(As an aside).
I would be somewhat surprised if mkv support was deliberately disabled. It turns out mkv is a royalty-free open standard.
https://matroska.org/info/legal/index.html
(Going on a huge offtopic tangent).
Can Oppos play straight *.vob files from an external hard drive connected to it, even without any of the *.ifo files?
I have noticed my junky $50 Sony bluray player can indeed play movie-only *.vob files ripped from dvd discs. (The *.vob files are on an...