I understand perfectly. It is your mind that appears to be clouded.
First of all, you posted a pic of the capper saying they can only record in fullscreen, aka 4:3 aspect ratio. Right off the bat the wrong terminology was used which I assume added to your misunderstanding.
Secondly, Nickelodeon UK airs all shows in a 16:9 aspect ratio, aka WIDESCREEN. That is the broadcast standard. They never air content in 4:3 aspect ratio, unless it's not upscaled. This means when they air any content that was recorded in 4:3, aka FULLSCREEN, there will be some cropping along the top and bottom when upscaled to 1080i. This is commonplace when older shows are aired via HDTV in the present day. I don't know what on earth you think this has to do with the person who recorded these episodes or the hardware they used but I can assure there is absolutely no correlation whatsoever. Nickelodeon USA does the exact same thing. They air old ep's or movies of Drake and Josh and they are either not upscaled at all, which leaves large black bars on all 4 sides, or they air in 16:9 and end up causing some cropping.
When broadcasts are cropped nothing can be done to regain the portions of the picture that are not present.