Converting 16:9 to 4:3 letterbox

[brianschmutz]

My whole goal today was to convert a new downloaded movie into an MP4 so that I can put it on my iPod and watch it on my TV. All of the iPod settings on ffmpegx make it look zoomed in on my 4:3 ratio TV and I just want to watch the widescreen letterbox version of it. Any ideas how to do this?

My TV does have a 16:9 mode so that you can watch widescreen movies in letterbox, but when I apply this feature to the files I create, it stretches it wide and squishes it.

[Case]

Did you read http://www.ffmpegx.com/ipodh264hires.html ?
Did you apply the Autosize button to make the output in the aspect ratio of the source movie (4:3, 16:9 or 2.35:1)? Perhaps it was set to 16:9, while the movie was 2.35:1?
The x264 codec build, that ffmpegX uses for this, does not allow letterboxing on-the-fly (while encoding). I think you're supposed to leave any letterboxing to the iPod-to-tv signal. I can't verify this, lacking a video-capable iPod.