Any rumors about Buffy the Vampire Slayer show coming out on Blu-ray?

[Buffdale]

So ... I just watch the first episode on DVD.
That's what I noticed :

DVD + :
- 4/3 ! I really haven't been bothered by this format. It shows that is desired this way !
- Much scarier than the HD version !
- Sometimes sharper than the HD version (the hair !).

DVD - :
- Too dark.
- Too much yellow.
- Poor sound quality.
- To much compression.

Note : Buffy's top is often pink. The Darla's vampire face too (clarifying some) in the crypt. So we're wrong about that.
I have not noticed any obvious difference for details. In HD, the hair is less clear, and the close-up on Buffy at the beginning of the episode is very similar. It almost seems that only the brightness and the colors have changed (+ DNR)...

I wouldn't be surprised if Deciazulado is right. Both versions don't have a huge difference. At least, not as much as there should be with 15 years apart.

[Buffdale]

Originally Posted by BGfan2

i agre with you in everything excepct the format aspect.. i really believe the show could have a very nice 16:9 version if done correctly of course.
i wouldn't mind at all having season 1 in 4:3 and season 2 to 7 corrected widescreen.

i really respect Whedon desires and his conceptions about the show and how it should be seen, he is the mind after the show but i think we all should agree that we are talking about taking Buffy to the next level (bluray edition) and if nowadays TVs, laptops, mobile phones, etc. have all 16:9 screens, i think it's fair and licit to try the series in that way, of course preserving the sense and athmosphere of the show.

If Fox wants to force us to have the show in 16:3, it must be done perfectly. No loss of the 4:3 image, and no errors (people, mics...). If it's for cropping and errors as shown by Nico Darko... This is unnecessary. Fox must let the original aspect ratio. By the way, we can always zoom !

[#Darren]

Originally Posted by Buffdale

If Fox wants to force us to have the show in 16:3, it must be done perfectly. No loss of the 4:3 image, and no errors (people, mics...). If it's for cropping and errors as shown by Nico Darko... This is unnecessary. Fox must let the original aspect ratio. By the way, we can always zoom !

The thing is, to remove unwanted side info (cameramen, lights etc) they will reframe, thus creating guaranteed top and/or bottom cropping. This is what was done with the friends BD.

Also there will be some shots where the characters are talking to "thin air", and reframing those will, I think, be harder.

[Buffdale]

Originally Posted by #Darren

The thing is, to remove unwanted side info (cameramen, lights etc) they will reframe, thus creating guaranteed top and/or bottom cropping. This is what was done with the friends BD.

Also there will be some shots where the characters are talking to "thin air", and reframing those will, I think, be harder.

Yes I am well aware of these problems unfortunately.
But, we have seen that from the eighth episode, they add height too ! So if they cut the problematic sides, it will return to the 4:3 height. No ? This seems logical to me.

[#Darren]

Originally Posted by Buffdale

Yes I am well aware of these problems unfortunately.
But, we have seen that from the eighth episode, they add height too ! So if they cut the problematic sides, it will return to the 4:3 height. No ? This seems logical to me.

They would cut a bit of the side and a bit of the top/bottom, at least that's what I would assume..

Probably most of these reframes could be fairly subtle and not butcher the image, but I bet there would be a few which would butcher the original image pretty badly.

[Buffdale]

Originally Posted by #Darren

They would cut a bit of the side and a bit of the top/bottom, at least that's what I would assume...

Yes exactly. But recently they added some top and bottom to the 4:3 image. So if they reframe it, we will lose that extra, not the height of the 4:3 image. I don't know if I'm clear ?

[#Darren]

Originally Posted by Buffdale

Yes exactly. But recently they added some top and bottom to the 4:3 image. So if they reframe it, we will lose that extra, not the height of the 4:3 image. I don't know if I'm clear ?

Yes we would lose some of the "new previously unseen" top/bottom image (no loss IMO), but I think it would eat into the original top/bottom image also.

[Buffdale]

Originally Posted by #Darren

Yes we would lose some of the "new previously unseen" top/bottom image (no loss IMO), but I think it would eat into the original top/bottom image also.

Unfortunately it's possible I think yes. It depends on how much the error is visible. But we must be positive. This will be better than if there were no additional height .

