BMP to VOB Converter

BMP to VOB: A DVD-Style MPEG-2 Stream, Not a DVD

A .vob is a DVD Video Object file — the MPEG-2 program stream that lives inside the VIDEO_TS folder of a DVD-Video disc. What this page produces is a genuine MPEG-2 program stream, written in the DVD's own 2,048-byte packs and beginning with the pack header 00 00 01 BA, holding your bitmap as a still video clip.

What it is not is a DVD. There is no VIDEO_TS folder, no .IFO or .BUP navigation files, no chapter or menu structure, and — because this is an image-to-video conversion — no audio stream at all. Authoring software that ingests VOB files will generally take it; a DVD player handed the bare file on a data disc will generally not. Treat the output as a video asset in a DVD-compatible codec, which is exactly what most people asking for "BMP to VOB" actually need.

How to Convert BMP to VOB

1. Upload Your BMP Files: Drag one or more .bmp files onto the page or click "+ Add Files". If you upload several, Merge strategy decides what happens: Merge images (the value it opens on) builds one clip with every bitmap in sequence, while Video per image produces one .vob per file.
2. Set Image Duration and Background Color: Image Duration opens at 5 seconds per frame and runs from 1/60 s up to 10 s per image. Background Color decides what fills any letterbox or pillarbox bars, and it opens on White — which is worth changing to Black for most video work.
3. Set Video resolution — This Is the Only Control That Matters: Video resolution opens on Keep original, which uses your bitmap's own pixel dimensions. Fixed Resolutions is the entry that takes an exact frame size and pads to it; Preset Resolutions, Width, Height and Width x Height all derive the width from your image's aspect ratio instead. The File Compression section, for reasons set out below, will not change the output.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and save the .vob. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, encoded on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared or made public.

The Resolution Controls Do Not All Behave the Same Way

This is the part that surprises people, and it is worth setting out precisely. On an image source the pipeline always has a Background Color to apply, so instead of a plain rescale it builds a scale-to-fit and pad operation: your bitmap is fitted inside the target frame with its aspect ratio intact, and whatever space is left over is filled with the background colour. That is good news — nothing is ever stretched — but it changes what each control does.

The Width x Height row is the trap. Type 720 x 480 into it with a 4:3 bitmap and you will get a 640x480 file, not a 720x480 one, because on this path the height wins and the width is recalculated. If you need an exact frame size, use Fixed Resolutions — and note that its list runs 640x480 (VGA), 800x600 (SVGA), 854x480 (SD) and 1024x768 (XGA) but contains no 720x480 or 720x576 entry, so the two genuine DVD-Video resolutions are not reachable from this page at all.

We confirmed the padding behaviour by putting a 1600x1200 bitmap through Fixed Resolutions at 1920x1080 and sampling the output frame: the centre carried the image and both edge columns read pure white, exactly matching the Background Color default.

Why the File Compression Section Will Not Change Your File

Three modes render here — Quality Preset, Constant Quality and Constraint Quality — and on this particular combination of image source and MPEG-2 output, none of them reaches the encoder:

• Constant Quality and Constraint Quality are discarded outright. MPEG-2 has no constant-quality mode in this pipeline, so both are converted to a plain bitrate request and the value you set is thrown away in the process.
• Quality Preset has nothing to scale. On codecs without a CRF mode, Quality Preset works by multiplying the source clip's bitrate. A still image has no bitrate, so the multiplication starts from zero.
• What actually decides the bitrate is a resolution formula. MPEG-2 falls back to a minimum bitrate computed from the frame size: roughly 0.10 bits per pixel at 30 fps up to 720p, 0.12 at 1080p, 0.15 at 1440p and 0.18 above that, held between 2 and 100 Mbit/s. A 1600x1200 frame therefore lands at about 6.9 Mbit/s and a 640x480 frame at the 2 Mbit/s floor, whatever the File Compression section says.
• Which leaves resolution and duration as the real levers. Halving the frame size cuts the bitrate formula and the pixel count together; shortening Image Duration cuts the running time. Measured on a 1600x1200 bitmap at the default 5-second duration: Keep original produced 49,152 bytes, Fixed Resolution 1920x1080 produced 51,200 bytes and Fixed Resolution 640x480 produced 12,288 bytes — 24, 25 and 6 DVD sectors respectively.

The still is encoded at 1 frame per second with B-frames disabled, which is why a five-second clip from a single bitmap is so small: it is five nearly identical frames, and MPEG-2 codes the four repeats almost for free.

