How do I crop/trim a widescreen mpg into a 4:3 mpg ?

I have recorded a TV program using my AVerMdeia Hybird TV Card,
from digital TV

The program was broadcast in widescreen, and the resultant mpg file is
thus also widescreen

My monitor is (normal) 4:3,

and the TV prog didn't really use the widescreen

ie. I'm not getting anything important on the LHS and RHS of the screen

Is their any video editing package you know of which will let me trim the
LH and RH sides of a widescreen mpg so turning it into a 4:3 mpg file.

When I watch the original mpg on my monitor I get black bars at the top
of the screen,
I want to trim the sides, which will in effect remove these black bars.

Any ideas.

EP.

ps. I'm also googling, but maybe someone knows the answer already.

 

Can't you just change the aspect ratio in the program you are using to view
the recording ?
Regards
Bill

 

Nope

 

VLC is a video player which has a crop video filter which will do what
you require on playback, you need to enter the dimensions you require.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc

 

====================================
Maybe the following links
will be useful:

Rotating and Cropping
a Video Scene
http://tinyurl.com/9zslp

VirtualDub
http://www.virtualdub.org/