.mod to something useful in 16x9 for free?

[drunken_prozac]

Hey chaps (and ladies),

My friend has bought a panny sdr-sw10 and I am looking at the sw20, but have a problem.

When it records movies, it does so in .mod format.
When I try to play these back it is in 4:3 format and all is squashed.

I am looking for a free, easy to use converter, to change from '*.mod' to something a little more user friendly, eg, '*.mpg/*.avi'

Anyone know of anything which isn't limited to the first 5 mins or use for 10 days before charging £20 for?

I am using a pc with xp and my friend has a mac (but if its just for pc i don't mind )

Thanks

Darren

[RenaultSport]

According to this wiki page :

MOD and TOD (video format) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A programme called FFMPEG can do this for you. Seems like the mod file is just a container for an mpeg2 stream.

[Yak]

I have a panasonic S7 which also records its files in .mod - I've been using a program called Handbrake (HandBrake) to convert my files to mp4 to play on my ipod (also plays a treat in quicktime, in widescreen). Its free, unlimited and works v. well

Hope this helps

cheers,

MikeH