Free online HEVC to VOB converter

What the HEVC format is

HEVC, also called H.265, is a modern video compression standard designed to deliver lower file sizes than H.264 at similar visual quality. Phones, action cameras, screen-recording applications, streaming tools, and recent video editors commonly create HEVC files, usually with .mp4 or .mkv extensions. HEVC is supported by current computers, televisions, and mobile devices, but many older DVD players and authoring programs cannot decode it.

What the VOB format is

VOB is a DVD-Video container used inside a DVD's VIDEO_TS folder. It normally contains MPEG-2 video, MPEG-1 or AC-3 audio, subtitles, navigation data, and DVD timing information. VOB is useful for physical DVDs and older hardware, but a standalone VOB file is not necessarily a complete playable DVD; a disc normally also needs matching .IFO and .BUP files.

DVD-Video has fixed compatibility requirements: common video sizes are 720×480 at 29.97 fps for NTSC and 720×576 at 25 fps for PAL, with 48 kHz audio. A VOB containing HEVC or another non-DVD codec will not make an ordinary DVD player compatible with that file.

How to actually convert HEVC to VOB

Using FFmpeg

FFmpeg can transcode an HEVC source into an MPEG-2 VOB-compatible program stream. This example creates NTSC-format video:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -map 0:v:0 -map 0:a:0 -vf "scale=720:480:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=720:480:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2" -r 30000/1001 -c:v mpeg2video -b:v 6000k -maxrate 8000k -minrate 2000k -bufsize 1835008 -g 15 -c:a ac3 -b:a 192k -ar 48000 -f vob output.vob

For PAL material, change the filter to scale=720:576:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=720:576:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2, set -r 25, and use -g 15. Replace input.mp4 with the actual HEVC filename. If the source has no audio stream, remove -map 0:a:0 and the audio options, then add a suitable audio track separately if the target authoring software requires one.

The command creates a VOB-like MPEG program stream, not a complete DVD. To create a disc structure, import the source into a DVD authoring application such as DVDStyler, choose NTSC or PAL to match the video, set the desired aspect ratio, and use Burn or Generate DVD to produce VIDEO_TS files. Authoring software may perform the MPEG-2 conversion itself, so the FFmpeg step is optional when the application accepts HEVC input.

Using the online converter

You can convert the file on 101convert.com for free without installing software. Select the HEVC video, choose VOB as the output format, start the conversion, and download the resulting file. Check the output's codec and resolution if the destination is a physical DVD player, because a VOB extension alone does not guarantee DVD-Video compliance.

Quality, compatibility, and limitations

• HEVC-to-VOB conversion is normally lossy: decoding HEVC and re-encoding to MPEG-2 cannot preserve all source detail. Use a sufficiently high MPEG-2 bitrate, but remember that DVD capacity limits the available bitrate and running time.
• DVD-Video generally uses a 4:3 or 16:9 display flag rather than arbitrary modern aspect ratios. Padding or cropping may be necessary when the source is widescreen, vertical, or ultrawide.
• A VOB file intended only for software playback can use more flexible MPEG program-stream settings, but a physical DVD requires DVD-compliant MPEG-2, audio, frame rate, menus, navigation files, and folder structure.
• Long DVD titles are split into multiple VOB files, commonly no larger than about 1 GB each. This split is part of DVD authoring and should not be treated as a conversion failure.