TS along with a top level folder to your movie library. I prefer to simply rename the top level folder created by DVDFab and then copy it over. It won’t display any metadata, however, without the help of any third party tools.

**Thanks to Jim Walshaw for pointing out the native WMC Movie Library support! He also mentions Media Center Master,which I have yet to cover, for adding cover art and metadata.

Watching in Media Browser

OK, if you followed the steps to get Media Browser setup we are now ready to copy our ripped files to our Movie library in Media Browser. Media Browser recommeds that your store VIDEO TS and ISO files in a different directory and with a different structure than media files like MP4, AVI, MPEG, etc. Mixing these types with ISO’s and VIDEO TS can cause issues.

For a movie, you’ll want to use a format like this:

C:\Movies\DVD Rips\Movie Title\VIDEO_TS (The “Movie Title” will be the actual title of the film.)

For a TV Show, I set it up like this:

C:\TV Shows\TV Show title\Season 1\TV Show DVD 1\VIDEO_TS

Once you’ve got it all configured, you’re ready to watch all those DVD’s (OK, VIDEO_TS / VOB files) without ever having to rifle through your DVD collection.

How everything appears depends on the Media Browser theme you are using.

A downside (very minor) is that your individual episodes will appear as in the image below, instead of with the nice cover art.

Side note: How the heck does Band of Brothers get a 5.75 / 10 rating?!?

Follow Up note: The actual IMDB website gives it 9.6/10, so I don’t know where 5.75 comes from….

1. 

   prajith

   August 29, 2011 at 8:48 am

   thanks for the nice tips.very useful

   Reply