Any chance Angel & Buffy the Vampire Slayer seasons will ever go Blu Ray?

[DR BLU NEO]

It would be nice to get buffy and angel on blu. I do enjoy them on standard dvd.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

If HD masters already existed of Buffy, it would be out on Blu-ray. Fox has already released Firefly on Blu-ray, a Whedon series with a significantly smaller following. The first two seasons of Buffy were shot on 16mm film and after that all seasons were shot on 35mm film, so yes Buffy would look better in 1080p.

Another thing is that Firefly got synergy from Serenity. And on top of that, putting out the whole series of Firefly is a lot easier than putting out all that Buffy has or even all that Angel has.

[Jeff Kleist]

As a whole I agree, but no 1 show just outsold crazy enough to make the studios think it would be just as great to go through the trouble of making it in HD.

I would definately say that's not the case. What a lot of people forget is that TV on DVD is essentially gravy. The episodes, unless sometimes when it's a cancelled show with unaireds are paid for already, and every dollar made over the cost of producing the actual media and authoring the discs is all gravy. Many older shows like Universal action stuff that are staples, sometimes even worldwide in syndication are getting HD Masters done. The only question remaining is the willingness of the public to upgrade

X-Files came out first because the best-of videos sold HUGE, and it had strong ties to the baseline demographic for DVD at the time. The big thing here is getting costs under control. Bringing TV DVD down to $49.99 and Blu down to $69.99 I think is the butter point, because the sale prices that people are used to paying are attainable in that range, and make sure the difference is only $10 on launch day for new material.

TV does very well, and it's a very important part of the buisness (a big part of that was because many of these shows had never been available for purchase before ever. A few major players even found themselves in the pickle of having a slightly anemic TV division)

So TV doesn't have to sell piles to be very profitable. The first season of X-Files was priced at $150 (still better than the $300 a season the Japanese LD boxes were going for, or was it $400?) because they only thought they'd move 20-30,000 copies at most. It ended up moving 300,000. X-Files didn't adjust its price for a long while due to deals that were struck to allow the release (this was when people were afraid that TV releases would torpedo their syndication royalties). If there's a broadcast partner for it, then you might even see full-on HD redos of popular older series, effects and all.

If HD masters already existed of Buffy, it would be out on Blu-ray. Fox has already released Firefly on Blu-ray, a Whedon series with a significantly smaller following. The first two seasons of Buffy were shot on 16mm film and after that all seasons were shot on 35mm film, so yes Buffy would look better in 1080p.

That's definately not the case, if anything, Firefly fans are far more engaged and fanatical than Buffy fans are at this stage in the game, and Universal is raking it in on merchandise licenses. 15 episodes is much easier to do than 144. Why do you think Serenity was one of their lead HD DVD releases? Because it sold 6 million copies first week on DVD, and was actually fasttracked onto the HD DVD launch list because of it.

[NL197]

There are plenty of TV DVD sampler discs out there. Paramount has been releasing quite a few of them based on genre.

Fox could test the Blu waters with these two by doing the same thing - a couple of episodes of each show on a 'best of' or some other theme-based Blu-ray disc and see if people bite...pardon the pun. "First time in HD" would be the tag, naturally.

Not that Fox would ever consider doing that, though.

[Jeff Kleist]

The TV sampler discs are not to test the waters for releases, they're supermarket/seasonal theme fodder for impulse purchases at the checkout. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The Stargate Atlantis "Fan's Choice' IS a test to see if seasons are viable, and they've been very public about this. The entire run of the show exists in HD (but a lot of SD level FX like the 2 movies had) and is in the on-deck box for a Blu release. SG-1 is unlikely to get the upgrade any time soon (except maybe the Children of the Gods director's cut which Ibelieve was redone from scratch, and may hit blu if DVD sales are good). Sci-Fi has pretty much played the show out and asking people to upgrade 10 box sets is really stretching it. It'll be over 5 and closer to 10 before the overplay the show gets is even close to wearing out.

We're years away from the market being big enough, and production prices low enough to make this viable without a broadcast partner shouldering most of the burden. Just re-doing ST:TNG like Star Trek Remastered will cost close to $100 million. Now that's totally worth it if you can collect a million bucks an episode from Sci-Fi, Channel 4 and other international broadcast partners combined. Not so much if they're only coughing up 3-400k, because then you're barely in break-even range.

(Those who want to give TNG even a shot at a Blu release, make sure ST:TOS is in your collection, because those sales DO have weight in these kinds of decisions)

[NL197]

Okay, so instead of samplers, maybe like those Trek theme-based fan collections.

