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Crop and Resize: prepare for / how to

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Can anyone tell what is the best program to crop and resize? I tried cropping and resizing using virtualdub. Cropping goes fine but when I resize to 720 x 480 with lanczos filter the image quality goes down.
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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How does one undo 3:2 pulldown in an avi?
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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You'll need AviSynth or VirtualDub. I prefer AviSynth. Get Decomb, by Neuron2 (aka Donald Graft), and then start the several-week learning curve/trial-and-error session...
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The only way I found I could get a 100% reliable 3:2 pulldown removal is to use VirtualDub in manual mode, finding out what undo setting works at the start of the movie and for how many frames, save that section as a new avi (direct stream copy) and press del, then start again with finding out what setting works and for how long and saving it - repeat until the whole film has been cut down into sections with each section having their own 3:2 pulldown removal setting. Falling back to AviSynth and the Decomb filter for small sections where VirtualDub just can't seem to find the undo setting.
Then process each piece individually by VirtualDub's job capability and join the now ITVC'd cleaned sections together to create a final complete film. Slow yet, laborious yes but it's the only 100% reliable way I know of removing 3:2 pulldown, AviSynth Decomb filter and VirtualDub's automatic removal can't do the job 100% reliably, AviSynth Decomb comes close but not close enough so I use it to get a good-enough 23.976fps source to test cleaning filters on.

I've done this process on a few NTSC laserdisc captures to create progressive NTSC DVDs and PAL DVDs, usually end up breaking the captured avi into between 5 and 15 pieces, one day I might put fingers to keyboard and create a guide on how I do the process.
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***Citizen's NTSC DVD/PAL DVD/XviD Info and Feedback Thread***
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I do it exactly as Citizen described. It's a tedious procress, but it's the most foolproof way.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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When I first heared the word "pulldown" I assumed it was the process of turning 30 frames into 24 frames. I was dead wrong But when playing a 24 frame/sec movie on a dvd player, does the player turn it into 30? Does a 30 frame/sec play more smooth than 24?
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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Yeah, the DVD player uses TFF and RFF flags in the MPEG-2 stream to be able to take the 24fps and add the pulldown on playback. Because 24 frames/sec are all that exists for original data, and the 30 frames/sec doesn't do any sort of magical tweening, no, 30fps is no smoother. In fact, people who watch a lot of PAL insist they can see the jerkiness of the field doubling when watching film-based stuff on NTSC.
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Is the automatic 2-pass ivtc of cinema craft encoder (v2.7) any good? Or isn't it 100% foolproof?
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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OK i get the basic idea but when I wanted to try IVTC in virtualdub I didn't get any further than: video>frame rate>reconstruct from field - manual. What's the next step? How do I see if the setting is good?
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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1. The framerate should now be 24 or 23.976.
2. Step through a bunch of frames: see any combing??
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And if you see combing, you need to adjust the offset until the combing disappears (and there are one or two places where the offset changes, so keep a sharp eye out.)

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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OK, now I'm confused. I used video>frame rate>reconstruct from field - manual and saved the avi (direct stream copy). I tested this on a clip with 319 frames. So I thought the clip now would have less then 319 frames. But it still has 319 frames. So I repeated the process now also changing the framerate to 23.976. Now I get a clip of again 319 frames, but virtualdub says it has a 23.976 framerate. OK I understand the ammount of pictures can be the same and the framerate can change but I thought IVTC actually removed frames. Can someone please try and explain this whole pulldown system to me because I don't get it anymore.
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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I'll try to explain how to do manual 3:2 pulldown removal using VirtualDub, as you have a Canopus analogue to digital converter as I do it should be easier with the settings.


