nitotv video_ts problem

Legacy 1st gen Apple TV
1

I’m currently running nitotv on my atv-hacked apple tv. The apple tv is attached to a USB hard drive. The hard drive has about a hundred movies that I ripped straight from dvd’s. Hence the path to get to the .vob file is, for example, /ddbuffalo/Chinatown/video_ts/vts_01_1.vob.

When I click Files under the NitoTV menu, I see my ddbuffalo usb hard drive. If I click the hard drive, I see all the movies (for example, Chinatown, as above). If I click Chinatown, nothing happens.

Note that if I move the .vob folder up in the director, so that the path is /ddbuffalo/Chinatown/vts_01_1.vob, I can see the .vob file after clicking ‘Chinatown’, and I can play the movie.

Questions:

  1. Is the only way to get NitoTV to play the movies to move all the .vob files up a level in their directories?
  2. What is the point/purpose of the .ifo and .txt files that you get in the video_ts folder when you rip a DVD?

I’m sure these questions have been answered dozens of times before in these forums, but I am having trouble finding the right links. Thanks in advance for any response.

2

Your original directory structure looks ok. Have you modified or removed any of the .ifo files from the VIDEO_TS folder? These files act as markers to start and continue DVD playback with multiple VOB files.

3

When I ripped the DVD’s, I ripped the main movie only to a single large .vob file using DVDDecrypter. The result was the video_ts folder with three files in it: a .txt file, a .ifo file, and .vob file.

Again, the problem is that the only way I can make the movie play with Nito TV is by bumping the .vob file up from /harddrive/moviename/video_ts/.vob to /harddrive/moviename/.vob.

When I leave the .vob file inside the video_ts folder, nitotv doesn’t show me anything after I click on the movie name. If I move the .vob folder up, nitotv will see the .vob and play it fine.

The easy solution is of course to simply bump up the .vob files, but I’m nervous about dumping the .ifo file and .txt files because I’m not really sure what they do.

Thanks in advance.

4

Usually each movie will consist of multiple vob and info files. Does this issue occur with all your movies or just a few? You may try ripping a full DVD (with menus, special features, etc) to see if the AppleTV likes that any better.

5

I gather from your reply that you think it is unusual that nitotv is not recognizing my video_ts files?

6

Yes, normally nitoTV will recognize folders in the following directory format.

MOVIE NAME/VIDEO_TS/vob & ifo files

You may try running the Smart Installer a second time (http://wiki.atvflash.com/index.php?title=Smart_Installer) or re-ripping a full movie to see if either solves your issue.

7

Thanks will try both re-running the installer and ripping an entire dvd to see if nitotv recognizes better.

8

I have exactly the same problem and the same file structure, when I move the vob file it plays fine, when the vob file is inside the video_ts folder…nothing !! I’ve tried to play the folders using NitoTV an Sapphire but both plugin’s don’t respond.