How do I add black bars to a video?

[Onceler2]

It was made for SD TV and when I play it back on my Archos it stretches it to fill the widescreen and clips off part of the bottom.
I was thinking maybe I could add some black bars to the sides so that it wouldn't do this. The video is 4:3.
How can I do this?

[DB83]

It sounds as if your player is zooming the video to fill the screen.

Surely there is a setting that plays the vid natively ?

[Onceler2]

yes that is what is happening but I don't know how to make it quit zooming.

[aedipuss]

if this is a little mp3 player they often can't handle anything but 1 size video properly. like 320x240. you'd need to convert the vid to the proper size and let the encoder add the black bars.

[Onceler2]

this is not an mp3 player it is an Archos 7o

[aedipuss]

have you tried a different android media player? vlc has a nice one in beta.

http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/armv7-android/VLC-debug-20130319-0151.apk

[DB83]

I see you had another thread with this issue.

Why start another ?

Baldrick's suggestion seemed to be ideal. Other than that you would probably hve to re-encode the video to 720p and retain aspect ratio - that appears to be the maximum spec for this device - and probably lose a lot of the quality of your vid.

[Onceler2]

I'm sorry I had forgotten all about that thread. - I am on meds that make me forgetful so please pardon me.