Just a note: the TS files are just VOB files.

And Jim -- you've lost me with your reply.

By black box do you mean the new WD external drive? As to playing the videos once he has copied them to the new drive, I think he's just testing them and trying to watch them on his computer monitor, as he hasn't mentioned hooking anything up to the TV. The drive full of movies was/is a gift to his son and daughter in law. My bro is a big user of RedBox video rentals, so that would be my first guess on how he obtained an original DVD in the first place.

(and yeah, I do need to talk to him about buying WD- LOL Though he may have a clue now since these movies play just fine on his internal Seagate!)