Positive note :

[willbfree]

Originally Posted by IrishBuffyFan10

Has anyone else considered that Pivot is de-noising the broadcast themselves as they think it may "look better"? The masters they're using may be fully crisp grained. It's not uncommon, in Ireland RTE broadcasts The Good Wife in HD but much darker brightness and the transmission broadcasts the dialogue with a little bit of a higher pitch than US/VOD copies.
..
Don't judge the remaster until FOX releases a proper HD VOD release.

Yes, it has been said over and over again, but people aren't listening, instead they're trotting out BluRay caps from Pride & Prejudice, without any concern that they weren't even the same brand or speed of film, nor any concern that the bandwidth of a bluray is leagues better than that of a second-rate cable channel. No one is listening. You've even got folks who think Pivot is doing the editing. You've got folks thinking that Fox is making changes each week, rather than appreciating that all this remastering was done months ago.

There are some editors of some DVD sites digging in to the story, trying to find out what team did the restoration. We should have more info soon.

[theprestige85]

Originally Posted by willbfree

Yes, it has been said over and over again, but people aren't listening, instead they're trotting out BluRay caps from Pride & Prejudice, without any concern that they weren't even the same brand or speed of film, nor any concern that the bandwidth of a bluray is leagues better than that of a second-rate cable channel. No one is listening. You've even got folks who think Pivot is doing the editing. You've got folks thinking that Fox is making changes each week, rather than appreciating that all this remastering was done months ago.

There are some editors of some DVD sites digging in to the story, trying to find out what team did the restoration. We should have more info soon.

Yeah but it's not just the DNR that's the issue (though that's a major part of it), what about the off colour timing and the cropping? A blu ray disc isn't magically going to solve that now, is it?

[Lacrymosa]

I love lamp!

[mayorofsmpleton]

Originally Posted by willbfree

Yes, it has been said over and over again, but people aren't listening, instead they're trotting out BluRay caps from Pride & Prejudice, without any concern that they weren't even the same brand or speed of film, nor any concern that the bandwidth of a bluray is leagues better than that of a second-rate cable channel. No one is listening. You've even got folks who think Pivot is doing the editing. You've got folks thinking that Fox is making changes each week, rather than appreciating that all this remastering was done months ago.

There are some editors of some DVD sites digging in to the story, trying to find out what team did the restoration. We should have more info soon.

Haha, so very very true. That people think we're going to get a new remaster within a week of broadcast is hilarious. This stuff is done MONTHS in advance, usually. The fact that rebroadcasts seemed to tone down the pink tells us that PIVOT is responsible for that. It's not as though they called FOX and said "There's some backlash online..." and FOX hurriedly resupplied them with new colorized masters within 5-7 days... It just doesn't work like that.

Here is the likelihood of what is happening (or what I'd prefer).

FOX or someone hired by FOX is responsible for remastering. They are going to original film elements (pre-SFX, etc.) to do this. **WE CAN HOPE that they are remastering these in 4:3 prior to any cropping but nobody knows at this point.

The FX work is being redone but some effects aren't quite right.
Post Production work from the time of filming is not being redone fully or properly. Certain scenes are NOT correct in terms of contrast/brightness/day for night.

Those responsible for the remasters are likely unaware how the show was intended to look. It's unlikely anyone associated with the show was contacted or had any discussion into the process at all.

Assuming they're saving the digital files they used DURING this process all of this is easily fixable prior to any BD mastering. It would take some time but not an insanely costly amount.

Everything else, the pink color, DNR, lower resolution etc... that is likely all the result of PIVOT altering the master they are presenting by filtering it further to look a certain way -- lower the size to perhaps lower the cost of broadcasting ?

Either way, the lack of grain, the waxy appearances, the pink... it is quite possible a lot of that isn't part of the FOX remaster. We just don't have enough information yet to be sure.

I'm really hoping that FOX did an initial remaster in 4:3 to preserve the product for BD release and then FROM that master cropped shots to 16:9 and redid the FX. That's doubtful though. More likely than not it was cropped and then corrected... which is a shame.

[#Darren]

Originally Posted by mayorofsmpleton

I'm really hoping that FOX did an initial remaster in 4:3 to preserve the product for BD release and then FROM that master cropped shots to 16:9 and redid the FX. That's doubtful though. More likely than not it was cropped and then corrected... which is a shame.

Actually, given the heavy cropping (to achieve 16x9) reported on S1 I think it is quite possible.

