Harmy, I don't think they particularly cared about such a tiny data loss. The entire way they released it shows a complete lack of caring for quality. NTSC native resolution is 640x480, so they resized it anyway.

I suspect someone in the PAL production chain put a little more effort into it. Both versions are encoded at 720 pixels wide, so technically the PAL version has a chance to have more data preserved, or different data, with the pillarboxing removed. I am now curious so I intend to see what I can uncover about this. One question would be when this PAL master tape was created. Was it for the DVD or a decade earlier for the LD? From the color and quality, it is obvious that it is from the same transfer. They seem to share the same noise artifacts (which are not film grain).