Herein described is a system and method of detecting 2:2 and/or 3:2 pull-down video. In addition, aspects of the present invention provide a system and method to identify and lock onto a field phase of a received 2:2 or 3:2 pull-down video signal. The system for detecting a field phase in 2:2 pull-down video comprises a first circuitry that computes unexpected motion values, a second circuitry that implements an alternating straight through or crossover function, a third circuitry that performs processing and generates one or more control signals, a pair of counters, and a phase selection circuitry. The method comprises computing luminance approximations of pixels associated with an output video frame, computing one or more first differences, and computing a second difference for each absent pixel of the output video frame based on one of five field phases.