No, it has the same effective resolution. The extra pixels are junk. They can be there or not, and it makes no difference to the image displayed on a correctly calibrated TV. Look up nominal analogue blanking, but it is hard to understand at first. Darth Editous was kind enough to explain it to me.

As I posted before, one can just as easily author a 720x480 DVD with the script. It makes no difference. That is not what I think needs to change. It is the horizontal resizing (728x388) that is unnecessary. Cropping to 704x288 as opposed to 720x288 might be a tiny bit quicker though, and, as this script is exceedingly slow, I will take that small improvement. I am rendering now and it is taking ages. :-D