VOB files generated by a standalone DVD recorder are not playing in VLC

[Tuonela]

I'm looking for a technical explanation for the following problem:

When I make a DVD with my standalone DVD recorder (Sony RDR-HX910) the DVD plays well in different software (e.g. in VLC). However, if I copy a single VOB file from the disc, VLC (or any other software) doesn't play it. Normally I can play VOB files with VLC.

If I open such VOB file with GSpot, the only information I get is from the container saying
"MPEG-2 Program Stream
Sys Bitrate: 10080 kb/s". Everything else is missing.

[jeffy]

Post the link to the screenshot from GSpot, please.

[Tuonela]

Gspot seems to identify only the container. Screenshot can be found from:

http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/8486/gspotof5.png

[r0lZ]

I'm not a specialist of the VOB encoding or the VR format, and I use rarely VLC, but it is well known that the standalone DVD recorders produce VOB (and IFO) files of a less good quality than the normal DVD-Video files. Notably, the time maps are missing, as some pointers. The audio stream is also usually encoded in MP3, and that's not compatible with the DVD-Video standard. That doesn't mean that the players can not play the VOBs, but the seek operations can be difficult or even impossible. To improve the compatibility of the DVD-VR with all players, I suggest converting it to a standard DVD-Video, for example with Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD (http://www.womble.com/products/dvd.html). (It can rebuild the DVD, reencoding only the parts of the video that need to be modified, and it can recreate simple menus. It is not free, unfortunately.)