[Apprentice 2 SA]

I'm recording some old VHS tapes onto DVD using a DVD Recorder. Some of the sequences are 20 mins long, some 30, some longer.

How long a sequence can I record and it be no more than 1 vob file?

[Chris Frost]

The question doesn't really make sense in the way you've framed it.

AFAIK vob files don't have a 'length' as such because that relates to linear time and it infers all files would have exactly the same set of parameters such as the compression settings, audio format, number of audio tracks etc. It would also rely on the metadata correctly reporting how long that particular combination of data packages would play for. Neither of those two things are fixed. In particular it's possible to have a 1Gb vob file where the metadata suggests it plays for a few seconds but it actually plays much longer.

What we can be reasonably confident about saying is that vob files on commercial DVDs tend to have a maximum file size of 1Gb.

If your VHS to DVD conversions are generating copies that run over several vobs then have a think about using a program such as Handbrake to convert them in to another file format. This could solve your problem and give you a conversion that then sits as a single file.

[d'@ve]

Yeah, just let your DVD recorder do its own thing, you will end up with a VIDEO_TS folder containing all the VOB files. You can then open the VIDEO_TS folder in Handbrake on your computer and it will import all the VOB files - the entire video - which you can then burn as a single mp4 file encoded as h.264... complete with chapters if there are any (but a single file).

As an example, I already had a 1 hour 18 minute Russell Watson DVD ripped to my PC as a VIDEO_TS folder comprising 4 main VOB files and a myriad of other little files. It took a few seconds to import into handbrake, then 5 minutes 14 seconds to convert to an .mp4 file with h.264. Using the default handbrake settings, the final file is 1.2GB and is hard to distinguish quality-wise from the original DVD.

Definitely the way to do it IMO.

[Apprentice 2 SA]

Thanks for the replies.