.VOB files stutturing... A LOT

[homerbryan]

I took my dvd collection (in anticipation for the boxee box) and ripped each movie to a single .VOB file (didn't want to preserve menus, extras etc.). The boxee software on my HTPC (and PS3 for that matter) has NO PROBLEM with stuttering...they play very smooth....the boxee box does... A LOT of stuttering

I tried renaming .VOB to .MPG, tried hooking the drive straight to the box...same effect...

...I hope this is fixed quickly (add the proper codec)....my "all in one" solution is becoming more and more; less of a reality

1080p MKV and MP4s play beautifully, as do native mpegs

[haveringcottage]

OK, first thing, you can rename it from .vob to .anything and this wont make a blind bit of difference. the software doesn't rely on what extension the file has - it looks at the data within the file and then applies the appropriate codecs.

my hunch on your issue is that the sheer bandwidth required to shunt all that uncompressed DVD video around is just too much for the boxee box's underpowered hardware to deal with.

you really should compress your vobs into something a little more manageable from a file size and bitrate point of view.

your PC doesn't have any problems as its likely to be more powerful with more ram.

do yourself a favour and compress your vobs.

[newboxeeuser]

I agree with the above, if both boxes are wired ethernet its prolly not a network issue but an underpowered Boxee box issue. At $199 I doubt D-link put a powerful CPU and GPU in there, and maybe a single GB of RAM? They prolly wanted to keep the cost of manufacturer in China under $20. If you think I'm lying, the latest iPhone costs Foxconn under $5 to make.

[homerbryan]

OK, first thing, you can rename it from .vob to .anything and this wont make a blind bit of difference. the software doesn't rely on what extension the file has - it looks at the data within the file and then applies the appropriate codecs.

my hunch on your issue is that the sheer bandwidth required to shunt all that uncompressed DVD video around is just too much for the boxee box's underpowered hardware to deal with.

you really should compress your vobs into something a little more manageable from a file size and bitrate point of view.

your PC doesn't have any problems as its likely to be more powerful with more ram.

do yourself a favour and compress your vobs.

It shouldn't have anything to do with the specs of the box....if anything, the boxee box should be able to decode it with less CPU/RAM, because it's not as heavy a compression as say a H.264 mkv or MP4....VOBs are straight up mpeg 2....$50 portable DVD players with $2 worth of internal decoders can deal with these types of files...They are missing a codec, or it's not optimized to use the hardware properly...that's my guess...

[zilch321]

Something else might be going on with your network I think. I have a good chunk of my collection ripped to ISO files which I read from a Drobo NAS. I have no problems playing DVD ISOs on the BBox hardware. I am using a hard 100BT line.

I did find that while the BBox was indexing my NAS that the performance of the hardware for doing other tasks was very poor.

[haveringcottage]

the $50 portable dvd players you speak of have a dedicated hardware decoder for Mpeg2 because that is all they have to decode.

i dont have a box so i'm merely speculating... but ziltch321 does and he says the box can cope, so its probably something to do with your particular set up.

[homerbryan]

the $50 portable dvd players you speak of have a dedicated hardware decoder for Mpeg2 because that is all they have to decode.

i dont have a box so i'm merely speculating... but ziltch321 does and he says the box can cope, so its probably something to do with your particular set up.

if the box can decode a 1080p MKV file with no stutter, then the hardware should handle a 480p mpeg-2 VOB . ESPECIALLY if the drive is DIRECTLY plugged into the boxee box...That's all I'm sayin'. It's a CODEC issue somewhere. I've seen people say it will deal with dvd ISOs no problem, so, something, somewhere is going bonkers in the decode

[tourmalet]

Hi:

I have a bunch of VOB files that I took from my DVD collection and converted. They are stuttering a lot. I find that my ISO's have no problem. I have a USB Drive plugged right into the Box so I can rule out network streaming.

Here is one example: Big Bang Theory Season 1 Episode 1. It is approximately 770MB VOB which contains about 5 chapters that have been put together into one file. There are about 7 different subtititles embedded. This stutters a lot and consistently. Ripping to MKV no problem.. but why shouldn't I be able to get a VOB to work well. Funny enough, the Big Bang Theory 1 Season 1 Disk 1 ISO reads perfectly... just the VOB reads bad.

Sounds like I am not alone with VOB decode issues :mad:
Let's get this issue fixed before we tackle "Why do we have automatic Subtitles on".... I think Big Bang defaults to "Thai" which is just so fun to read through before I can turn them off!

Besides this minor difficulty... I am pretty much loving the Boxee. It is everything I wanted (even if the Pandora visualizer drives me crazy)

Many thanks in advance,

-Jason

[gmd024]

Hi:

I have a bunch of VOB files that I took from my DVD collection and converted. They are stuttering a lot. I find that my ISO's have no problem. I have a USB Drive plugged right into the Box so I can rule out network streaming.

Here is one example: Big Bang Theory Season 1 Episode 1. It is approximately 770MB VOB which contains about 5 chapters that have been put together into one file. There are about 7 different subtititles embedded. This stutters a lot and consistently. Ripping to MKV no problem.. but why shouldn't I be able to get a VOB to work well. Funny enough, the Big Bang Theory 1 Season 1 Disk 1 ISO reads perfectly... just the VOB reads bad.

Sounds like I am not alone with VOB decode issues :mad:
Let's get this issue fixed before we tackle "Why do we have automatic Subtitles on".... I think Big Bang defaults to "Thai" which is just so fun to read through before I can turn them off!

Besides this minor difficulty... I am pretty much loving the Boxee. It is everything I wanted (even if the Pandora visualizer drives me crazy)

Many thanks in advance,

-Jason

Use MediaInfo to check your codecs against this...http://boxee.zendesk.com/entries/325225-supported-media-files

[rickhall]

Yep, I see the same issue. I have a bunch of VOBs from my DVD collection on an attached USB hard drive and they stutter terribly during playback. I really hope they can get this working quickly, since it was the main use case for my purchase of the Boxee Box.

[Feron]

Same issue, about half my media collection is vobs..grr..
Using VideoRedo to 'quickstream' fix them to mpg fixes things.

Luckily it has a batch mode or this would take forever (already is taking quite some time but still)

[pockets78]

Same issue, about half my media collection is vobs..grr..
Using VideoRedo to 'quickstream' fix them to mpg fixes things.

Luckily it has a batch mode or this would take forever (already is taking quite some time but still)
Thanks for the tip. This works on my MPG files as well. I used VOB2MPG, so they are basically just VOBs. Running them thru VideoRedo fixes them.