BMP and VOB Side by Side

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I burn this VOB straight to a disc and play it in a DVD player?

No — not on its own. A DVD-Video disc needs the whole VIDEO_TS structure: the .VOB files plus the .IFO navigation tables and their .BUP backups, laid out in a UDF filesystem with the right resolution, frame rate and GOP structure. This page produces the video payload in a DVD-compatible codec and packaging, not the disc. Feed the file into DVD authoring software — most of which accepts a VOB as an import — and let that build the disc structure and the navigation. If the goal was simply a playable file, BMP to MP4 is far more useful.

Why is there no audio option, and can I add a soundtrack?

The Audio Codec group is deliberately hidden for image sources, because a bitmap has no sound to carry — the output is silent by construction and there is no setting on this page that changes that. Adding a soundtrack is a separate step in a video editor or authoring tool after conversion. This is also why "the VOB has no sound" is never a fault report here: it is the expected result.

Why is my picture the wrong shape, or why does it have coloured bars?

It should never be the wrong shape — the pipeline scales your bitmap to fit inside the target frame with its aspect ratio intact, then pads. The bars are the padding, and the colour is whatever Background Color is set to, which opens on White. If you are putting a 4:3 bitmap into a 16:9 frame you will get white pillarbox bars down both sides unless you change that dropdown, and Black is usually the more natural choice for video. If you want no bars at all, choose a Fixed Resolution with the same aspect ratio as your image, or leave Video resolution on Keep original.

How do I get 720x480 or 720x576, the actual DVD resolutions?

You cannot reach them exactly from this page. The Fixed Resolutions list, which is the only control that honours an exact width and height, has no 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL) entry — the nearest options are 640x480 and 854x480. Typing the numbers into Width x Height does not help either, because on this path the height is used and the width is recomputed from your image's aspect ratio. If DVD-legal geometry is a hard requirement, produce the file at a convenient size here and let your DVD authoring software conform it, since that software has to enforce the frame rate and GOP rules anyway.

What does the Merge strategy setting do with several bitmaps?

Merge images, the value the page opens on, produces a single .vob containing every uploaded bitmap in sequence, each held on screen for whatever Image Duration says — a slideshow. Video per image produces a separate .vob for each file instead, all with the same settings. Merge images is what most people want; per-image output is useful when you are assembling a set of individual clips for an authoring timeline. Both encode at 1 frame per second with B-frames off, so a long slideshow stays surprisingly small.

Should I choose MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 under Video Codec?

MPEG-2, which is what the page opens on and what the DVD-Video specification actually mandates. MPEG-1 is offered because the program-stream container accepts it and some very old hardware and Video CD workflows prefer it, but it is a substantially weaker codec and no DVD authoring tool will thank you for it. There is no third option here — the codec list on this page contains exactly those two.

Does the BMP's original size survive, and what if my bitmap is huge?

Mostly. On Keep original the frame is your bitmap's own dimensions rounded down to even numbers, so a 1600x1200 image gives a 1600x1200 video. There is one ceiling to know about: images are normalised before encoding and the long edge is capped at 4,096 pixels, so a scanned bitmap larger than that is reduced to fit before the encoder sees it. That is rarely a constraint for a video target — 4,096 pixels is wider than 4K — but it is worth knowing if you were expecting a poster-sized still to survive at full resolution.

Why does the file size barely change when I adjust the quality settings?

Because on this route none of the File Compression modes reaches the encoder. Constant Quality and Constraint Quality are both discarded by the MPEG-2 path, and Quality Preset works by scaling a source bitrate that a still image does not have. What sets the rate instead is a formula based on the frame size — approximately 0.10 to 0.18 bits per pixel at 30 fps depending on resolution, with a 2 Mbit/s floor. To make the file smaller, reduce the resolution or shorten the Image Duration; those are the two controls with real effect here.

How many bitmaps can I convert at once, and how are the files handled?

There is no fixed limit on the number of files, and no fixed per-file cap either — upload size and connection speed are the practical constraint, and BMP is an uncompressed format so a batch of large bitmaps adds up quickly. Everything you upload travels over an encrypted connection, is converted on our servers, and both the uploads and the outputs are deleted automatically after a few hours. Files are never shared or made public, no account is required and no watermark is added. If you want the same slideshow in a format that plays everywhere, BMP to MPG keeps MPEG-2 under a friendlier extension and BMP to MP4 moves it to H.264.