What are VOB and DVD Data Folder files for?

Honestly, I’m completely lost at this point.🙄

So, I grabbed three DVDs... copied them over to my computer like everything was going fine... they're just recordings of MLS games... you know, two halves, 90 minutes of action

...and now I need to get them back onto discs. I had to send the originals away and I don't have them anymore. My burner is tucked away in some old box somewhere, so I didn't think to make backups right away...🙄...

...but now all I'm looking at are these VOB files, the DVD Data Folder, and all that junk. I am totally spinning my wheels here. What am I even supposed to do? All these different file formats are starting to blur together in my head... it's a mess. All I know is I have to get this done.😕

How big are those DVDs?
Try downloading it to your computer using Handbrake. Once you've got it downloaded, open up WinZip or something more recent, and look for the option to Handbrake. From there, you can use the built-in browser to find the movie file on your hard drive (either the one you just ripped with the Riplock tool or any other file you already have saved). You’ll be able to tweak the video quality and resolution, decide whether to keep or ditch the subtitles, and even strip out the main menu if the DVD has one.
The whole process—from ripping it to finishing the download with the Riplock tool—takes about 75 minutes.

There’s actually another way to go about it... If you see a DVD Data Folder, you should also see an Audio Data Folder sitting right there. You can just drag both of those folders into WinZip and select the option to burn a DVD.

By the way, if you don't see an Audio Data Folder, don't sweat it. You can just make one yourself since there isn't anything vital in there anyway... just create a new folder and rename it Audio Data Folder
The main thing is making sure you have the DVD Data Folder

So, I went ahead and copied a game recording from a DVD onto my computer using the old-school copy-paste method... total madness, I know. I’ve been watching it on my PC using VLC Media Player (running Windows Vista)... and then yesterday, I used Adobe to try and burn a DVD 😉..

When I checked the properties, I saw the file size is sitting at 0.99GB..🙄..I was thinking about "shrinking" it with some kind of tool—any suggestions for someone on Windows Vista? I want to see if I can eventually send it over email. What do you guys think? Am I being ridiculous by trying to pull off the impossible here? 🙄

Yeah, 0.99 GB per file is pretty standard when you're downloading stuff onto a hard drive. How much total space is that whole DVD taking up on your drive right now? I'm guessing the DVDs you've been ripping don't have any kind of copy protection on them, right?
You can actually "shrink" those files using Nero (Nero 7 or anything newer) by using the Handbrake option. It’ll take a massive DVD—maybe 7 or 8 GB if it's a Dual Layer disc—and squeeze it down to the standard 4.37 GB size, which is what fits on a regular DVD5.

If you'd rather not mess with that, you can just find a bunch of free software for this on Google... LINK.

Is it the same process to copy from the original DVD and then from a burned one back to the computer?
Basically, I burned something from my PC onto a DVD, and now I want to move it from that DVD back to my computer. Can I just use copy and paste?

I'm not 100% certain here, but I suspect you'll run into an error during the burning process, especially since most retail discs are Dual Layer DVD9s.
It’s always a solid move to strip the protection using Handbrake; it’s super easy to use and actually packs a few extra interesting features under the hood.
Once you rip an original DVD onto your computer, you can really only watch it there because it won't play back once you try to burn it (though I'm not entirely sure how things handle if the originals are just standard DVD5s at 4.37 GB)

By the way, if you've already burned something to a disc and it works fine on a DVD player or whatever else you've tested, then you should be able to just copy and paste it over to your PC without any issues.

So, I grabbed this video file on a USB stick—it's in .vob format—and here’s the deal: the picture looks totally fine, but the audio is absolute garbage. It's just pure static/noise. No actual sound, nothing. How the heck am I supposed to get the audio working?

Just run GSpot and it should tell you exactly which codec you're missing. You might as well just grab the latest K-lite codec pack while you're at it. 🙂

Adam Wilson3 said:I grabbed a video file in .vob format on a thumb drive. It plays just fine, but there’s zero audio, just static noise. Any idea how I can actually get the sound to work?