They had time travel, klingon, Captain, etc.

Same idea, higher-class classification?

I imagine it would be so time consuming that it would take years to do almost 200 episodes of TNG in HD because of all the effort needed, regardless of the money involved.

[koontz1973]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

The TV sampler discs are not to test the waters for releases, they're supermarket/seasonal theme fodder for impulse purchases at the checkout. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The Stargate Atlantis "Fan's Choice' IS a test to see if seasons are viable, and they've been very public about this. The entire run of the show exists in HD (but a lot of SD level FX like the 2 movies had) and is in the on-deck box for a Blu release. SG-1 is unlikely to get the upgrade any time soon (except maybe the Children of the Gods director's cut which Ibelieve was redone from scratch, and may hit blu if DVD sales are good). Sci-Fi has pretty much played the show out and asking people to upgrade 10 box sets is really stretching it. It'll be over 5 and closer to 10 before the overplay the show gets is even close to wearing out.

We're years away from the market being big enough, and production prices low enough to make this viable without a broadcast partner shouldering most of the burden. Just re-doing ST:TNG like Star Trek Remastered will cost close to $100 million. Now that's totally worth it if you can collect a million bucks an episode from Sci-Fi, Channel 4 and other international broadcast partners combined. Not so much if they're only coughing up 3-400k, because then you're barely in break-even range.

(Those who want to give TNG even a shot at a Blu release, make sure ST:TOS is in your collection, because those sales DO have weight in these kinds of decisions)

So what you are saying then, if I understand you correctly, Buffy, Angel ST TNG and all of the other TV shows shot on video, can and will be released, it is only a matter of costs and or time.

[Jeff Kleist]

TNG would likely be at least a 5 year project to do the whole series. I'd expect they'd start as long as 2 years before the first episode hit air in order to keep a steady flow coming for weekly airing.

Those theme sets were merely repackaging of existing product, designed to hit more casual fans again. That's why you just got best-of sets for the new movie release, to try to catch anyone rekindled by it. Literally they could have been as simple as ripping the existing discs and tossing on a new menu.

They need a broadcast partner to make any kind of project viable, and there are very few series (sorry guys, Babylon 5 or DS9 is not 2 of them) that could spark that kind of spending to get them up to snuff because it's such a gigantic undertaking.

Back on topic, Buffy and Angel, as much as I love them to death simply won't have enough wow factor to motivate enough people into upgrading. Sad but true. They did very feature-style lighting, and there are penalties for that when you're not shooting for HD (as in "will this look good in HD), which they weren't, and hardly anyone was when Buffy went off the air.

[Jeff Kleist]

So what you are saying then, if I understand you correctly, Buffy, Angel ST TNG and all of the other TV shows shot on video, can and will be released, it is only a matter of costs and or time.

None of these shows were shot on video. They were edited and mastered at SD resolutions. Only sitcoms were shot on video. They CAN be released if someone wants to spend the money, and all the assets can be found. It is very expensive because not only do you have to pay for someone to dig through all the boxes and boxes of footage to find all the trims, but you have to re-do the entire post process, including if budget allows the FX work. This exponentially adds to the cost.

WILL be released is another matter entirely, especially in this economy

[koontz1973]

I take it, costs will come down in time. You mentioned 100 mil for ST TNG compared to 3-400k for break even point. Studios must see a point when it would be profitable to do shows like buffy in the future, even if they would not be fantastic looking.

[Jeff Kleist]

I take it, costs will come down in time. You mentioned 100 mil for ST TNG compared to 3-400k for break even point. Studios must see a point when it would be profitable to do shows like buffy in the future, even if they would not be fantastic looking.

Don't forget that a HUGE project like that is a big undertaking. The $25 million you might make from season 1 is paying for the redo of seasons 4 and 5. I'm just throwing out a million bucks as the kind of number that would give strong motivation to get a project like that going

Costs aren't going to go down that much, if anything they're going to go UP, because the cost is largely in manpower and man-hours. Paying people to dig through the materials, re-assembling them, paying for edit bay time, paying VFX artists. Any reductions in cleanup and other things that do go down would be eaten by inflation.

Check out the Superman 2 Donner cut documentary for an idea of how much raw material can be generated by a sub 2-hour film, and multiply that by about 60. If memory serves the Donner cut cost $2-3 million after Superman Returns absorbed the payout to the Brando estate for the back royalties.

I can tell you that several major shows with SD-only masters have been sent out for professional level upconversion tests, but I don't see those being used for a Blu release, strictly broadcast.

[#Darren]

In a way, it can be argued that TV series were shot with the directorial intent of being seen in SD, with all the format limitations (resolution, colors etc) that that implies.....

