by A reader who wishes to remain anonymous is curious about the structure of DVDs. He or she writes:
A friend has a DVD that he needs to turn into a QuickTime movie. He’s used a program that copies the contents of the DVD to a folder on his Mac. Inside this folder are VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders. The audio folder is empty, though. Does that mean that the converted movie won’t have audio?
No, it doesn’t. The original DVD standard didn’t include an AUDIO_TS folder. All content was intended to be found within the VIDEO_TS folder. (In case you’re curious, the TS stands for title set.) This includes video as well as the audio that accompanies that video.
The AUDIO_TS folder was added as an option after the standard was established. This folder was created for standalone audio files much like the audio tracks on a CD. The idea was that DVDs would replace CDs as audio media. It never caught on but the folder remains, even though it’s invariably empty.
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