Who says there's no sound? 😁
Static counts as sound if you listen hard enough. 😉

I'm still seeing people trip over this basic stuff—it’s like watching someone try to drive a stick shift without ever having seen a manual. You can't just wing it when you're dealing with media playback; you need to actually know what tools you're putting in your kit if you want things to work smoothly. It's about efficiency and not wasting your damn time. kaže:
Run the damn script! Gspot Look, I'll just tell you exactly which codec you're missing—honestly, you could probably just grab the latest pack and install that to be done with it. Look, if you're still messing around with K-Lite, you’re basically driving a vintage Chevy when there’s a Tesla sitting right there in the driveway. Don't get me wrong—it was a classic back in the day, and it definitely got the job done when we were all struggling just to play a basic MP4 without the whole system crashing. But let's be real: we aren't living in the Stone Age anymore. The tech has moved on, and honestly, the overhead is just getting ridiculous. Why bother lugging around a massive bundle of codecs and random little utility tools that you'll probably never touch? It feels like trying to fix a leaky faucet by buying an entire hardware store. It’s overkill, it’s clunky, and frankly, it's a bit outdated for how modern Windows handles media these days. If you want something that actually works without making your PC sweat, just grab VLC Media Player and call it a day. It’s clean, it’s robust, and it doesn't require you to navigate through five different sub-menus just to change a playback setting. Or, if you're feeling a bit more niche, GOM Player is a solid runner-up. Stop clinging to the old ways just because "that's how I've always done it." Upgrade your workflow and stop overcomplicating things. Codecs. Seriously. Let’s talk about them, because I feel like people just stumble through their media libraries without having any clue what’s actually happening under the hood. It’s like trying to drive a car when you don't even realize there's an engine—you're just turning a wheel and hoping for the best. If you aren't paying attention to how your files are packed and unpacked, you're basically leaving performance on the table. You want smooth playback? You want high fidelity without your CPU screaming for mercy? Then you need to understand the math behind the magic. It's the difference between watching a movie that looks like a crisp Hollywood production and one that looks like it was filmed on a potato in a basement. 🙂

So, you grabbed Gspot—now what? Honestly, it’s not like you just download it and sit there staring at it. You actually have to put it to work if you want it to do anything useful. It's basically a tool to help you manage your media files and get things running smoothly, but you can't just expect magic to happen the second the installer finishes. If you're looking to actually use it for its intended purpose, you'll need to point it toward your library and let it do its thing. Just don't expect it to be some plug-and-play miracle without a little bit of setup on your end.

By the way, I’ve got this video sitting right in the same folder as:

VIDEO_TS 12 KB GOM Player media file (.ifo)
VIDEO_TS 30 KB DVD VOB File
VIDEO_TS.BUP — 12 KB — BUP File
VTS_01_0 34 KB GOM Player media file (.ifo)
VTS_01_0.BUP — just a tiny 34 KB BUP file. Seriously? That’s basically nothing.
Look at this absolute unit of a file—over a gig of raw data sitting there in a single VOB container. It’s basically just a massive chunk of a DVD rip waiting to happen. If you're trying to move this around or play it back without everything glitching out, you're gonna need more than just a basic player. You really need to be running something solid like VLC Media Player if you don't want your computer throwing a fit halfway through the movie. Honestly, staring at a file size like that just makes me want to grab a coffee and settle in for a long session of sorting through digital junk.
VTS_01_2 — 323.712 KB — DVD VOB File

Hopefully that clears things up a bit. So, how the hell do I actually get the audio working? I went ahead and installed all those codecs, but still nothing—just constant static. I’ve tried playing the video through VLC Media Player, then switched over to GOM Player, BS, even the standard Windows Media Player, but it’s the exact same crap every single time... 🤷

So, I finally figured out Gspot—the software is telling me all the audio and video codecs are good to go. But even when I use it to launch the video (which just kicks me over to VLC Media Player anyway), the same damn thing happens: the video plays fine, but instead of actual sound, all I get is this constant, annoying static.

Did he even get what I was saying? Do I really look like some amateur to you? :-) Forget about those stupid emojis, they're useless

There’s a chance that file you received doesn't even have an audio track to begin with. If someone edited it and there was noise in the original source, you're basically stuck. There isn't much you can actually do. Your only real move is to strip the audio entirely and layer in some background music, though that depends on what kind of video we're talking about. If it's just some adult animation, then it's no big deal—you can easily pull audio from any other similar clip

JB-Te ali I miss those damn emojis :-(

Jack Jones33 said:He clearly missed my point—do I really look like some clown to you? :-) Emoticons are total garbage.

