I have found that some programmes I have recorded onto the HDD have come out in the wrong aspect ratio. They are widescreen programmes, and yet when you replay them they are squashed left/right into 4:3 shape. Other programmes recorded around the same time are OK, it just seems to be the one series.

The problems are occurring with Ugly Betty on E4+1.

Can anyone suggest a possible reason for this?

Under settings for recording, try setting the recording format to 'VR format'. The default setting is 'video format' probably.
Hope that your machine has the 'VR format' option as some panasonic models don't have these two different recording options.

It does have VR format (whatever that is) but, according to the manual, that would preclude the use of High Speed copying to DVD.

The thing that puzzles me is that it is only the one series. Others on E4+1 are OK.

I found from personal trial and error that video format only records the WWS / 4:3 flag at the start of a recording. The VR format records the changing WWS / 4:3 flag as transmitted. I can do high speed dubbing to ram discs as well. Sorry I can't explain better, but it works.

As I say, VR doesn't help, because I need to copy to finalsed DVD (viewable with any player) and 4 hours of copying at normal speed would be a pain - I must have high speed.