[Mobe1969]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I would definately say that's not the case. What a lot of people forget is that TV on DVD is essentially gravy. The episodes, unless sometimes when it's a cancelled show with unaireds are paid for already, and every dollar made over the cost of producing the actual media and authoring the discs is all gravy. Many older shows like Universal action stuff that are staples, sometimes even worldwide in syndication are getting HD Masters done. The only question remaining is the willingness of the public to upgrade

X-Files came out first because the best-of videos sold HUGE, and it had strong ties to the baseline demographic for DVD at the time. The big thing here is getting costs under control. Bringing TV DVD down to $49.99 and Blu down to $69.99 I think is the butter point, because the sale prices that people are used to paying are attainable in that range, and make sure the difference is only $10 on launch day for new material.

TV does very well, and it's a very important part of the buisness (a big part of that was because many of these shows had never been available for purchase before ever. A few major players even found themselves in the pickle of having a slightly anemic TV division)

So TV doesn't have to sell piles to be very profitable. The first season of X-Files was priced at $150 (still better than the $300 a season the Japanese LD boxes were going for, or was it $400?) because they only thought they'd move 20-30,000 copies at most. It ended up moving 300,000. X-Files didn't adjust its price for a long while due to deals that were struck to allow the release (this was when people were afraid that TV releases would torpedo their syndication royalties). If there's a broadcast partner for it, then you might even see full-on HD redos of popular older series, effects and all.



That's definately not the case, if anything, Firefly fans are far more engaged and fanatical than Buffy fans are at this stage in the game, and Universal is raking it in on merchandise licenses. 15 episodes is much easier to do than 144. Why do you think Serenity was one of their lead HD DVD releases? Because it sold 6 million copies first week on DVD, and was actually fasttracked onto the HD DVD launch list because of it.

Yeah, I remember how much they cost back then, XFiles. In Australia, Buffy was released in half season packs that retailed at about A$90 each. It was mad. And the prices were high like you said due to the expected sales. Probably based on their experiences with VHS releases of TV series. They didn't sell on VHS. Suddenly with DVD they could nearly print money from them

Originally Posted by NL197

There are plenty of TV DVD sampler discs out there. Paramount has been releasing quite a few of them based on genre.

Fox could test the Blu waters with these two by doing the same thing - a couple of episodes of each show on a 'best of' or some other theme-based Blu-ray disc and see if people bite...pardon the pun. "First time in HD" would be the tag, naturally.

Not that Fox would ever consider doing that, though.

No thanks. A sampler is something I wouldn't touch. Ever. What is the point?

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by iDarren

In a way, it can be argued that TV series were shot with the directorial intent of being seen in SD, with all the format limitations (resolution, colors etc) that that implies.....

Not necessarily always true. For example, Scrubs was shot with 16:9 HD in mind for the future even though they knew they'd be airing in 4:3 SD.

And I don't think anyone would cry infringement of directorial intent so long as color design and aspect ratio and all that jazz is in line with what they were going for. Higher resolution is just a better presentation of the same material.

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by iDarren

In a way, it can be argued that TV series were shot with the directorial intent of being seen in SD, with all the format limitations (resolution, colors etc) that that implies.....

HAHAHAHA... hardly!!! It's not like the director would have much of a choice. I'm sure that TV productions have a far different approach to budgeting than motion picture productions. Television shows don't generate NEARLY the revenue of theatrical entertainment. I bet that television directors are probably told, "Here is the equipment you will be using. And here is your minimal budget for the rest of what you need. Make do with what you have." Film directors are most likely told, "Here's your budget. Now, what kind of equipment are you going to need?"

[s2mikey]

Originally Posted by AxlVanHagar

I think you're under-estimating the rabid Joss Whedon fanbase that's out there.

They're rabid all-right...but there werent enough of them to save Serenity or various other shows the guy puts out. Just not sure if Whedon-fans have quite that much pull. Buffy seems sooooo long ago now. Not sure how it would sell.

We'll see.

[NL197]

Originally Posted by Mobe1969

No thanks. A sampler is something I wouldn't touch. Ever. What is the point?

Since you quoted my post, you read what the point was.

Here it is again:

Call it 'sampler', call it a 'best of', whatever. Fox released several character-based releases of both shows on DVD in regions other than the U.S. Wesley-specific episodes, Willow-specific episodes, and so on. 4 episodes on a disc. That's the kind of thing I was talking about to use as a means to test whether or not anyone would buy a High Definition presentation of either Buffy or ANGEL. If enough people pick it up it might give an indication that a full season of either might be a seller.

