Mpg files don’t play (correctly) on Windows 8

I received an email (thanks Tim) that reported an issue with DVDVob2Mpg, or at least that’s how it looked. Tim had a set of VOB files that were recorded with a handheld dvd camera. When he converted the VOB files to MPG files with DVDVob2Mpg, only the audio would play on Windows 8.

My first thought was an issue with the source VOB files so I asked if I could look into it. I converted the VOB files and they played just fine on my Windows 7 PC. I did not understand ? All tools at my disposal showed that the resulting files were perfectly OK.

So I did some more test and indeed, on my Windows 8 PC the files do not play. The Metro style VIDEO app simply stops and says the format is not supported. Windows Media Player only plays the Audio.

Strange ? So I Googled the issue and it seems that Windows 8, at least its standard version(s), simply doesn’t play mpg-2 files anymore ? Basically the mpg that is recorded on DVD is not played anymore. Just when I thought Windows 8 couldn’t disappoint more, it just did.

This is really ridiculous and leaves a lot of people stuck with perfectly OK mpg that Windows 8 refuses to play. Something all previous Windows versions did without a problem (except the oldies maybe).

Time to plug a good alternative then ! I have gotten quite fond of VLC. An open source (read FREE) video player that really performs well. I suggest you download and install VLC on your Windows 8 system and play your mpg files that way ! Problem solved !

It is of course still useful to convert VOB files to MPG files. The fact that Windows 8 doesn’t play perfectly OK mpeg-2 files doesn’t mean they are not … well … perfectly OK ! If you want to use or load the mpg/video into other programs, to edit or to remaster a new DVD or even to play back, then these applications will be happy and eager to receive proper and correct mpg files as input. I will also avoid all sorts of issues if these applications don’t understand the VOB format well, or get confused because of incorrect timing etc. And of course removing the VOB clutter from the MPG data stream is always a good idea.

I hope this helps ?