Look, there’s a chance that file you pulled just doesn't have an audio track to begin with. Or, if someone messed with it and baked noise right into the source, you're basically stuck—you can't fix what isn't there. Your only real move is to strip the crappy audio entirely and slap some background music over it, depending on what kind of video we're talking about. If it's some late-night adult animation, then whatever, easy fix—just grab audio from a similar clip and call it a day.

JB-Te ali man, I actually miss those little emoticons :-(

The footage was shot on a camera, and the sound was perfectly fine on my old PC—this version was recovered after a wipe... And no, this isn't some adult film😁, it's work-related stuff, so the audio is huge. Honestly, the sound is almost more important than the video itself here..

Let's take this step by step

Adam Wilson3 said:I've got this video file on a USB drive in .vob format. It plays fine, but there's no actual audio, just static. Any idea how I can get the sound back?

That sounds like someone already processed the original camera footage specifically for a DVD player, which explains why it’s sitting there in a VOB container. If you actually had the original DVD this was ripped from, you could check if the audio was even there to begin with, but since we don't, all we can do is speculate about where the sound actually went.

Adam Wilson3 said:I checked Gspot, and the program claims both the audio and video codecs are installed. I tried playing it through Gspot—which just launched VLC Media Player—and it's the same story: the video runs, but the audio is nothing but noise.

So it isn't a matter of your PC being unable to decode the audio; the VOB file itself is just broken.

Adam Wilson3 said:It was recorded on a camera, and it had perfectly fine audio on my old computer before this was recovered after a deletion... It's not some adult movie 😁, it's work-related stuff, so the audio is crucial—maybe even more important than the video itself.

After what kind of deletion? Where was this pulled from, a high-end workstation? Didn't you mention earlier that someone handed you this VOB?

You'd solve this instantly if you had the raw footage straight from the camera, but I'm assuming that's gone. You could try running the VOB on a different computer and praying you hear something other than white noise, though I wouldn't hold my breath. Or maybe try some VOB repair tool—I haven't messed with those, so I can't really help there. Otherwise, you might just have to accept that someone screwed up somewhere along the line.😉

Great, now the emoticons are working. 🙏

Let me clear things up a bit. This footage was shot on a standard handheld camcorder and burned onto a DVD. After that, it was ripped from the disc onto a computer's hard drive. Everything worked perfectly back then. The problem is, both the original DVD and the camera files are long gone now.

Basically, someone accidentally nuked the file. They tried to play hero using some data recovery software to "rescue" it, and eventually, they managed to dump the whole recovered file onto a USB stick for me. I moved it over to my hard drive, and that’s when the audio started acting possessed. The file contains exactly what I described earlier.

Look, whether everything works fine on that original computer after the "recovery" process is anyone's guess—I can't exactly go over there and run diagnostics because the whole situation is a massive headache—but let's get to the point... Before this whole deletion mess happened, the file played just fine.

Well, if you’d just led with that, we wouldn't be sitting here wondering.
It's most likely that the audio got trashed during the "recovery" process, which is my best guess and honestly feels pretty certain at this point.
It looks like someone went out of their way to scrub the physical evidence, so getting this back to its original state is going to be an uphill battle.

So, I just grabbed this massive collection in DVD format from a torrent. Now I’m staring at a mountain of those annoying VIDEO_TS files. How the hell am I supposed to dump all this onto a thumb drive so that when I plug it into my TV, I can actually binge the whole series without it cutting out every five minutes??
THANKS!!

I usually just use MakeMKV for this. It takes the whole DVD folder—the entire VIDEO_TS directory and everything inside—and wraps it into a single .mkv file without any re-encoding. It basically just repacks it in a matter of seconds...

Give it a shot.

Let's solve this audio mystery once and for all...
Just install VLC Media Player.
Open your file in the player.
If you still don't hear anything, then you're just missing some codecs.
But if there's no sound in VLC Media Player, then there's simply no audio in the file itself.