What is VOB Video Format and how to Play VOB Videos?

On a movie DVD disc, you will see multiple VOB files in the VIDEO_TS directory on the disc. The VOB files are where the video of the DVD is stored. But when you try to copy those VOB files to the hard disc and play them later, you will get errors. Even if you have copied them to another location, chances are that it will fail to open the copied VOB videos. What are the VOB files and how do I play VOB files? Let's learn what is VOB video format in this post.

What is VOB File?

VOB, stands for video object, is a container format contained in DVD-Video media. It contains a majority of the data stored on the disc, including video and audio data, as well as other movie-related content like subtitles, DVD menus, and other navigation contents. The VOB file can be encrypted for copy protection and is typically stored in the "VIDEO_TS" folder at the root of the DVD.

In the VOB video format, the video is encoded with MPEG-1 Part 2 or H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 codecs and the audio is encoded with MPEG-1 Audio Layer II, MPEG-2 Audio Layer II audio, Linear PCM, DTS, and AC-3 codecs. On a DVD, you may see many VOB files. That’s because the media of one title is split into multiple 1GB VOB files for all operating systems, as some don’t support files larger than 1GB.

What is a VTS.VOB File?

In a DVD, you may also see VOB files like VTS_xx_0.VOB and VTS_xx_n.VOB files. What are they? TS_xx_0.VOB files contain the root menus of a DVD and provide navigation to skip chapters or select an alternative starting point for playback. VTS_xx_n.VOB files contain the actual video files of the DVD. And if you need to extract the video from a DVD, you need to locate and copy the VOB files with those names.

But since commercial DVDs are encrypted, extracting VOB files from protected DVDs can result in failure. You will need a DVD decrypter to remove the encryption and copy the VOB files from DVDs to another location.

What are IFO and BUP?

Inside the DVD VIDEO_TS directory, you often see VOB files together with IFO and BUP files. What are these files? Simply put, IFO tells DVD player information of the DVD like where the title begins, where the subtitle is stored, etc. BUP are backup files of the IFO files with the same name, used to help in case of corruption. You need to note that, if you want to burn VOB files to a DVD±R disc, IFO and BUP files are necessary.

How do I Play a VOB File?

To open VOB videos is easy. Most VOB players can open non-encrypted VOB files on Windows and macOS, including Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic, VLC, Apple DV Player, KMPlayer, Potplayer, Elmedia Player, and more. Since VOB format is used in a DVD to store video media, any device that can access a DVD is able to play VOB videos, including DVD players, PlayStations, and Xbox 360s.

However, if you want to play VOB videos from encrypted source, namely, commercial DVDs, you may meet errors. This is because many DVD titles are encrypted with CSS and other protections. If you play the encrypted VOB files in a player, the encryption keys are required and it will result in failure.

How do I Open Encrypted VOB Files?

Most commercial DVDs are protected by various encyption measures. Due to the encryption, the DVD video VOB files from encrypted sources are also encrypted. To play those VOB files without error, you need to decrypt them first. There are tools like libdvdcss and DeCSS to remove the CSS on the VOB.

To decrypt VOB videos that may contain CSS, region codes, RCE, 99-title, bad sector, or any other protections, try the best free VOB tool - WinX DVD Ripper (Windows version or macOS version). It will bypass any encryptions on DVD, Video_TS folder, and ISO image and create non-encrypted VOB videos.  

Advantages and Disadvantages of VOB Format

Advantages: VOB files are encoded with low compression. VOB files usually are the original files, so they haven't been converted and thus have the best quality possible. Another benefit of VOB format is that it's able to contain a large amount of information. For example, it allows several audio tracks and subtitle tracks. As a DVD standard, the format is widely supported by any DVD players.

Disadvantages: Due to the low compression and large amount of information, VOB files are often large in size. VOB format is not suitable for streaming on networks. You can't upload VOB videos to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, etc. directly. Some video editors don't support VOB format either, including iMovie and Movie Maker. The biggest drawback of VOB format is that it often contains encryption, making it hard to copy or edit the file.

Can I Convert VOB Files to MP4?

Sometimes, there comes the need to convert VOB files to a more efficient format like MP4 to save bandwidth or share on webs. Try the best VOB to MP4 video converter - Winxvideo AI. Within 3 clicks, it will convert VOB videos from/to MP4, HEVC, H.264, MOV, AVI, WMV, FLV, iPhone, iPad, Android, TV, YouTube, Facebook, and 420+ profiles. Also compress large VOB videos to 40%-90% smaller with almost no quality loss. Fast GPU-accelerated speed.

1. Free download the VOB to MP4 video converter (Windows version or macOS version) on your computer.
2. Run the converter and click the + icon on the interface to load the VOB videos. You can also add multiple VOB files at a time, and combine multiple VOB files into a new one.
3. Select an output format from the pop-up window. To convert VOB to MP4, choose General Profiles and select MP4.
4. Click Run and wait.