Buffy The Vampire Slayer -(Promotional Price) Boxed Set some advice

E

Ewan

Guest
Hi!
Thinking about buying Buffy The Vampire Slayer -Season 2, Season 4 and Season 5 from Amazon.co.uk- stilyl question- but I just want to make sure- are any of these season 2 ,4 and 5 have anything cut?
 
No it is only 1 episode of Season 3 that has been cut, seasons 2, 4 and 5 are Uncut. Also, the R1 releases are all Fullscreen but after Season 3 the UK releases are widescreen.
 
How about season 6......which I have on pre-order from Amazon UK?
 
Season 6 is also Uncut. Check out www.dvdcompare.net for all the info you could want about the R1 and R2 releases of Buffy.
 



Now that's what I call a really useful website! nice one Indiana :thumbsup:


I think I've just ordered the right/best version of Terminator 2 (R1 UE) :confused: but we'll see what turns up :rotfl:
 
Thanks Indiana Jones m8:smashin: Just pre-ordered Season 2, season 4 and season 5 from Amazon.co.uk:cool:
 
Originally posted by Indiana Jones
the R1 releases are all Fullscreen but after Season 3 the UK releases are widescreen.
True. The OAR of the show is 4:3, though, so I guess the purist should go for R1.
 
sasja: From S4 in USA it was broadcast in 16:9 I think. When you see the camera's filming you can see the 16:9 section they are framing the image in when recording (at least you can on the outakes I've seen of S7)

Gordon
 
Originally posted by Gordon @ Convergent AV
sasja: From S4 in USA it was broadcast in 16:9 I think. When you see the camera's filming you can see the 16:9 section they are framing the image in when recording (at least you can on the outakes I've seen of S7)

Gordon
Buffy was never broadcast in the US in widescreen. It was "protected for widescreen", though - basically they shot it for 4:3, but recorded the extra bits at each end so it could be shown in 16:9.

Here's the inlay from Joss Whedon (series creator) you get with the R1 editions:

Joss Whedon
Gentle Viewer:

No doubt you are looking over this scrumptious BUFFY package and exclaiming "No @#$%ing letterboxing? Whutzat? GYPPED!" Possibly you are breaking things. Please calm down. The fabulous episodes of BUFFY (and that one crappy one, sorry about that, seemed really cool when we wrote it...) were not shot in a widescreen format. They were shot in the TV 4 by 3 ratio. Now I'm a letterbox fanatic, but not just because I crave th' wide. I want to see the whole screen, as framed by the director. The BUFFY's I (and others) shot were framed for traditional TVs. Adding space to the sides simply for the sake of trying to look more cinematic would betray the very exact mise-en-scene I was trying to create. I am a purist, and this is the purest way to watch BUFFY. I have resisted the effort to letterbox BUFFY from the start and always will, because that is not the show we shot. This is. So enjoy! Stop breaking things. You're getting the best presentation of -- let's face it -- the best Television Drama since MATCHGAME '79. Bye for now!

I personally think it's anybody's choice what they prefer - after all, if the directors were so adamant about the AR being 4:3, why did they bother to shoot the extra bits? Still, for the purist, Buffy should be 4:3.
 
Oh good old Joss and i bet 10 years from now when Americans have converted most of their homes for widescreen viewing he will come back out and claim Buffy looks best in 16/9, the fact is if its been shot to take advantage of 16/9 televisions and you HAVE a 16/9 television then region 2 is unfortunately the only way to go ( fortunate if every episode is uncut )
 
he's not going to write a forward saying "ha ha you got ripped off this series should be watched in widescreen" is he? If he didn't want it to be shown in widescreen he wouldn't have shot it in widescreen. This was before hi-def so there was no need to film in widescreen if he didn't want to.
 
Oh good old Joss and i bet 10 years from now when Americans have converted most of their homes for widescreen viewing he will come back out and claim Buffy looks best in 16/9
I've as yet had no reason to doubt Joss' integrity, and I'm not sure why you'd think he'd pay lipservice to views he doesn't hold when it comes to his biggest creation.

The reason why Buffy wasn't composed for and broadcast in widescreen is in all likelyhood connected to the fact that widescreen tv owners are still a minority over there. That doesn't change the fact of how the show was intended to be seen.

he's not going to write a forward saying "ha ha you got ripped off this series should be watched in widescreen" is he?
Well, no. But if he wanted the dvd to feature the show in widescreen, I don't see why FOX wouldn't have given him the final word - Angel (from season 3) and Firefly for instance are 16:9. And I feel quite convinced that if FOX had overruled his request for 16:9, he would never have agreed to make that little comment for them.

