MPEG-2 VOBs trouble in VirtualDub

[shmizan]

hey guys, hope this is the right section.

so I have a DVD I want to Rip and I thought the best way is just to group all the VOBs in DGIndex and then open the d2v file in VirtualDub and do the cropping and compression finally saving an AVI.

in MPC the VOB file plays well (using FFDShow MPEG-2 decoder), in MediaInfo it says 720x576 and DAR of 16:9.
But when I open a VOB file (using fcchandler's amazing plugin) in VirtualDub the Aspect Ratio turns to 4:3 and I get fullscreen with stretched height. I tried opening ANY VOB file I have and the outcome is all the same - 4:3 full screen in all.
in DGIndex it's the same.. getting 4:3 fullscreen output.
why is this happening? I then, to set it back straight, need to AviSynth a resize and cropping script, not sure using the real values.

here's a screenshot:

http://i39.tinypic.com/2d0hudz.jpg

I imagine it's not suppose to be like this. do you guys know what to do?
thanks so much!

[Baldrick]

Virtualdub ignores any display aspect ratio(DAR) and just displays it as 720x576. You have to crop and resize manually. You can use fitcd to calculate how to resize. Resize either in avisynth or virtualdub.

If you think that is complex use autogk. It auto crops and resize.

edit: Or you can also just save as avi in virtualdub with no cropping,resize and then change the avi to 16:9 with mpeg4modifier...but not all players supports that.

[Baldrick]

ANd I'm moving to our video conversion section.

[shmizan]

oh I see.
thank you so much! all is understood now

[jagabo]

Digital image scaling always creates artifacts. VirtualDub shows you the image pixel-for-pixel so you know that any artifacts you see are in the source. If it scaled the image to the proper DAR you wouldn't know for sure which artifacts are in the source and which were from the scaling.

A crop from an 720x480 unscaled image:

A crop from the same image after scaling (to 854x480, ~16:9):

Notice how the vertical lines are all messed up in the scaled image.