Hey guys, I have some question for you with an NTSC interlaced dvd source. I'm trying to backup episodes of the Alias tv series from DVD, but squeeze more episodes onto a disc using KDVD. The show is in 16:9 anamorphic and I'd like to keep it that way for full compatability with my parents HDTV widescreen tv (this part I have no problems with, as far as setting up my avs script and CCE to encode in 16:9). Here are the questions I do have:

1) Should I be setting Force Film in dvd2avi
2) Should I be deinterlacing, and if so which filter/parameters
3) What framerate should I be encoding in? Am I able to deinterlace, encode at 23.976 with a pulldown to save space? (I'm not even certain if this last statement is correct)
4) What about Interlace Resizing? I've never used this before but read about it in another post...
5) What does the 3:2 pulldown detecting in CCE mean? If I select it, can I avoid having to run pulldown.exe after encodign?

And last but not least, I noticed my source material is quite grainy in the background... I was wondering what settings in the optimal MA script I might be able to modify to clean things up a bit.

Thanks a lot guys, I know I'll be able to get tons of help from you guys!

Be careful!
Do a preview in DVD2AVI and upper in the right window you can see
29.976 NTSC (you will see comb artefacts in moving scenes) OR
29.976 NTSC FILM!!

The second one means your source is encoded at 23.976 in real using the pulldown while play. And in this case use FORCE FILM.

As you also want to keep a anamorphic stream and by this already the CQ will rise up .... you shouldn't deinterlace cause of resulting less details.
Use Boulders version of an interlaced MA Script as posted in this forum and perform a mpeg2/interlaced encoding.
BTW!: If your source s really interlaced (comb artefacts) do not! use Forced Film in DVD2AVI! cause if its interlaced .. it will be real 29.976 NTSC

Encoding a deinterlaced / inverse telecined back to 23.976 Stream you will save a very lot of space cause of 23.976 instead of 29.976 FPS encoding.
Ask the NTSC deinterlacing cracks in here how to apply the needed Lines in Avisynth. After this you can do an encoding performin the 3:2 Pulldown "while play" here its explained:
http://www.incredible.de.tf/pulldown.html
There its also explained WHY we use a 3:2 Pulldown.
What do you mean? resizing an interlaced stream within the picture, or a resized overscan?

It means the same when applying the "3:2 Pulldown while play" in Tmpgenc, like explained in the link to my page above.
And therefore "yes", if setting the 3:2 pulldown in the encoders options ... you don't have to perform the pulldown.exe appl. afterwards, because the job is already done by the encoder!

Many poeple like me too are trying and trying and trying, performing MA mods on BAD Sources, .... but BAD Source stands for a full of individual variants where individual filters have to perform .... thats the main difference in comparison when filtering a clean DVD Source.

The preview says 29.976 NTSC Interlaced. It never says FILM in the Frame Type window, always Interlaced.

Okay so from the information above I'm assuming my source is real 29.976 NTSC, right? So in this case should I be using Boulder's script? I'm trying to find it right now, could someone (Jorel?) perhaps point me to it please?

The way I was doing it before was NOT selecting Force Film in dvd2avi, and adding the line TomsMoComp(1, 15, 1) in my script to deinterlace. It did an excellent job of removing the interlacing and also reduced file size. I also did a test clip without deinterlacing, and didn't really notice any loss of detail. The interlacing wasn't that visible, except in some high movement frames. But I'll have to search for Boulder's script to see if it makes a difference.

Ah never mind, I found Boulder's message. It's actually in the Optimal Script forum not this one. http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic....833&highlight=
However I'm not certain what to put for my resize values. I'm looking at Boulder's newer script, which is at the end of the thread. I'm encoding a 720x480 dvd source as 704x480, so here were my resize values with overscan=2 as obtained by moviestacker:
However with these figures CCE returns the message "Frame Size 704x960 not supported. Supported frame size is up to 720x576".

So I kept Boulder's resize lines, which wereCCE liked this, but then went on to encode at 720x576. So looks to me like Boulder is in PAL land and I'm not.

With my extremely limited knowledge of these resize commands, through LOTS of trial and error I eventually stumbled upon these lines to encode at 704x480. I only hope I am doing things right!Is that correct? Am I correct in assuming Boulder is using a Resize instead of Overlap? Since my source is an anamorphic DVD, is this the best choice for me?[/code]

You can use the values MovieStacker gives you. All you need to do is halve the vertical resolution if you resize after the fields have been separated. So BicubicResize(704,480) would become BicubicResize(704,240).

I use overscan blocks instead of letterbox overlapping since I don't want to lose any actual film pixels.

I'm using the the VHS script from the optimal section, how would I modify it for interlaced encoding...what parts should be in the seperate odd/even sections?