How To Get Full Length Video Files on Your Windows PC or PS3

Just in case you were wondering, it is possible to get a full-length video file (from any DVD) on your PC or PS3.

This is probably true for the Mac and other gaming platforms, but I don't use them, so you'll have to look elsewhere for advice on those systems. You can also do this in Linux, but you'll have to figure it out yourself.

The first thing you should know is that a DVD is made up of VOB files. These are the actual video files. You can find them on the DVD in the VIDEO_TS folder.

When they're on the DVD they're read-only.

What you want to do is search for some free tools to copy these onto your PC hard drive. If you look for DVD Shrink or some similar application, you should quickly find something that will do this for you.

Once the files are on your drive, you can erase all the IFO and BUP files-- you don't need them.

The VOB format is a kissing cousin to the MPEG format, so you can actually play them directly (using VLC Player or some other similar free media player).

In addition, if you simply rename every file with a VOB extension so that it has an MPG extension, most video editing programs will recognize it and allow you to edit it. For example, rename VTS_01_1.VOB to VTS_01_1.MPG and it will behave like any other video file.

However, most movies are made of several VOB files in a row. If you don't want to open three files to play one movie, then you should join them together into one MPG file.

There are application to do this, many of them free, but the simplest and most elegant method is to use the "copy" command.

In Windows, go to the command prompt (click on the start menu, click "Run" and then type in "cmd").

Once there, navigate to the directory where your files are (use the "cd" command to change directories).

Now you are going to copy and combine the files into one large video file. The format is:

copy /b VTS_01_1.VOB + VTS_01_2.VOB + VTS_01_3.VOB MY_NEW_VIDEO_FILE.MPG

What this does is copy (in binary mode) the three files to a new file while combining them together. The last entry (with no plus sign preceding it) is the name of the new, larger file (which will play the movie all the way through).

The capitals are not necessary, but DVD files are named in all caps, so I do the same. You can name your new file anything you want, as long as the extension is MPG or mpg.

In addition, if part of the file name is the same on the files you are combining (in this case, VTS_01_ is the same for all of them), you can use a wild card symbol (the asterisk, *) in place of the part of the name that is the same. For example, the same files could be combined by typing:

copy /b *1.VOB + *2.VOB + *3.VOB MY_NEW_VIDEO_FILE.MPG

This saves typing and works exactly the same.

Now you have a single video file with a complete movie on it. This should, of course, be a movie that you're transferring off of your camcorder and to which you have complete rights. Maybe its a movie you bought and are simply backing up in case the kids scratch it up, yadda, yadda, disclaimer and so forth. If that is the case, some movie execs and the FBI still might not be happy, so I am taking this opportunity to clearly state that I do not support any copyright infringement, however innocuous. You are on your own.

In any case, I find it convenient to have all my videos arranged on my computer or PS3, rather than searching through boxes or wherever else I have them stored. So, all other considerations aside, this is good to know.

Having a list of files certainly takes up less space than a bunch of DVD cases and it can be quicker to access the movie you want without spending time searching.

The Playstastion 3 can play MPG files and its easy enough to copy a file, such as MY_NEW_VIDEO_FILE.MPG, onto the Playstation 3 hard drive and play it from there, eliminating the need to pop in the DVD or take out your game to play the DVD.

That's the extent of my knowledge, so only softball questions please. For all other information, get on Google like I do, and figure it out for yourself.