[samukas]

mayorofsmpleton, completely agree with you on most points.

The cropping, as atrocious as it is, was done mainly with broadcasters in mind, for sure! Mind you, I would never watch the episodes cropped in a regular viewing, HD or not... I'd rather just play my DVD and at least get the full picture. So, I'm also hopeful that a 4:3 remaster for this exists.
DNR is also not easy to evaluate given the nature of the broadcast.

What worries me is the lack of attention in general.
I do admit I'm glad they are spending time redoing some SFX, although they could be somewhat closer to the originals. Weird they would spend time with SFX, but can't color-grade scenes?
We don't know when the masters were provided to Pivot (certainly not a week or less in advance, and much less changed because we complained the night of the first broadcast), but maybe there was a tight deadline and FOX/another company had to deliver those fast (without attention to grading, for example) and that has been fixed since or will be fixed in the future?

Again, this is all speculation... and fun speculation sometimes. It's been a while since I've discussed this show on a board

And if this remaster in the end turns out to be a completely half-assed job... Well, at least nobody is taking the DVDs away from me. But it would be a shame for FOX to spend money remastering my all-time favourite show for "nothing". I've been wanting to introduce BtVS and Angel to people while re-watching it myself, and a proper BD release would certainly be perfect for it.

Originally Posted by mayorofsmpleton

Everything else, the pink color, DNR, lower resolution etc... that is likely all the result of PIVOT altering the master they are presenting by filtering it further to look a certain way -- lower the size to perhaps lower the cost of broadcasting?

I don't think they would lower the size for cost of broadcast, doesn't make much sense. They are broadcasting in 1080i at a certain bitrate (which can either be encoded by Pivot themselves or the cable carriers), but it is in their best interest to feed to the encoder the best source they have available (and shouldn't cost them more to do so),

About the pink, it seems to be that way in the masters... At least the masters that Pivot were given.

This was posted a while back and I just confirmed it as well. In the same episode - so... same broadcast tape, one would assume - there's a huge difference between the opening credits and the scene itself. So the pinkish tone seems to be applied to the episode but not the credits. If this was Pivot's doing, the filter would be throughout the whole transmission I guess.

Originally Posted by willbfree

There are some editors of some DVD sites digging in to the story, trying to find out what team did the restoration. We should have more info soon.

Now, this would be neat!

[Buffdale]

Originally Posted by willbfree

Yes, it has been said over and over again, but people aren't listening, instead they're trotting out BluRay caps from Pride & Prejudice, without any concern that they weren't even the same brand or speed of film, nor any concern that the bandwidth of a bluray is leagues better than that of a second-rate cable channel. No one is listening. You've even got folks who think Pivot is doing the editing. You've got folks thinking that Fox is making changes each week, rather than appreciating that all this remastering was done months ago.

There are some editors of some DVD sites digging in to the story, trying to find out what team did the restoration. We should have more info soon.

Given all the problems with this remastering, we have the right to imagine several scenarios. And a forum is for discussion Willbfree :P. But I agree with you that it must come from Pivot (except cropping and the brightness).

For the last part : Oh really ? How do you know ? You asked them ? I can't wait ha ha !

I hope the Blu-Ray release will be announced shortly. Or that Fox gives us some screenshots of the "real" remastering. It's a shame that Fox has not responded to the critics yet .

[willbfree]

Originally Posted by Buffdale

For the last part : Oh really ? How do you know ? You asked them ? I can't wait ha ha !

Yup.

And when I said that "You've got folks thinking that Fox is making changes each week," I didn't mean to suggest that Pivot is! What I meant was that we are not seeing changes made in response to our emails. We are seeing the product that Fox produced.

The hope is that for BluRay they will redo a lot of what we've already seen, since their learning-as-they-went-along method really sucked.

[IrishBuffyFan10]

I'd say this remaster was made maybe even in late 2012/early 2013 because it's not even the visual effects, the biggest bottle neck of any release is music licensing and that takes eons to get, and new licences have to be obtained if the material is being released again as a new product. (A buffy complete set in 2005 can continuously have more quantities produced but if Fox changes the content in anyway, under law would have to apply for new licences if the previous ones had already expired)

Judging the Slayer set released in 2005.... Show ended in 2003.... Licences probably expired maybe 2008-2010. A licence could take almost 7-8 months to get on legalities alone, what Pivot is only starting to air could have been done again a year ago!

