VHS to DVD Recording - 4:3 VHS Becomes Widescreen on DVD

[Ocracoke Pelican]

Using JVC DVD video recorder combo set with widescreen tv. This was my first try at moving the VHS film to DVD. It is an old VHS recording and is NOT widescreen. When doing the recording I have the tv picture set to "normal" which is what I think you call 4:3 (looks like the picture on the old square tv sets). When I playback the completed DVD on 2 different TV/DVD players and my laptop the picture is stretched to widescreen and all the people are short and wide. I have tried changing the aspect on the TV's when playing back the DVD and the picture remains stretched. How can I resolve this problem and record the picture to the DVD to play back in the same format as the VHS tape?

I know LESS than your most clueless newbie so please be gentle

[manono]

Might there be a setting in the DVD recorder where you can choose either 4:3 or 16:9 encoding? Apparently it's being encoded as 16:9 where you want 4:3.

If not, you can fix it after the fact using something like DVD Patcher.