doom9.org, digital-digest.com, dvdrhelp.com all have utilities and prog. to download that might make life easier for you, as well as loads of guides on how to do whatever.
FWIW, you should have a bunch of ifo & vob files... the vob files contain the audio and video streams, and the ifo's have info on what's included in the vobs. You might be able to edit the video in the vob files directly.
1) How long does it take to convert a DVD to a usable form for VV with Flask or DVD2AVI? 2) Can you convert pieces of the DVD without converting the whole DVD? 3) Is the DVD converted to AVI or to MPEG2 and if AVI how big is the file that is created?
You can open the DVD directly with VV4, but it won't recognize AC3 audio (if pcm audio or perhaps mpeg audio, V4 will read it). So, if you can convert the audio only and use with the DVD's VOB files, it would go a lot quicker.
Now this just drives me crazy!!! I have heard several people mention that you can pull a .vob file directly into V4 for editing. I go through dvd2avi & vfapiConv to edit my .vob files. Everytime I try to pull in a .vob file into V4, all I get is a very compressed clip on my timeline!!! Is this due to the fact that I am pulling in a .vob from a -r disc? Does the +r act differently?
Not all vobs are created equally, or rather the mpg2 files they contain. Some are more editable then others, but still prefer the dvd2avi method as it doesn't place the rendering load on Vegas that decoding mpg2 from the timeline does.