WARNING: Newbie starting out.

I got the ATI Wonder Card VE. I tape 24 on Fox each week. I decided to edit out the commercials and have Premiere 6.5, TMPGEnc, VirtualDub, and nearly everything else listed on the Tools section of VCDHelp.com.
I just don't know how to do it...
On top of that, for some odd reason, tonight's episode of 24 was taped at 640x240. It normally tapes it at 325x240, so I want to resize that clip, and that's where I started.
Well, Premiere just confused me. It prompts me to select a video size, but 325x640 isn't shown. So then I just open it, but there's no resize optin in any menu. TMPGEnc and Virtual Dub wouldn't even load it.

So can someone please tell me or point me out to a guide on 1) How to resize a video clip and 2) How to cut out portions of a video clip (i.e. commercials).

Also, the one hour footage of tonight's episode, recorded at 640x240, 16-bit 44KHz Stereo is 980Mb... 3) How can I make the filesize smaller without loss to quality?

Thanks guys.