MyMediaTools

Convert VOB to TS — Free Online Tool

Convert VOB files from DVD discs into MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS) format, re-encoding the MPEG-2/AC-3 DVD video to H.264/AAC for broad compatibility with broadcast systems, media servers, and streaming pipelines. This is the standard path for digitizing DVD content into a container suitable for HLS streaming, IPTV, and modern playback devices.

FFmpeg Command

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How It Works

VOB files contain multiplexed MPEG-2 video and AC-3 (Dolby Digital) audio wrapped in a DVD-specific program stream format. This conversion fully re-encodes both streams: the MPEG-2 video is transcoded to H.264 (libx264) using a CRF of 23, which significantly reduces file size while maintaining good perceptual quality. The AC-3 audio is decoded and re-encoded to AAC at 128k, replacing the Dolby Digital track with a universally compatible lossy audio codec. The output TS container uses a transport stream structure — a packetized format designed for broadcast and streaming — rather than the DVD program stream structure of VOB, making it directly compatible with HLS playlists, IPTV workflows, and most modern media players.

What Each Flag Does

Flag What it does
ffmpeg Invokes the FFmpeg tool, which handles all decoding, filtering, re-encoding, and muxing. In the browser version, this runs via FFmpeg.wasm compiled to WebAssembly — the same command works identically on a desktop FFmpeg installation.
-i input.vob Specifies the input VOB file — a DVD Video Object containing multiplexed MPEG-2 video, AC-3 audio, and potentially subtitle and chapter data in a DVD program stream structure.
-c:v libx264 Transcodes the input MPEG-2 video stream to H.264 using the libx264 encoder. H.264 offers substantially better compression efficiency than MPEG-2, producing a smaller TS file at comparable quality — a necessary step since MPEG-2 is not the standard codec for TS files used in streaming or broadcast pipelines.
-c:a aac Decodes the DVD's AC-3 (Dolby Digital) audio and re-encodes it as AAC, replacing the Dolby Digital track with a codec that has near-universal support across streaming devices, browsers, and mobile platforms.
-crf 23 Sets the Constant Rate Factor for the H.264 encoder to 23, the libx264 default. This is a quality-based encoding mode where 23 represents a visually balanced tradeoff between file size and perceptual fidelity when transcoding DVD-quality MPEG-2 source material.
-b:a 128k Sets the AAC audio bitrate to 128 kilobits per second. This is sufficient for stereo speech and music content typical of DVD audio, and is the standard minimum for AAC in streaming contexts — substantially below the 192–448k bitrates common in the original AC-3 tracks.
output.ts Specifies the output file in MPEG-2 Transport Stream format. The .ts extension causes FFmpeg to mux the H.264 video and AAC audio into a packetized transport stream — the standard container for broadcast television, HLS video segments, and IPTV delivery.

Common Use Cases

  • Digitizing a personal DVD collection into TS files compatible with Plex, Jellyfin, or Emby media servers that serve HLS streams to clients
  • Preparing DVD-sourced video content for live or on-demand IPTV broadcasting, where the TS container is the standard delivery format
  • Converting VOB chapters ripped from a DVD into segments usable in an HLS streaming workflow alongside .m3u8 playlist files
  • Archiving old training or presentation DVDs into a smaller H.264-encoded TS file that can be streamed directly over a corporate intranet
  • Removing DVD-specific program stream overhead from VOB files before ingesting footage into a broadcast editing or playout system that expects TS-wrapped H.264
  • Transcoding multi-angle or multi-audio VOB content into a single TS file for a streaming platform that supports multiple audio tracks in the transport stream

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, this is a lossy-to-lossy transcode — the original MPEG-2 video is decoded and re-encoded as H.264, which is a generation of quality loss. However, H.264 at CRF 23 is significantly more efficient than MPEG-2, so you can achieve comparable or even better perceptual quality at a much smaller file size. DVD MPEG-2 video is typically encoded at 3–8 Mbps; the resulting H.264 at CRF 23 will often produce similar perceived quality at 1–3 Mbps depending on content complexity.
The AC-3 audio track is fully decoded and re-encoded to AAC at 128k. AAC is not a lossless copy of the Dolby Digital original, so there is some audio quality degradation. If you need to preserve the original AC-3 track — for example, for home theater surround sound passthrough — you can modify the command to use '-c:a ac3' instead of '-c:a aac', since the TS container supports AC-3 audio natively.
DVD subtitles in VOB files are stored as bitmap image streams (DVD-SUB format), not text. This conversion command does not explicitly map subtitle streams, so they will be dropped by default. If you need to preserve subtitles, you would need to add '-c:s copy' and a subtitle stream map to the command, though compatibility of DVD bitmap subtitles in TS containers is limited and varies by player.
The TS (Transport Stream) container is the right choice when the output needs to be compatible with broadcast systems, HLS streaming, or IPTV playout — the transport stream's packetized structure is designed for resilience in transmission and is directly supported by HLS (.m3u8) workflows. If your goal is simply desktop playback or sharing, an MP4 container with the same H.264/AAC codecs would be more universally compatible with media players and social platforms.
The '-crf 23' flag controls H.264 quality on a scale from 0 (lossless) to 51 (worst quality). Lower values produce higher quality and larger files; higher values reduce file size at the cost of quality. For a smaller output, try '-crf 28'; for higher quality closer to the DVD source, try '-crf 18'. You can also increase audio bitrate from 128k to 192k or 256k using '-b:a 192k' if the AAC audio sounds thin on music-heavy content.
Yes. On Linux or macOS you can run a shell loop: 'for f in *.vob; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "${f%.vob}.ts"; done'. On Windows Command Prompt, use: 'for %f in (*.vob) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -crf 23 -b:a 128k "%~nf.ts"'. This is especially useful for processing multiple VOB files ripped from the same DVD disc.

Technical Notes

VOB files are DVD program streams and often contain multiple audio tracks (e.g., multiple language dubs), multiple subtitle bitmap streams, and sometimes copy-protection scrambling (CSS) that must be removed before FFmpeg can read the file. This conversion drops all but the first detected video and audio stream by default — if your VOB contains multiple audio tracks you care about, you'll need explicit stream mapping with '-map' flags. The TS container supports multiple audio tracks and subtitle streams, but DVD bitmap subtitles (DVD-SUB) have limited support in TS. H.264 in TS is fully HLS-compatible, making the output directly usable as a segment source for .m3u8 playlists. Note that VOB files from a DVD disc are typically split into 1GB chunks (VTS_01_1.VOB, VTS_01_2.VOB, etc.); for a seamless conversion of a full title, you should concatenate them first using FFmpeg's concat demuxer rather than converting each VOB segment individually. Chapter metadata is not preserved in this conversion, as neither VOB-to-TS mapping nor the TS container itself provides robust chapter support.

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