Season 4 & 5 in FULL SCREEN! UGH!

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skital

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Is it just me or does it really piss you off that people overseas get to see seasons 4 & 5 of Buffy in it's orignally filmed aspect ratio (in wide screen format), but the only option we in the US have is to buy the full screen versions? I would buy the Region 2 version, but they cost a lot more (which sucks).

Why are they releasing Angel in wides creen, but not Buffy? I just don't get it. I want to see the full picture.

I have a 9 foot diagonal widescreen and would love to see the wide screen version of Seasons 4 & 5 on it, but that may never happen thanks to WB thinking we're not good enough for widescreen or something (apparently the UK is though). If the seasons were filmed in full screen than full screen is ok, but if it's filmed in wide screen why would I want to see it with part of the sides missing?

Hopefully season 6 will be released in widescreen (although I doubt it).

Sorry for the rant. This makes me angry though. I want to buy seasons 4 & 5 right now, but I haven't because they aren't in widescreen like they should be.
 
I want it in widescreen format, too. I think they wanted Angel to look more cinematic and more "classic" than Buffy.

You shouldn't not get those two seasons. The show is great in itself. Widescreen format doesn't matter that much and you should have a great series on DVD 😉.
 
Im not good with screen sizes. I have S3 R1 which takes up the whole screen (guessing thats fullscreen) and S6 R2 which has a border, and Im guessing thats widescreen.

Personally I dont mind, the only screen size I dont like is when the borders take up half the screen, a la Star Wars ep 2.

If you want cheap R2 DVDs check out www.cd-wow.com
 
I guess I'll go ahead and pay the extra dough for the Region 2 discs. Still it bugs me.

Yeah, S3 is in full screen (the aspect it was filmed in). They didn't start shooting widescreen until season 4, I believe.

Luckily for me, I have a DLP projector projecting onto a 9ft diagonal 16:9 (aspect ratio. Width:Height. Normal TV is 4:3) widescreen. This way I can fill the screen with anything filmed in 16:9, such as Buffy seasons 4-7 (and most movies on DVD).

What I don't like about Seasons 4 & 5 being in full screen is the fact that I'm missing part of the picture on both sides and I can't correctly fill my wide screen with full screen content (the latter isn't so bad, but missing the sides is).

Plus, widescreen has a much more cinematic feel. Again, I don't mind watching full screen (4:3) if the film was shot in 4:3, but I do mind watching full screen when the film was shot in wide screen. Having part of the picture chopped of and thrown away sucks (at least to me it does).

The price difference between Region 1 & Region 2 vDVDs of Buffy is quite different. I believe about $30-$35 (which is near enough to buy a full region 1 season on Ebay).

PS: There is nothing like seeing your favorite two shows (Buffy & Angel) on a theater like screen. WOW! The picture is awesome and it's MUCH more enjoyable to watch now. I feel they deserve the theater treatment more than most movies do.
 
I hate widescreen. Those black bars on top and bottom of the screen bug me. I read season 6 will be in full screen except for OMWF. I like it this way.
 
I like widescreen, it makes the show look a lot better(like on Angel when they showed Chosen clips and it was in widescreen, it just looked wow)
 
I like both full screen and widescreen. Mom will sit there and complain about something being in widescreen (because she hates widescreen) but I don't see the big deal. I don't mind either way, just as long as I get to see it.
 
Widescreens good if you have a widescreen tv. Its annoying if you dont. And there's a letter with season four explaining why it isn't in widescreen. It is really annoying watching full screen on a widescreen tv though. I really do wish we had the option.
 
I know I have a 56" 16:9 aspect ration Wide Screen rear projection TV. You get those annoying black bars at the sides when watching full screen which are IMO MUCH more annoying than the bars at the top and bottom.

I have a regular TV also and I never even notice the top and bottom bars when I watch widescreen DVDs on it. But I have to darken the room when I watch full-screen on the 16:9.

I though all of the Buffy seasons were filmed full-screen though???
 
Originally posted by redslayer
I though all of the Buffy seasons were filmed full-screen though???
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That's what I thought too. I thought all the seasons of Buffy were filmed full-screen except for OMWF.
 
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Joss was only filming Angel in Widescreen..and that Buffy was filmed in full-screen.

When Angel went to widescreen, with my regular TV of course I got the black bars on the top and bottom. That never happened with Buffy. So it would stand to reason that Buffy was NOT filmed in Widescreen.

Perhaps for the DVDs they 'faked' the widescreen? Just cropped it differently? Because that is done sometimes.
 
Alright kiddies, this it how it goes: all the episodes of Buffy were filmed in 4:3, as stated by Joss Whedon himself...

"A PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM JOSS WHEDON

Gentle Viewer:

No doubt that 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, it 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 BUFFYs that I (and others) shot were framed for traditional TVs. Adding space to the sides simply for thesake of trying to look more cinematic would betray the very exact mise-en-scene that 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 MATCH GAME '79. Bye for now!

Sincerly,

Joss Whedon."

---There you have it, straight from the horses mouth. Buffy has no letterbox because it never did.

~Kindred
 
That's what I thought!!! So I was right..they 'fake' letterboxed it then in the R2 (or whatever the UK one is). Thank you for clearing that up!
 
okay I just bought season 4 on dvd but I havent watched any of it yet. does it look different that season 2&3?
 
FaithsTruCallin said:
W/e you read, it's a lie. I already have season 7 on region 2 dvd, and it's not in widescreen. Non of them are.
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I wasn't sure if this post was to me? Because I stated that I had read (in the note from Joss) that only Angel was filmed in Widescreen, and that Buffy was never filmed in Widescreen.

Thus, if you get it in fullscreen, you get it how Joss actually filmed it. And if it's released in Widescreen, it was just cropped to LOOK like Widescreen, even though that wasn't how it was originally filmed.
 
I hate widescreen. I dont have a widescreen tv, so widescreen bugs me with its black bars across the top and bottom of the screen. All hail fullscreen dvd.
 
Yeah me too, actually if the black bars at the top and bottom are small I'm used to it and it doesn't bother me, like it doesn't bother me that Angel is widescreen. I don't have a widescreen tv yet though and probably won't have one for another like 3 or 4 years at least so I prefer buying things in full screen. I heard you can see some things you weren't supposed to see if you have the widescreen dvds, like Joss specifically planned The Body for fullscreen and the way he set it up, you really aren't supposed to see so much on the sides. Also in the epi Grave you can see people pulling Xander back from the cave Buffy fell in that you shouldn't see.
 
I will probably never have a widescreen tv because both my parents hate them, and neither has the money to buy one.
 
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