Buffy - The Vampire Slayer (The complete series collection)

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Buffy - The Vampire Slayer (The complete series collection)

Buffy - The Vampire Slayer (The complete series collection)

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Price: £9.9
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More common is the cheat of filming scenes at night. Night shooting is hugely expensive (everyone's on overtime) so TV and film will instead shoot the scene in the day and then apply a filter to make it look like night. This is most noticeable in the third Lord of the Rings movie, The Return of the King, when Pippin finds Merry after the Battle of the Pelennor. In the theatrical version of the film, he finds him in daylight. In the Extended Edition, the filter has been changed and the scene is now set at dusk to indicate more time as passed. It's the exact same scene, just changed from one time of day to another thanks to the simple use of a filter. The video goes into this in much more detail, but briefly, TV shows and movies often 'cheat' when it comes to things like time of day and weather. Filming a scene at sunset on a beach sounds great, but not when that means you literally have a window of a few minutes to nail the shot and if anyone messes up, you have to wait 24 hours and hope it works better that time. One dream sequence in Buffy required a sunset beach shot, so they cheated. They filmed Sarah Michelle Gellar walking on the beach earlier in the day and applied filters after the fact to make it look like sunset. Except that for the HD version of the same shot, the new editors forgot to add the same filter, meaning it now looks like it's taking place on a autumn afternoon rather than during a summer sunset. While these don’t represent a massive improvement in picture quality over the existing DVDs, they do give fans a rare chance to buy seasons all in one go. Added to the reliable diligence of the show’s Restoration Team in creating new special features to go with the existing ones, these upscaled sets provide pretty good value for those who don’t already own these stories on disc, while giving completists enough reason to double dip.

And it's not just Blu-ray sales, Fox are going to find that more & more TV stations around the world won't except SD material, esp. stuff that looks as bad as Buffy. Hurrah!" you may say. Well, not quite. You see, most American TV shows in the 1980s and 1990s were "shot for TV" even if they used widescreen cameras. What that means it that the camerman had a square image on his viewfinder which showed the limits of the 4:3 TV image, and knew that anything outside that image would not be seen on TV. So using the full widescreen image becomes hugely problematic because you often find light stands, crewmembers, extras, boom mikes or even the edges of the set coming into view (the Friends HD remaster was particularly criticised for occasionally showing the edges of the sets on-screen). As shows entered the 21st Century and widescreen home TVs became more common, this problem was solved by the cameramen "protecting the image for widescreen", i.e. ensuring the entire image was clear of obstacles. Lately I was interested in rewatching Buffy again. When it came out on Netflix in HD, I was aware of the issues. It doesn't preserve the 4:3 ratio ofJoss Whedon's original vision. Certain filters were not applied so day-as-night doesn't always appear at night. Apparently some framing in the first few seasons cuts people's heads off (though I have yet to see instances of this occurrance). Also crew members can sometimes be seen in frame but again this has been a few-and-far-between issue and isn't that noticeable unless you're looking for it.There’s an adage in fandom that tells us “the memory cheats.” Coined by Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner in the 1980s, it refers to a kind of Mandela Effect where we improve TV episodes we haven’t seen in a while in our heads. But in the age of DVD and Blu-ray, these shows are now available for posterity. Some of them have even been upscaled for glorious but utterly unforgiving high-definition formats. For vampires, going to sleep at 2pm in front of partially open blinds would appear to be a bad idea. Aspect ratio refers to the dimensions of the on-screen image. Older TV screens had an aspect ratio of 4:3, resulting in a mostly square image. For TV shows filmed for 4:3, this is the original aspect ratio (OAR). Modern TVs have an aspect ratio of 16:9, resulting in a screen that is almost twice as wide as it is tall. This is what is generally referred to when the term widescreen is used (there are other widescreen aspect ratios, but they are not relevant to this particular discussion). However, BBC Worldwide has recently started producing season boxsets on the format for the first time, starting with Season 12, which marked Tom Baker’s debut. Peter Davison’s first season followed, with Baker’s swansong due in shops next month. These sets have proven popular so far and based on people who have reportedly contributed to the special features, it’s been reported that seasons of the Jon Pertwee and Sylvester McCoy eras will arrive on Blu-ray later in 2019. That's where the good news abruptly halts. As the above video shows, they've also made a huge number of mistakes and introduced a large number of problems to the series, most of them resulting from poor editing.

