I remember having a distinctive moment of clarity watching Seinfeld reruns in 16:9 HD. Did they have the foresight that it would be a classic making billions in syndication?
Personally I find most of the 16:9 crops of old shows in syndication quite jarring, especially because in any shot where the formerly extra width doesn't work the editor is forced to vertically crop the original. Here are some screenshots comparing 4:3 and 16:9 Seinfeld and ...eek
https://lambdan.se/blog/2018/11/13/seinfeld-original-vs-wide...
So I would ask if maybe the image was cropped for the 16:9 conversion.
Update—here's what Wikipedia says: “Unlike the version used for the DVD, Sony Pictures cropped the top and bottom parts of the frame, while restoring previously cropped images on the sides, from the 35mm film source, to use the entire 16:9 frame.”
But different shows handled the aspect ratios differently in their widescreen re-releases. Seinfeld included slightly more horizontally than the original TV release but still cropped a significant amount from the top and bottom. That 70s Show as one example that was also shot on 35mm film included the whole original 4:3 frame plus extra on the sides.
Ah, indeed, I seem to be forgetting the days of film photography.