From the Wayback machine:
davisdvd.com said:
What You Didn't Know: Despite popular belief, this was not the only transfer made of Star Wars. At some point, a second fullscreen video transfer was created from a 16mm flat print source. Since an anamorphic (2.35:1) 35mm print had been reduced down to a flat (1.33:1) 16mm print, this 16mm source featured different pan & scan decisions made during the print reduction. One main difference in this transfer was that Luke's macrobinocular POV shot of the Banthas was squeezed to actually show the Tusken Raider walking to the side of the frame. This video transfer was only shown on HBO and was never offered for sale or rent [ Special Thanks to David C. Fein ]
I'll point out that Mr. Fein has been wrong before, in particular regarding the Mitsubishi SWE's shrinking ratio.
I've no evidence to doubt him on this HBO story though.