Jeff said "Stargate Atlantis" has been released that way as well.

[#Darren]

Quality TV directors shot with knowledge of how it would look in SD. Simple as that. And they didn't shoot TV series planning for how they would look on film or in HD.

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

HAHAHAHA... hardly!!! It's not like the director would have much of a choice. I'm sure that TV productions have a far different approach to budgeting than motion picture productions. Television shows don't generate NEARLY the revenue of theatrical entertainment. I bet that television directors are probably told, "Here is the equipment you will be using. And here is your minimal budget for the rest of what you need. Make do with what you have." Film directors are most likely told, "Here's your budget. Now, what kind of equipment are you going to need?"

[Jeff Kleist]

eah, I remember how much they cost back then, XFiles. In Australia, Buffy was released in half season packs that retailed at about A$90 each. It was mad. And the prices were high like you said due to the expected sales. Probably based on their experiences with VHS releases of TV series. They didn't sell on VHS. Suddenly with DVD they could nearly print money from them

Buffy was released at $59.99 a season in the states, sounds like Oz got rental pricing on it, which was often the practice on most TV series

The problem wasn't for the most part that they didn't sell. The problem was space. You'd get at most 3 episodes a tape, and I have 7 season shows that take up less space than a single season would on vHS. The retailers wouldn't devote that kind of shelving to them, and the studios didn't want to do the warehouse space. Even the digipack shows were less space than the 3pack VHS best-ofs they used to put out that had 6 episodes

HAHAHAHA... hardly!!! It's not like the director would have much of a choice. I'm sure that TV productions have a far different approach to budgeting than motion picture productions. Television shows don't generate NEARLY the revenue of theatrical entertainment. I bet that television directors are probably told, "Here is the equipment you will be using. And here is your minimal budget for the rest of what you need. Make do with what you have." Film directors are most likely told, "Here's your budget. Now, what kind of equipment are you going to need?"

Darren is right that choices are made and cheats are done, even in theatrical movies based on the inherent characteristics of the stock they're shooting on or the display medium. Hiding wires behind grain for example was done on the Muppet films. TV has the benefit of "if it's made, it's paid for" for the most part, while theatrical movies are thrown out hoping people will go see it. The network places a guaranteed order and pays for it, so the production company isn't out any money. If your movie bombs, thats a big black hole. TV also benefits from the ability to move money around, that's why you'll see some quiet/cheaper shows before a big event episode, because they're steering money from it into the big one, and they can also make a show look much more expensive than it is by re-using pricey assetts created for other eps.

They're rabid all-right...but there werent enough of them to save Serenity or various other shows the guy puts out. Just not sure if Whedon-fans have quite that much pull. Buffy seems sooooo long ago now. Not sure how it would sell.

Serenity has made its money back many times, and week in/week out Firefly is one of the most evergreen TV boxes period. Both are a huge merchandising property, Buffy/Angel are no slouch in that either. Dollhouse got a second season in part that Fox knows how badly they boned Firefly.

They need to get people that know how to promote his shows to the general public and stop putting them in the Friday Death Slot. It's very obvious from dozens of great shows killed by Fox that marketing has no idea how to handle anything quirky. It's amazing Malcom in the Middle survived to be honest. Oh wait, they put it on after the Simpsons on Sunday so a lot of people actually saw it

Call it 'sampler', call it a 'best of', whatever. Fox released several character-based releases of both shows on DVD in regions other than the U.S. Wesley-specific episodes, Willow-specific episodes, and so on. 4 episodes on a disc. That's the kind of thing I was talking about to use as a means to test whether or not anyone would buy a High Definition presentation of either Buffy or ANGEL. If enough people pick it up it might give an indication that a full season of either might be a seller.

Jeff said "Stargate Atlantis" has been released that way as well.

Atlantis isn't out yet, and those character theme sets were released here as well. Like the Trek "theme" sets, they're targeted at the more casual viewer as a cheap impulse buy, and came out after the series was finished on DVD. Atlantis is specifically a test disc (the same was done on SG-1 on DVD. They put out the first 4 eps and followed it 9 months later with a season box). Like I said before, the theme stuff costs almost nothing to do when you already have the episodes done.

[vsquared123]

Originally Posted by jlaavenger

Any chance Angel & Buffy the Vampire Slayer seasons will ever go Blu Ray? I ask because Target has a great deal on the Standard Def seasons now and I watched Angel Season 5 earlier and the action is extremely cool but it just doesn't up-convert as well as some of my other DVDs.

Firefly did and Dollhouse will. So I think it's only a matter of time