I've just checked the VOB file again. It's there, complete with its 3.9 GB. I got this file from one of my DVDs. In fact, I had a project but had to erase the original MPEG files due to room problems. Now, I got DVD Decrypt to decrypt those VOB files (1G each) from my DVD, selecting IFO mode, no split and no 1 GB limit, so as to make an only one VOB file. Why? Because I want to re-author my DVD. Does that make sense now? We both know that DVDA does not accept VOB audio, so I demuxed this VOB into an AC-3 file with TMPGENC MPEG TOOLS. As I import them both to DVDA, I've got this problem. The video file is there but it seems to be half the size of the AC-3 file. Important: this method had been discussed here and it worked well for 48 minute VOB files, which in fact, must be much smaller than 3.9 GB.

You might want to use one of the hacker tools like Smartripper or DVD Decrypter. I fully understand that you are not pirating anything, and your disk is not encrypted, but these tools can do two things that might be useful:

1. They can break your VOB into 1 GByte chunks. This might make DVDA "happier."

2. They can demux the video and audio.

Thanks johnmeyer......In fact, I wouldn't like to demux anything, just dropping the VOB file in DVDA and demux its audio with TMPGEC as AC-3 to let it go with the VOB. Unfortunately it seems this method is not working for bigger VOB files as the one I'm trying to drop in DVDA (3.9 GB) - but it DOES work with smaller files (48 minute files, much smaller than this 3.9). By the way, a very gentle user at www.videohelp.com came up with this solution:

-"there is a segment end code in the header - the vob must of been made up of smaller sections ..\\\try running the mpeg file (NO, IT's A VOB FILE - ALMOST THE SAME BUT STILL DIFFERENT) through restream and select remove seq. end codes and reset time stamps

you can pretty much also do it using pulldown.exe and dont do a pulldown, just parse the file and resave..

i bet mpeg2vcr will also fix it .."

But in fact, I've already tried pulldown - it seems not to work with VOB files (just m2v, mpeg ones). Demuxing the video file with TMPGENC as m2v fix this, but I guess there maight be a loss of quality (and the file will have to be muxed later). Now I'm gonna try restream, let's see what I've got. Just in time: I was just wondering....what if I renamed the extension as .m2v or mpeg....

Thanks in advance.

In fact, I wouldn't like to demux anything, just dropping the VOB file in DVDA and demux its audio with TMPGEC as AC-3 to let it go with the VOB.

Well, actually you DO want to demux things. As you've already said, you want to demux the AC-3, and with a VOB, it is best to demux the video as well.

I just tried this out on one of my (own) DVDs.

Fire up Smartripper (I have an ancient version 2.41 because I never use it). Click on the Stream Processing tab. Select the streams you want to process, and then click on "demux to extra file." Start the processing. This will copy directly from your DVD to an m2v and ac3 file. Put these into DVD Architect (after you drop the m2v file into DVDA, you'll have to manually specify the audio file). That's it. You are ready to go.

Thanks again johnmeyer. I've already done that with the EXCELLENT TMPGENC (tru its MPEG TOLLS). This way I demuxed the VOB as m2v, dropped the file in DVDA (no problems this time) and that's all! It works.
I just wanted to know why I've got a problem dropping bigger VOB files in DVDA (instead of a demuxed file such as m2v). Does anybody know why?????? As I said before, there's no problem at all when I drop smaller VOB files in DVDA.

Just one more thing:
johnmeyer wrote this: You might want to use one of the hacker tools like Smartripper or DVD Decrypter...

Please john I'd like to make you understand that those ARE NOT hacker tools at all but tools to help you recover YOUR OWN DVD files.

Sorry, I wasn't in any way trying to imply that YOU were hacking. However, Smartrippers main use is to "rip" commercial DVD for "backup," and it includes the capability to defeat the Decss encryption. It just so happens that it has some features that are useful for legitimate uses.