Widescreen DVD help

[Rach420]

Hey all.

I search, I read, I still confused, I so noob.

Recorded a movie from sat. It's epg listing says DD, LBX, which I assume is ac3 and widescreen. So I have the movie and I want to make a widescreen DVD to play on a widescreen TV. I use Ulead Video Studio8 and Ulead DVD Workshop2.

The movie is widescreen, but it has the black bars on top and bottom. Its size is 544x480. Do I have to remove the black bars?
If yes how, will Workshop2 do this or should I crop the bars myself?

I know Womble Mpeg Video Wizard is useful for mpeg2 editing without re-encoding, but I don't know if it does cropping? (hopefully without re-encoding.) Virtualdub would work but I would have to re-encode.

If I was to crop the bars the movie size would be 544x275. Is this size ok for widescreen?

Also should the menus and other content be widescreen too?
For instance when using an image for a background, can it be 720x480 or should it be a diff size.
Can I take a 4:3 video trailer and convert it to widescreen?
What size should I use?

I appreciate any help.

Thanks