Run Times for International Broadcast

[CardboardGhost]

While looking at the wikipedia page about BtVS home releases, I learned that the show was actually sped up in a lot of countries, and the European and Australian DVD sets preserve this change! This was really surprising to me. Further digging revealed that this is actually true of most North American television, since apparently our tv networks use a different frame rate or something like that. But what really fascinates me about speeding up Buffy is that it's a show with so much music in it, and the change in speed affects the pitch pretty drastically; according to wikipedia, it's 2/3 of a semitone.

Since I know there are a lot of people here from places outside North America, I was curious what your experiences with this were; I'm sure it's not noticeable if you don't have the original format to compare it to, but have you noticed a difference if you see clips of the American release on YouTube, for example? Do songs on the CDs sound different from what's in the show to you? What about "Once More, With Feeling"?

 

[psykit]

This is honestly so wild to me. I’m still having a hard time wrapping my mind around it. I’m a musician (not a very good one, but still) and I just can’t comprehend why they would change this and not adjust the pitch back! You can speed up a video and adjust the pitch back to normal!! There’s SO much music in BtVS and Angel and the music is almost always important to the story and/or important to the atmosphere of the show. Changing it would make such a big difference! Super curious to hear how this has affected others’ experience of the show.

 

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

This might explain while doing chat watches with people online from other countries sometimes unsyncs. 🤔

 

[nightshade]

Seen the show in both UK and USA, and no I can't say I recall any difference in it.

 

[The Bronze]

You don't know what you don't know! So watching it originally in the UK I just assumed that was correct. I now own the UK and US DVDs for Buffy and Angel and the pitch and speed difference is very noticeable.

Think this is/was quite standard on broadcast TV so I imagine there's loads of shows I've never seen the correct format.

 

[CardboardGhost]

I now own the UK and US DVDs for Buffy and Angel and the pitch and speed difference is very noticeable.

That's so weird to me! Do you prefer one version over the other?

Think this is/was quite standard on broadcast TV so I imagine there's loads of shows I've never seen the correct format.

I feel like knowing this would bug me! I always feel like I'm missing out when the format of something is changed after the fact, I can't imagine it being done to such a large amount of television.

 

[November]

I never knew about this either. I have the Once More with Feeling CD and haven't noticed a difference in the songs, but I am generally very drunk when I put the episode on TV, so I think everything sounds fantastic and stage ready 😆

 

[NotASlayer]

The only versions I currently have are from streaming, so I don't know if those are done the same as the DVDs. I have noticed differences in episode lengths for some series (haven't checked Buffy) - you can even see them listed when you check run times on Amazon US and Amazon UK for instance, and this can also be seen on some DVDs - but this can also be down to bits being cut/added for different countries.

 

[The Bronze]

That's so weird to me! Do you prefer one version over the other?


I feel like knowing this would bug me! I always feel like I'm missing out when the format of something is changed after the fact, I can't imagine it being done to such a large amount of television.

Yes it bugs me very much as well. Blows my mind that so much effort is put into messing something up instead of just doing it properly.

I've put together my own version combining the US & UK sets. Mostly the US which has the correct framing and pitch. Added the previously on sections from the UK discs which were removed from the US release. Sometimes actually missing the start of an episode.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

I know that in Once More with Feeling, in some reruns, the entire dance scene with Dawn and the men with what look like Richard Nixon masks is cut entirely because the run time on this episode was about 48 minutes compared to the 43 minutes of the edited version.

 

[CardboardGhost]

I know that in Once More with Feeling, in some reruns, the entire dance scene with Dawn and the men with what look like Richard Nixon masks is cut entirely because the run time on this episode was about 48 minutes compared to the 43 minutes of the edited version.

I was aware of this one! I learned about this while trying to find more information about the Spanish dubbings for this episode. Most dubs just left the songs in English with subtitles, but a few did the songs, including at least one of the Spanish dubs (I believe it's the Latin American one, but I'm unsure); however, due to editing the episode down for time, they actually didn't do all the songs... and somehow, while editing the full episode for DVD release, they managed to not include the Spanish versions of some songs that were dubbed. There are three or four songs that are left in English, but more than one of those was recorded in Spanish at some point and is, as far as I can tell, lost media.

The things that get changed and/or lost when editing for later releases both fascinate and frustrate me.