The hope is that the current version of Buffy airing is a test run for a future proper re-release, with these problems fixed and cleared up. There is some evidence that this might be the case: The X-Files has been airing in HD on a German network and also on the El Rey network in the USA and apparently early problems with the remastering have been fixed in later airings of the same episodes, so hopefully the same will be true for Buffy. Buffeted by the changing home entertainment market at the time of their release, the remastered Next Generation episodes have also popped up on Netflix in recent years. it’s likely to be the last project that we ever see on this scale. With the growing emphasis on streaming television, projects as impressive as this are unlikely to be seen as profitable. Who knows Above all, what it comes down to is this: Buffy is a long show. 144 episodes would have be transferred from film (which is far from an automatic process, it's actually quite labor intensive), effects need to be done from scratch, and even if they do it by starting with the first season and seeing if it sells before they try to sell more... well, Season 1 looks bad. The biggest problem with how it looks is more about the lighting setup than anything else, but that is definitely a consideration, and it'll be very difficult, if it's even possible, to make that season look good on Blu-ray, so it might not sell well because of how it looks. Overall, it's too much to try without a crazy-devoted fanbase. As the boxset’s director Robert Meyer Burnett told Trek News: “Both Deep Space Nine and Voyager would require at least the same amount of time, manpower, and money, but neither show was ever as popular as TNG or TOS. So, how can CBS be expected to shell out probably 20-million dollars per series to remaster them into HD?” Other releases have included “Shada,” an incomplete story that was halted by strike action before any studio footage could be shot, whose 2017 Blu-ray treatment comprises a patchwork of restored exterior footage, animation, and a specially shot insert starring the present-day Tom Baker. The newly animated edition of 1966’s“The Power Of The Daleks” similarly got a high-definition disc release.I can't agree there. The benefits would be MASSIVE (& what makes you think the 16mm series weren't 24fps?). Nearly all drama here in the UK was shot on 16mm & looked very good. Those early episodes are hardly viewable in the UK, I'm sure standards converting them to PAL didn't help. The picture is really soft, far too dark, & the images are swimming in digital noise reduction (like looking at the picture through five mosquito nets!). All the seasons, 16 & 35 needs the original negives scanned to HD, all the special effects redone in HD. The biggest improvement would be in the 16mm seasons. It's a huge job, but Paramount managed it with Star Trek TNG, so Fox has to bit the bullet & do it sometime, it's an important series, it spawned so many other programs. Brian Wankum:] Thanks for asking! I am a little torn. The true purists should only ever watch the 4:3 standard def original release versions (exception being the "Once More With Feeling" which was intended to be shown widescreen). Not only is the framing as was originally intended, but i suspect that there will be lots of details in sets, props, costumes and makeup that might not hold up in HD. Following popular HD releases for The Original Series and The Animated Series, CBS and Paramount turned their attention to The Next Generation, which originally ran from 1987 to 1994. I'm aware of all the 4x3 and 16x9 issues with this show and season 1 of Angel. I am a filmmaker myself, so I'm always all for staying true to the original creator's intentions. HOWEVER: I've got the UK import DVDs and the show looks really really good in 16:9. There are a few moments that don't work, sure. I remember a dolly-in shot on Willow in the first episode of season 6 has some equipment in the 16x9 sides. And I think there is one or two other unintended things like this that pop up in a few episodes. Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge.

All of this adds up to a fairly cheap and nasty-looking version of the show that not only disregards the producers’ original intentions but also undermines itself by creating brand-new production and continuity errors that never existed in standard definition.To a certain extent, we’ve become conditioned to expect our TV shows in the highest possible definition and those who hold home media and streaming rights to our favourite geeky shows are usually eager to deliver. I feel the same way with the show. Having a grainy picture is good because it helps add to the vibe of the show. It feels more real. That is why I will never buy movies like Jaws or Friday the 13th on blu ray. It takes away from the experience. The first two seasons were shot on 16mm with the show being completed on NTSC video. Seasons 3 and onwards were shot in 35mm and the post processing, while still in the video realm, was at least handled at 24 fps. Also, seasons 4 and later were shot protected for 16:9, so there are legitimate widescreen presentations of these seasons (note that these episodes were still being artistically framed for 1.33:1). In terms of television, there are more obvious landmarks in sports coverage than scripted programmes. Just last summer, the 2018 FIFA World Cup was described as a landmark because all match coverage was produced in 4K resolution, but Japanese broadcasters are already gearing up to broadcast next summer’s Tokyo Olympic Games in 8K.

In researching this, we’re indebted to Buffy HD, the Facebook group that has collected an exhaustive list of all the errors and mistakes entailed in the transfer, as part of their campaign for Fox to carry out a new, more thorough restoration. There are major problems throughout the series, but let’s cover some of the biggies, starting with this one…With any further high-def Star Trek releases on hold for the foreseeable future, the longest-running show with the broadest range of what’s achievable in terms of picture quality is still Doctor Who.



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