The major reason why I'm making these anamorphic is because I'm optimizing them for widescreen televisions. Keeping them in the original 4:3 aspect ratio, a 16:9 TV would have to zoom in to fill the screen. That resize process can be done much better by a computer, which is what happens in converting them to anamorphic. The image looks much better and you don't have to worry about zoom settings. Additionally, most traditional 4:3 TV's don't have good enough image quality to notice any quality loss when it shrinks down the anamorphic video. Besides, this project is about preservation, not optimizing for a dying medium.
The major reason why I'm making these anamorphic is because I'm optimizing them for widescreen televisions. Keeping them in the original 4:3 aspect ratio, a 16:9 TV would have to zoom in to fill the screen. That resize process can be done much better by a computer, which is what happens in converting them to anamorphic. The image looks much better and you don't have to worry about zoom settings. Additionally, most traditional 4:3 TV's don't have good enough image quality to notice any quality loss when it shrinks down the anamorphic video. Besides, this project is about preservation, not optimizing for a dying medium.