silversolitaire

I know a couple of peeps on my f-list have had experience with vidding. I'm trying my hand on one right now, too. I don't expect any stellar results, but right now I'm encountering a bunch of problems that annoy the fuck out of me and that I just can't figure out. My main problem is that my source is in letterbox format (which I can't really pinpoint since somehow every video seems to have a different size >.>;). Anyway, it's letterbox. But Microsoft Movie Maker only wants to output 640x480 or 320x240. Which makes sense. Yet it causes the end result to be squashed. That looks mega sucky and I hate it. Obviously, I need to add black bars at the top and bottom. But how?!? And how can I make the program do what I want? x_x

Alternatively, I'm willing to use a different program. I tried out Zweistein but I couldn't even begin to figure out what it wanted from me O.o. I'd like to have a program that's pretty much catering to n00bs like me.

And then there's the problem that the end result is less than stellar. I understand that I can't expect supermegacrisp images with a free program, but I want them to at least not be completely and utterly shitty and grainy. Is there any other way to achieve that? I see that I can save it as some DVD thing but then the output is insane! Like 800 megs or so! This is inacceptable obviously... Unless I can reduce that again later with VirtualDub... must check. But how do you guys do it? O.o;