Here’s a comparison of what it looks like scaled down to vertically fit 720P, and what it looks like cropped without resizing the 1080P source.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/PedCHKT.jpg[/img]
I’m going with the scaled down option to preserve the 4:3 ratio and so I don’t have to alter the pan and scan composition to account for the reframing.