Why is Premiere Elements importing only 2 minutes of a 40 minute video?

Question

I just bought Premiere Elements 7.0 and installed it.  I tried to import some videos off of a DVD which I created on my DVD burner hooked up to my TV (the files originally came from my video camera).  The files are listed as .VOB on the disk.  When I imported them into Premiere, they all show up, but the length shows as 00;01;14;05 (1 minute 14 seconds, right?).  It appears to be only importing the first couple minutes.  These are 40 minutes or more on each video.
I also tried copying the files over to my hard drive, renaming them as .mpg, but same thing happened.  Premiere can recognize and import them, but only the first couple of minutes. Weird thing is, if i open the files through Windows Media, WM will recognize the full length and play the entire video.
Any help I can get will be much appreciated.  I bought an $80 book to teach myself how to use this software, but it doesn't address this issue. Thanks.
Karen Davis
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Answer 1

Here is an excerpt from a reply on VOB's from another forum:
Let’s go back to the basics just a bit. As has been stated, a .VOB file is a "Video Object File." As such, and by the DVD-specs., it can contain quite a bit of stuff. Some of this is beyond just the Audio & Video contained in the usually present MPEG-2 file, which is hidden inside the VOB. This VOB can contain subtitles, Menus, and ROM content, to name but a few. With simple VOB’s, one can often play them, if they are just renamed to .MPEG, though not always. In the case where this works, one does not need a DVD software player. Any player program that can handle MPEG can play the file.
The structure and elements of a DVD-Video DVD-5 (4.7GB, single sided, single layer) will be in most cases:
AUDIO_TS folder (usually empty, as it’s really a carryover from the never fully implemented DVD-Audio). May also not be present.
VIDEO_TS folder, which contains VIDEO_TS.IFO (Video Manager.info), VIDEO_TS.BUP (VMGI.backup), VTS_01_0.IFO (Video Title #1.info), VTS_01_1.VOB (Video Title #1.video), and more of these, incremented by 1. Depending on the number of "titles" on a particular disc, the numbers can range up to the limit of 99. For Projects from most NLE/authoring programs will only have one "title," so you’ll likely not see more than 4 VOB’s and their accompanying IFO’s and BUP’s. The VOB’s will be approximately 1GB in size.
The title of the "movie" inside the VIDEO_TS folder will be contained in the .IFO and the BUP files. If you open up a DVD-Video in Windows Explorer, you’ll see just the folders, and no name, or anything else. The same is for the file names inside the folder(s). They will look the same for all DVD-Videos, though the exact number of these will differ, depending on the structure and number of discrete titles on the disc. It’s not until one opens the DVD-Video in either a software player, or in a set-top player, that the IFO files will play, allowing the player to then access and work with the .VOB’s, via the instructions that are contained in the IFO and BUP files.
Editing a VOB can be a tricky, as it can contain all those different things. Ripping the MPEG-2 file from the VOB is usually the best approach. That is what PE, or other NLE’s (Non Linear Editor) attempt to do. Sometimes, it works fine, but sometimes it does not. Another problem can be when there are multiple VOB’s, as the MPEG-2 files can span multiple VOB’s, as they cannot contain more than about 1GB of data.
Once one has edited the Audio & Video contained in the .VOB(s), the process to get the resulting Project back into DVD-Video form is to Burn to DVD. This is the authoring process.
Three things happen:
1.) The edited file is Transcoded to MPEG-2. If you were working from a VOB already, the Audio & Video material has already been Transcoded to MPEG-2, in which there will already be compression of the data. If you do this again, there will be more compression of the data, resulting in a loss in quality. Some NLE’s can do "smart rendering/encoding." None of the programs from Adobe can do this, as they are designed to work with material captured from a miniDV tape camera. While they can handle other footage, there will be compromises. When designed, DV-AVI Type II was chosen as the base workflow, because that was what most miniDV tape cameras produced. The introduction of flash memory, miniDVD, and hard drive cameras, plus the introduction of HD, has changed things a bit, and will continue to change them over the next versions of the programs.
2.) The folder structure and the necessary files are created.
3.) The above material is then physically Burned to a DVD-Video, or is copied to a folder on the computer in the required, and necessary form and structure.
In the case of the former, one can then play the DVD-Video via a software player on a computer, or on a set-top player hooked to a TV or display device. In the case of the latter, one needs a software player to play the files in the VOB, with the instructions coming from the IFO, or the BUP files.
Hunt