I'm not real familar with DVD file formats and how they work, plus I'm posting this question for a friend so bear with me! I have a DVD with a homemade video on it. It works fine in a home DVD player and computer DVD players. Pop in the DVD and you can watch it from start to finish. However, if you manually browse the files in Windows Explorer (chapters?) one by one, say you just want to view chapters 3 and 4, then some of the files won't open but others will. Any ideas on how I can fix this for her?
Little clarification please, my questions: Was the DVD made with a DVD-r Camcorder? What are the file extensions for the files, examples .vob, .mpeg, .avi, ete? when you click on them to view in Windows Explorer, what player opens to view the files? It is possible that some of the files are information files and others are video files. For movie dvd's if you click on .vob you see that video section in a DVD computer player software, .ifo files will play the whole thing and .bup will not do anything if click on computer but are needed for DVD play. Something similar might be occuring.
Thanks for the reply. The video does look like it was recorded on a camcorder and it is DVD-R. The three extensions are .vob, .bup, and .ifo (just like you said). I noticed that several of the /vob files are 10 - 100k in size and they just bring up a flicker of a black screen. The 100k file flashes what looks like the navigation screen. So I'm guessing the 10k files are really nothing more than empty clips of video. Would you agree? And if so when I copy this DVD for her can I simply remove those 10 - 100k files so they don't appear on the duplicate or might they be necessary?
You might be able to not include those small files. Any .vob file less than 1Mb really doesn't have much to it. Also a lot of cameras add (just like old voice records) and an extra track at the end for easy editing. Sort of like a program spacer that floats behind the real files. So this can be removed if necessary, sometimes it can mess up burn copy (I don't know why). But you will need to copy corresponding .vob, .ifo and .bup example: _01_0.bup is required for all files in the _01_X.vob line (_01_0.vob, _01_1.vob, _01_2.vob, ete) Just as the _02_0.bup is required for the _02_x.vob line. Hope that sort of makes sense.
Speaking of vob files... I just purchased this DVD recorder, and am trying out some test video recordings. I have set the system time and date, and when I play the DVD back on the recorder the dates are fine. However when I open the DVD on my PC, every file says modified 12/31/1999 5:00 PM?"
