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?
Seinfeld started airing in 1989 a decade before American HDTV so they probably didn't foresee the aspect ratio of televisions switching from 4:3 to 16:9. 35mm film likely gave them more high-end options than the cameras and lenses meant for broadcast. It would also give them more wiggle room if they needed to re-frame a shot in post.
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
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.”
35mm stills cameras normally use a 3:2 frame. Television shot on film typically used movie cameras that shot at 1.85:1 and then cropped to 4:3.
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.
Could it matter that movie cameras use the same film but vertically? I'd be more inclined to stretch frames horizontally if I was designing a cinema camera, because that means the film run slower.
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...