Thanks for your reply! I have tried to install FFDSHOW before and it was painfull (and never worked) but if I can figure it out and get it to play .vob's does it also mean that I can use J River Media Center 11 together with FFDSHOW for playing back normal DVD's (is this combination comparable in (top)quality to Zoom Player + FFDSHOW)? By the way I'm using NVIDIA PureVideo Decoder.
In theory you should be able to, but I've not had a lot of luck playing actual disk-based DVDs through MC with only FFDSHOW. MPC (Media Player Classic) seems to be able to handle them, but MC gets all messed up in the menus.
I keep WinDVD installed for the rare occasion where I need to play a
real DVD (I might switch to TheaterTek but I don't know, I
already have WinDVD). I use FFDSHOW for basically everything else. In practice, I almost never need to actually play a real DVD though (generally unless someone shows up with a disc for a "movie night" and says "here, play this"). All of my discs I immediately rip to the hard drive and AutoGK them to XviD AVIs (though I'm now starting to investigate using meGUI to encode to x264 MP4s and I think I might eventually switch to that method).
If you're not comfortable installing FFDSHOW all on it's own, another option is to install the CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack) which includes FFDSHOW and all the other splitters and filters you could ever hope to need. It's nice because the install is unified and painless and It Just Works
TM.
http://www.cccp-project.net/---
If you're interested in using AutoGK to turn those VOBs into (vastly) smaller AVI files, check:
AutoGK Home Page (I'd install the "release" version, but then update to the "beta" version 2.32 as I find it much more stable than the release.)
AutoGK is simple to use, and (like CCCP) It Just Works
TM. The developer claims he isn't actively developing it anymore (though new versions keep appearing), because the entire VFW/AVI method of compressing and storing video is being replaced by the AVC-style MPEG-4 codecs (like x264). If you can't figure it out youself (which is somewhat unlikely) then check the AutoGK "official" tutorial here:
http://www.autogk.me.uk/modules.php?name=TutorialENor the Doom9 one here:
http://www.doom9.org/autogk.htmIf you're interested in checking out the "new generation" of MPEG-4 compression (which offers much higher quality at the same file sizes) check out:
meGUI Wiki Help PageDoom9 meGUI ThreadDoom9 MPEG-4 AVC - H.264 thread"Cutting Edge" builds of FFDSHOW, x264, and the current release build of meGUI (among other things) at x264.nlThese are much more experimental and "in flux" though I'd say meGUI is beginning to "get there" compared to AutoGK's ease-of-use. As I said, I'm just beginning to play with it seriously now....