My .mpg looks squished in VirtualDubMod and DGIndex

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

Source: mpg file
Desired outcome: VirtualDubMod displaying my mpg properly so that I can clip .avi files from it
Problem: VirtualDubMod is reading the file as 720X480 but it looks squished vertically (see below--yes, JPad should be EVEN WIDER than he is) 
I tried to open it in DGIndex and got the same squish.
I would love an avisynth scripting fix or (even better) a plug-in that works

 <--He should be EVEN WIDER

Any thoughts much appreciated.

Comments

[absolutedestiny.livejournal.com]

The plugin works fine. The footage is anamorphic. It's supposed to be squished.

If you want it unsquished you need to resize it.

What you resize it to is a complicated issue but if you want it the same size and shape as a standard definition divx download then resizing it to 640x360 would be fine.

For further advice, I'd need to know what you're doing with it (single source or multi-source etc etc)

[absolutedestiny.livejournal.com]

Oh, to resize in avisynth do:

LanczosResize(640,480)

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

Yay, thanks! I thought that might be the issue (that was always the problem with my Alias footage) but I wasn't feeling certain about it because Vegas was displaying it "correctly" and the squish seemed less than my Alias squishes.

Thanks so much for answering my question so fast and well. You are teh best!

[absolutedestiny.livejournal.com]

That probably because you can tell vegas that the clip is NTSC 16:9 anamorphic and it will do the scaling for you. You should look into that as that's the more 'correct' way to do it.

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd much rather do that (less work, clipping and editing in same program, output at 720X480 without black bars, etc) but my issue is that Vegas 8.0 barfs on rendering movies with lots of .mpg clips. It's a noted bug that I encountered when creating Above and Below. There didn't seem to be a fix, just some sketchy work arounds...

So I was going to stick to .avi files for this vid if possible.