Wide angle distortion
 

At times a wide angle pan shot in HD reveals a bit of distortion on a wide screen plasma tv. At certain spots it appears to temporarily stretch a portion of the shot. Is this normal.

First check the widescreen mode of the plasma TV. Many plasmas feature a non-linear stretching mode that turns 4:3 into 16:9 by stretching the left and right sides more than the center (so faces won't look so fat). This mode on the TV would exhibit the symptoms you are seeing with panning shots.

distortion
 

Thanks, that's probably it.