extremely simple editing program?

[Mikrokosmos]

Does anyone know of an extremely simple and preferably free video editing or conversion or whatever program that would allow me to add the letterbox spaces at the top and bottom of videos? I have a lot of videos on my computer that are in widescreen format but without the actual letterboxing and i need to convert them to 4:3 ratio but without stretching the picture out?

[redwudz]

What format/codec? For AVI type formats, VirtualDub or VD Mod would be a good place to start. It does letterboxing fairly easily. But you will have to re-encode, as you would need to any time you modify the video. You can up the bitrate a little and minimize the quality losses, though.

VD also has lots of filters available and many guides at the bottom of it's toolpage.

And welcome to our forums.