This was before hi-def so there was no need to film in widescreen if he didn't want to.
I can't tell you why they decided to protect for widescreen - perhaps Sky had shown interest? Perhaps FOX thought it was prudent? I don't know, and I don't think it matters for the OAR purist for the following reason, which will also answer this objection:

The fact is if its been shot to take advantage of 16/9 televisions and you HAVE a 16/9 television then region 2 is unfortunately the only way to go ( fortunate if every episode is uncut )
The fact of the matter remains: They shot the show to be broadcast in 4:3. That's what they composed the pictures for. The extra material is mostly if not exclusively dead weight - they haven't used it, because they shot a show that would be shown in 4:3. Most of the time, I myself don't mind it, and sometimes I like it - it gives the picture a more relaxed feel. But sometimes it's clear that it wasn't what was intended. Here's a prime example - compare the fullscreen with the widescreen version of this shot while reading the audio from the director's commentary:

Joss Whedon
We're actually coming up on one of my favorite shots that I ever composed. And it's very simple... which is this:

buffy4x3.jpg


Very simply, it's an over, where I squeezed her into the frame as much as possible so that it's like she didn't have room to manoeuvre.
[...]
A normal over would have been her with a tiny slice of his shoulder. Instead I let his shoulder own the frame. [...] It's an obvious thing, not great filmmaking, but when I did it on the day I saw the over and thought "He's a little too much in the frame. Keep pushing it. Keep pushing. Giver her less room, give her less room." It excited me. It made me realize that something not particluarly clever but useful could just appear on the day.

And now, here's the same shot as it appears in Widescreen:

buffy16x9.jpg


So (Once more, with feeling ;)): Feel free to prefer the widescreen - but if you're an OAR purist, Buffy should be seen in 4:3.
 
I always thought they were released in Fullscreen in the US because there are more people with Fullscreen TVs than Widescreen TVs, same goes for Film releases. In the US you usually find a Fullscreen and Widescreen release of a film where as over here its quite rare to find a film released in Fullscreen at all unless its on a flipper with the Widescreen version. I remember reading once about a network in the US that showed a film in Widescreen and they had loads of compliants about the picture having black bars at the top and bottom of the screen :laugh:
 
Originally posted by Indiana Jones
I always thought they were released in Fullscreen in the US because there are more people with Fullscreen TVs than Widescreen TVs, same goes for Film releases. In the US you usually find a Fullscreen and Widescreen release of a film where as over here its quite rare to find a film released in Fullscreen at all unless its on a flipper with the Widescreen version. I remember reading once about a network in the US that showed a film in Widescreen and they had loads of compliants about the picture having black bars at the top and bottom of the screen :laugh:
That's probably very true - on the other hand, people here with their widescreen tvs seem just as keen to overlook the question of OAR to have the picture cover the entire screen ;)

Nah, j/k. View Buffy any way you please - it's a great show either way.
 
the last thing i read about joss and the whole widescreen debacle was (and im paraphrasing as it was a few years back!)that he only ever wanted "once more with feeling"(musical episode) to be in widescreen to give it the cinematic feel, if every episode was widescreen it would lessen the impact of that special episode, and he had to shoot in widescreen as some of the european stations would not purchase 4x3 content even as far back as season4 so it was shot 16:9 and safe framed for 4:3 incidently i used to work on a tv show that was totally in 16:9 but also safe framed for 4:3 and it has never been shown in 16:9! anywhere to my knowledge!
 
That's sad - which show was that?

Sky may very well have requested 16:9 and that may explain why they protected it for widescreen. Still, while some shows may have been shot for 16:9 and protected for 4:3, the evidence suggests that for Buffy it's vice versa.
 
I get the feeling that pretty much all TV programmes of the past few years have been composed to be shown in either format.
i.e. If the're shot 4:3 the're composed so that the top and bottom can be cut off to fit a 16:9 screen without any significant loss, and if shot in 16:9 the sides can be cut off to fit a 4:3 screen.

Of course this does depend on the broadcaster transmitting the correct format in the first place.
 
Originally posted by sasja
That's sad - which show was that?

Sky may very well have requested 16:9 and that may explain why they protected it for widescreen. Still, while some shows may have been shot for 16:9 and protected for 4:3, the evidence suggests that for Buffy it's vice versa.

it was a CG animated show for kids called cubeez
afaik one of the european channels that was requesting the 16:9 was BBC2 as sky (at the point of season4) was still only a 4:3 channel they only switched to 16:9 for the last season iirc! and iirc they still show the old ones in 4:3 to this day(same with angel too) though i may be wrong!
 
Originally posted by Gordon @ Convergent AV
Well there you go....intruiging. I am pretty sure that the last three series were broadcast 16:9 480P(ED). Good example of directors art though!

Gordon
Season 4-7 were broadcast widescreen on BBC and Sky One in the UK. But never in the US.
 
I'm confused... Is there also a difference in the sound quality between the R1 and R2 boxsets? R1 are described as dolby surround and R2 as Dolby 2.0...

Steve.
 
There's no difference between the soundtracks - they're both what's called "Dolby Digital 2.0 surround".
 

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