(no subject)

[kingandy]

I currently have Lost Season 4 sitting on my hard disk waiting to be watched (I know, I'm behind the times). These twelve episodes take up slightly more than 11GB of space. Recent adventures have demonstrated that there is no real valid reason for this - batelf got most of Heroes S3 on about half of an 8GB ram stick.

Apparently I downloaded them in some strange moon-format - VOB, which is readable directly by my DVD-playing software, leading me to believe they are a file format designed to be burned straight to Video-DVD or something. This seems like a pointless stage to me, and I would rather simply convert them to a more compact format which - importantly - my XBox will be able to read directly from my hard disk.

I tried hunting for software on t'internets but wouldn't you just know it, VOB-MPEG conversion seems to be one of those areas that is saturated with people trying to take your money and/or offer you porn, so I am naturally wary of anything proffered in this manner.

Can anyone suggest a good, free, legal, open-source application for this sort of thing?

Comments

[kingandy]

I could, but as i say, it's an unnecessary step and would waste a DVD.

I currently have my XBox connected to my PC via electric string, and it's able to see and play everything Windows Media Player makes available to it. Unfortunately even though WMP happily sees and plays VOB files, it doesn't make them available over the network.

[mj-uk.livejournal.com]

yeah i found media center is a bit finiky with what it plays on the xbox, but it usually is able to at least see files it cant play. Stupid question i know but your xbox is updated yeah?

[kingandy]

Yeah it did a bunch of updating stuff the first time I connected it to the interanets.

It does display a bunch of files that it can't play, but not the VOB files apparently.

[mj-uk.livejournal.com]

crazy, must be a security or licenscing thing. "You will not watch ripped dvd's on our completely legal system!"

but not apparantly every other format pirates use XD