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Kaylec · 2019-04-30, 22:35

Hello, I am new to pseudotv live. I have set up a few channels to test, and all work fine with the exception of tv shows that use the VOB file format for individual episodes (example family guy file fg.s01e01.vob). I have plenty of DVDs backed up, and they play fine from the movie playlist made channels (even a few that only contain VOBs without the rest of the DVD files), so I know it can read VOB files. The problem comes when trying to get it to recognize the TV show VOBs, it just acts like the channel doesn't exist (if that's all that's in there), or ignores those episodes if it's mixed with other file types. I've tried changing playlist parameters, I've tried using the directory function on the channel creation list in pseudotv live, and still nothing. These VOB files do work in regular Kodi from the TV shows menu with no problem. I'm hoping there is a simple config setting that will get these up and running. Converting to another file format does not look appealing, the time involved would be insane. Has anyone else run into this issue? Any help would be most appreciated.

Kaylec · 2019-05-01, 17:00

(2019-04-30, 22:35)Kaylec Wrote: Hello, I am new to pseudotv live. I have set up a few channels to test, and all work fine with the exception of tv shows that use the VOB file format for individual episodes (example family guy file fg.s01e01.vob). I have plenty of DVDs backed up, and they play fine from the movie playlist made channels (even a few that only contain VOBs without the rest of the DVD files), so I know it can read VOB files. The problem comes when trying to get it to recognize the TV show VOBs, it just acts like the channel doesn't exist (if that's all that's in there), or ignores those episodes if it's mixed with other file types. I've tried changing playlist parameters, I've tried using the directory function on the channel creation list in pseudotv live, and still nothing. These VOB files do work in regular Kodi from the TV shows menu with no problem. I'm hoping there is a simple config setting that will get these up and running. Converting to another file format does not look appealing, the time involved would be insane. Has anyone else run into this issue? Any help would be most appreciated.

Additional info. I'm running Windows 10, PC, Kodi Krypton 17.6 with pseudotv live 0.8.x.

mwkurt · 2019-05-01, 17:44

Hello,

Pretty sure that whatever media you include in PTVL has to be scanned into your library to work. Are these DVDs scanned by Kodi into your library? If not, give that a try. Why don't you rip your DVDs to individual episodes? That would work much better for you.

Mark

Kaylec · 2019-05-01, 19:12

(2019-05-01, 17:44)mwkurt Wrote: Hello,

Pretty sure that whatever media you include in PTVL has to be scanned into your library to work. Are these DVDs scanned by Kodi into your library? If not, give that a try. Why don't you rip your DVDs to individual episodes? That would work much better for you.

Mark

Thanks for the reply. For my TV episodes that I back up from my DVD's, that's basically what I do. I avoid ripping the whole dvd into one multi episode vob file, because I've run into loading and buffering problems with Kodi before, so I rip each episode into it's own vob file. After renaming them into the series name format, I do have Kodi scan them into my library. Kodi can play them from the TV show group with no problem, it's just that PTVL won't touch them either in a smart list, or using ptvl's directory option.

For movies, I have one set of DVD's that I've done differently. Lord of the Rings extended editions, the movies are split on two discs. So what I did was copy one into a few vob files, named them in sequence, and the 2nd disc, I did the same, but continued the sequence....this way kodi reads them all as one movie. I removed all the other dvd files (vts ifos), and Kodi reads them fine, I tested this in ptvl, and it picked that up fine. So the general connection is they're all in self contained folders, where as the tv episodes, I'll have several vobs per season folder, each vob named for each episode number sequence. Could the answer be to put each vob file in it's own named folder? Thousands of episodes, oh man, that would be a nightmare.

Morgana · 2019-06-01, 00:29

I had this same problem with a TV show I remuxed to VOB about a decade ago when I used my PS3 to watch HD stuff (it was a workaround for mkv files). I had to remux it again to MKV before PTVL could pick it up. Looking at the 'lib' files PTVL has it's own parsers, so it only looks to the Kodi library for the file paths and metadata (show info, etc) which is why they play just fine from the Kodi library.

You can use mkvmerge or ffmpeg to remux/multiplex your files so it just carries over the streams in to a different file container (ex. MKV) instead of converting them. I had to do a batch remuxing of music videos I ripped from YouTube since PTVL wouldn't pick them up either (weird header data). You're most likely going to have to do the same thing with your VOB collection. I don't know which OS you use but you can probably google the appropriate batch script to do it.

the_other_guy · 2019-06-01, 02:12

so I know it can read VOB files. it may be the addon try renaming from vob to mpg
A .vob file (Video Object) is a container format for DVD media
. Right click the .vob file on your hard drive and choose Rename from the menu. Rename VTS_01.vob to VTS_01.mpeg.

stubk · 2019-09-13, 11:48

(2019-06-01, 02:12)the_other_guy Wrote: so I know it can read VOB files. it may be the addon try renaming from vob to mpg
A .vob file (Video Object) is a container format for DVD media
. Right click the .vob file on your hard drive and choose Rename from the menu. Rename VTS_01.vob to VTS_01.mpeg.

This might be too late, but it might help someone with the same problem - the only file extensions parsed by PseudoTV are avi, mp4, m4v, 3gp, 3g2, f4v, mov, mkv, flv, ts, m2ts, mts and strm. Changing the extensions from vob to mp4 is the answer.