On Sat, 2022-12-17 at 23:27 -0500, Bill C wrote: If you're just copying the main feature of a DVD, then it's usually a multi-part VOB broken apart every gigabyte (unless the feature is so small its just one gigabyte VOB file, by itself). All the other ancillary VOBs can be ignored (normally speaking, unless they've done something odd to thwart piracy). If you were converting it to a MP4 that didn't have that gigabyte filesize problem, you could convert all the VOB sections into a single larger file (as part of the conversion process). If you had to keep it in gigabyte pieces, then there are players which could be given a playlist of the parts to play (m3u or pls files, for instance). They're little more than a text file with each filename on a new line, in the order of which file to play. Bearing in mind that the gigabyte-sized chunks takes into account limitations of the filesystem it's stored on, as well as the player playing it, and probably networking, too. -- uname -rsvp Linux 3.10.0-1160.80.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Nov 8 15:48:59 UTC 2022 x86_64 Boilerplate: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted. I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the mailing list.

I notice a DVD, or ISO that has special features usually is converted to a much smaller acceptable size with just a feature. Something is being done there, I hope that makes sense. On Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 3:39 AM Tim via users <users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:

On Sun, 2022-12-18 at 14:14 -0500, Bill C wrote: If you look at the files on a DVD, you'll see a structure like: An empty AUDIO_TS (audio title sets) directory, since audio DVDs are rare, and that's its only use. A VIDEO_TS (video title sets) directory, holding all the files for a video DVD playback. Inside it are a bunch of VIDEO_TS.IFO and VIDEO_TS.BUP files, they're the info (info and back-up files) about playing the VIDEO_TS.VOB files (video object, which have video and sound). The un-numbered ones would be things like the animated DISK menus. The main feature will have a series of files like: VTS_01_0.IFO meta data for playing this clip VTS_01_0.BUP back-up of the meta data VTS_01_0.VOB an intro or video menu for playing this video clip VTS_01.1.VOB part 1 of the main feature VTS_01.2.VOB part 2 of the main feature VTS_01.3.VOB part 3 of the main feature, etc. VTS_02_0.IFO meta data for playing this clip VTS_02_0.BUP back-up of the meta data VTS_02_0.VOB an intro or video menu for playing this clip VTS_02_1.VOB part 1 of the second video clip VTS_02_2.VOB part 2 of the second video clip VTS_02_3.VOB part 3 of the second video clip, etc. And so on, and so forth. If you only want the main feature, it's only going to make use of VTS01.1.VOB (and the next series of .2.VOB, .3.VOB, etc parts), ignoring everything else. Some discs have more extras than the main feature, hence a large size reduction (as well as recompressing into a smaller video format). The IFO files are the so-called index files for playing each video clip. They're only of direct use for the DVD player, but your decoder will also use them to create whatever it needs out of the VOB files. If you have an un-encrypted DVD, you can play the VOB files directly, they're only MPEG video. You could drop VTS_01.1.VOB, VTS_01.2.VOB, and VTS_01.3.VOB, into the playlist of VLC (or equivelent), and it'd play the movie straight through. Encrypted files need decoding, and that was cracked decades ago. I won't condone piracy, but have no qualms about backing up discs I've bought to something more convenient to play. I've paid for DVDs, I expect to be able to watch the movie, and it pisses me off extremely to have to sit through 2 minutes of crap before I can do so. More so on multi-disc box sets, with every disc doing that to you. Even more so when you put in the wrong disc, and have to go through this pallaver several times to play the one you want (rarely are the discs indexed on the box as to what's on which, and rarely are the discs labelled with their content). -- uname -rsvp Linux 3.10.0-1160.80.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Nov 8 15:48:59 UTC 2022 x86_64 Boilerplate: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted. I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the mailing list.