Also, no one has inspected other programming Pivot airs. Their broadcasting settings could be done in a way a certain type of content (HD would get different settings from SD) is shown, the saturation or colour levels can be different if they work with presets to see what the feed sends out. Many broadcast systems have those safe colours built in to make sure white levels don't exceed 100 and while none of Buffy would have, the safe filter put onto the broadcast system in anyway could distort the image colours.

The only thing we can and really only rightly can judge is the image perception, aspect ratio and all that. Until FOX releases a VOD/Blu-ray master to us, we just can't judge colours, grain, quality until we get a progressive source to begin with.... And more than that, something that hasn't been run through airwaves or fibre cables.

[Buffdale]

Originally Posted by willbfree

And when I said that "You've got folks thinking that Fox is making changes each week," I didn't mean to suggest that Pivot is! What I meant was that we are not seeing changes made in response to our emails. We are seeing the product that Fox produced.

I was talking about the "DNR-look" part. Because of the Pivot compression or whatever it is. ^^

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by d514

Sorry, but I don't believe that for a second.

Why would someone do a 1k scan (or something around that resolution) if the final product is planed to be NTSC? PAL Masters are converted NTSC masters most of the time. Makes sense, too, because if they would create the NTSC and the PAL master from the 1k source, they had to do the special effects twice. And who would keep a 1k scan without special effects? And why would someone use this 1k master to create a pseudo HD version with new credits and partly new effects in HD? The quality improvement would be so marginal that it's not worth the effort.

I have seen the remastered pilot from a 1080i cap. Sometimes you can see the remains of the grain before it was scrubbed away. I'm 100% sure this is a new scan in HD or 2k (no one would make a new scan in SD resolution) but somewhere along the way everything was handled wrong.
- Some person just decides which part of the image is used for the 16:9 frame. Creating a 16:9 version for something that was meant to be 4:3 is difficult (and dumb, just keep it in 4:3) enough. But if you don't even use the full with of the 4:3 frame you make it clear that you don't give a **** about the original intention. Another thing which makes this a sloppy job: In the video comparisons you can see that the cuts between the takes are not in the same place they original were. It's often one or two frames more or less. This is probably not noticeable without a direct comparison but still. Look at the comparisons for TNG. The cuts are on the exact frame 99% of the time.

Well I gave a conjecture trying to explain why the "1080 x 1920" transmission, with high resolution titles/credits has a non high resolution image underneath, which looks from all these captures to be a upscale into 1080 x 1920.

Maybe the DNR filters used so severely they halved in both directions the resolution, or the only way they could wipe it out was downscaling to 1K first and reupscaling again? But that sounds a convoluted way to get rid of vampire grain.

The "upscale" is not from the 480 / 576 x 720 SD video as it's different, so the "source" has to be before or after those were made. I proposed the hypothesis of before as raw source for those, because the nearish SD quality, as because now, as you well say, it should be easy or economical to do 16mm 2K (1080 x 1920) quality scans as 4K from 35mm has become mainstream with no need for sub HD resolutions. so why is the new source capped at half of that? So I thought maybe these could have been made earlier in just 1K, like when 2K 35mm was tops. As to why do at 1K for SD products, well they scan at 8K for HD, it's the same principle. The PAL master's SFX would always have to be standards conversions inserted anyways as they were 30/60i (the "live" look) if I remember them correctly from watching them on TV. 576 x 1K is just slightly better than PAL. Maybe it's just PAL.. PAL versions can be upscales/conversions of 480 or they can be full 576 from a higher source so the transferring houses mastering facilities would not be limited to just 480 video sources. Many DVDs were made from HD scans long before there was Blu-rays, or HDTV transmissions became common. (In fact some Blu-rays are done from these old HD scans even today). Toy Story was rendered in 1.5k in 95, Bugs life in 2K in 98, etc. etc. .

(I have a 2002 DVD which touted having a 576p x 1024 file of the movie included as an extra touting it as a "first time HD version on DVD")

You think they are current 2K scans gone terribly wrong. (Or just quickly made). Could be, anything can happen, but still seems odd why the HD files have only a quarter of the resolution in them, so I tried to come with an alternate explanation why these 16mm Buffy scans are limited to 1K and not 2K.

Hopefully we'll find out

[theprestige85]

Any screen caps on season 2 episode 1 yet?