1. First open your Capture.avi in VirtualDub.
2. Press the expand to fullscreen button on to top right of VirtualDub.
3. Right click on the left video plane and select 25% scale.
4. Right click on the right video plane and select 150% scale.
5. Go to the menu Video>Filters... and add "resize", select the size to be 512 x 384 with "Nearest neighbor" (this is only to aid finding the pulldown cut-off sections easier), then press OK & OK to exit the Filters... section.
6. Go to the menu Video>Compression... and select a fast compression codec, personally I use an MJPEG codec for this bit because each frame is a keyframe.
7. Go to the menu Video>Frame Rate... and select "Reconstruct from fields - manual", Offset: 0, select "Invert polarity", then press OK.
8. Go to the menu File>Save as AVI... and select a filename such as CaptureTest-0i.avi (0i because you selected Offset 0 with "Invert polarity" in step 7).
9. Keep an eye on the right video plane and as soon as you see the interlace artefacts (the 512x384 Nearest neighbor scaling makes this show up like a sore thumb) press stop.
10. Open the CaptureTest0i.avi in another instance of VirtualDub and scan through until you find the first frame where interlacing artefacts show up, if the interlacing artefacts start at the beginning then go back to step 7 and try Offset:1 "Invert polarity", then Offset:2 etc. until the start of the CaptureTest avi doesn't show any interlacing artefacts.
11. Once you have a section of test video with no interlacing artefacts go back to the first VirtualDub, menu Video>Direct stream copy, make the start selection at the start of the video and the end selection at the interlacing artefact frame of the 2nd VirtualDub.
12. Go to the menu File>Save as AVI... and select a filename such as Capture01-0i.avi, 01 for the section number and 0i or 1i or 2i for whatever pulldown setting you used.
13. Go to the menu Video>Full processing mode
14. Press Del on your keyboard so this will remove the video from the timeline and you can go back to step 7 to repeat the whole process again until all of the Capture.avi file has been split up into separate files each with their own 3:2 pulldown removal setting in the filename.
15. Now you've found the 3:2 pulldown removal setting for the individual avi files (if you're lucky you'll only get a few files) you can then process each one with your cleanup/crop/resize/whatever VirtualDub filters and save as say Complete01.avi etc. and join them all together afterwards (Append AVI segment... should do the job, some mpeg encoders can use a list of avis to create a single mpeg file so you don't have to join the avis up beforehand)

This was all typed out from memory so sorry if there's any errors in the process, it should work for you.
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Ahaaa!!! Thank you very much for the information. It works!!!!!!! Great!!!
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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MY GOD!!!!!!!!!! This really improves image quality!!!!!!!!! Incredible!!!!!!!!

Filters....yes I think I'll use some MSU filters for noise reduction and sharpening.
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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May I also recommend that you take a look at the temporal smooth filter. Sometimes it can enhance image quality immensely when resizing.
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Should the temp smoother be used after resize filters? Or before?
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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Personally I only use VirtualDub's internal temporal smoother when I'm trying to get a decent still from grainy video so I put it at maxiumum, best to use 'intelligent' temporal smoothing filters if you're going to use one, the MSU Denoiser is such a one and works well.
It doesn't seem to matter wether you place a temporal smoother before or after resizing but it should be placed before any 2d smoothing or sharpening.
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I like to encode with cinema craft encoder. But can it treat multiple avis as one, creating one mpv? I can't find this option
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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When performing the IVTC can I use the resize filters and other filters in one go or should I first IVTC and then use the filters on the new file?
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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When you have VirtualDub's framerate setting setup to undo the 3:2 pulldown, it applies the undo before passing it on to any filters you have setup, it doesn't do the undo when you skim through the video on the main slider bar, only when you save the avi or do output preview with full processing turned on.

A shame it doesn't apply it in realtime when you look through the video with the main slider bar, hmm maybe a suggestion to the creator to impliment it.
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OK I've done a decent IVTC and resize. Now I encoded the avi at 23.976 fps. When I want to import the mpv into dvd-lab the program says it can't use 24 fps movie so it want to pulldown. So I went to all this trouble only to find out my IVTC avi has to be pulled down again for encoding??? Oh man. Well if I didn't I could not have resized properly.

So now I want to encode the avi again. Should I choose 2:3 or 3:2 pulldown? What's the difference? Quality difference?
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.