What do you think the chances are of Buffy (the series) on Blu Ray?

[Lance]

It's a bit of a crapshoot I'll admit.

The original 1992 movie is out there on Blu Ray.

But the series is a whole different proposition.

The biggest problem is that it was shot on film, but post-prod was done on SD tape, just like Star Trek: The Next Generation. This means a lot of expense for Fox if they decided to follow-through with it, as they'd need to 'do a TNG' and basically recompose each episode from scratch in HD, re-rendering the effects, etc.

Whereas TNG was popular enough for all seven seasons to be fully budgeted in advance, and I don't doubt Buffy's popularity, would it be enough to justify Fox commiting to seven seasons of restoration work in advance?

Especially when Fox have got a reputation for only releasing a few seasons of a show before getting bored and leaving it unfinished.

(Look at NYPD Blue on DVD, needing to be picked up by another distributor a whole decade after Fox decided they didn't give a shit about releasing anything after Season Four).

Maybe a try-out would be more Fox's bag? Release the first three seasons (which almost everybody considers the cream of the show anyway), and then see where sales go in justifying the rest.

Add to this that Buffy seasons 4-7 have never been released in the States in the format in which they were shot (16:9 widescreen).

European and other regions got widescreen format DVDs, but Region 1 got 4:3 full screen and a half-assed explanation from Joss about why it was shot in 16:9, but he hates it and thinks the show should only be seen in 4:3.

Bollocks to that.

With the event of widescreen television becoming the norm now, it would be a shame for this oversight to continue.

Personally I hope it happens one day.

(I hope it happens with *lots* of shows, once the studios realize they can't market SD copies into syndication anymore and will have to face upgrading lest their IP becomes redundant in the new age.)

Then again, if physical media dies a death at the hands of online streaming, then the syndication market will be all that's left. So Blu Ray releases would be redundant too.

Do we think this series will ever make it to Blu?

 

[BillJ]

Re: What do you think the chances are of Buffy (the series) on Blu Ray

Do we think this series will ever make it to Blu?

I think how well The X-Files sells on Blu-ray/HD syndication will play into the equation.

 

[Vendikarr]

Re: What do you think the chances are of Buffy (the series) on Blu Ray

Especially when Fox have got a reputation for only releasing a few seasons of a show before getting bored and leaving it unfinished.

(Look at NYPD Blue on DVD, needing to be picked up by another distributor a whole decade after Fox decided they didn't give a shit about releasing anything after Season Four).

Bored? Didn't give a shit? Please!!

Corporations don't get bored. Corporations exist to make a profit. If a DVD or Blu-Ray are not made, it's simply because there's no money in it for them.

If the bean counters determine the numbers aren't there to make a sufficient profit off of a DVD release, it doesn't happen.

You want Buffy Blu-Rays? Find a way to convince Fox that it's worth the expense for them.

 

[Icemizer]

Re: What do you think the chances are of Buffy (the series) on Blu Ray

Solid media is dead. Move along.

 

[Lance]

Re: What do you think the chances are of Buffy (the series) on Blu Ray

Bored? Didn't give a shit? Please!!

Corporations don't get bored. Corporations exist to make a profit. If a DVD or Blu-Ray are not made, it's simply because there's no money in it for them.

If the bean counters determine the numbers aren't there to make a sufficient profit off of a DVD release, it doesn't happen.

I find it difficult to believe the expense of releasing NYPD Blue as stand-alone vanilla editions (ie, 'the cheap option', as opposed to Fox's releases which included loads of Value Added Material and therefore had additional costs attached) would have outweighed the potential profit. Possibly any discrepency in the sales-vs-production for the Fox DVDs was down to that additional VAM bumping up the production budget beyond what the market demonstrated it would buy. And I have NO doubt the DVDs sold well enough. This is NYPD Blue. We aren't exactly talking about some no-name obscure TV series that nobody has ever heard of and nobody is gonna buy.

Blu Rays are a different proposition, because creating HD transfers requires an outlay of siginificant green, even before the process of making them actually begins. And unless there's a guarantee of sales at the other end ('Star Trek' being a brand that is basically a licence to print money), then as you rightly say studios are going to be reluctant to release them at all.