Buffy the Vampire Slayer: original broadcast reconstruction project

I am actually working on a project just like this, minus the music. I’d be more than happy to share the previously segments I have, just shoot me a PM.

Are there any other differences between broadcast and DVD other then the openings?

stwd4nder2 said:

Are there any other differences between broadcast and DVD other then the openings?

Music for sure, and I think the first episode of Season 6 is cut on some foreign releases but I never actually got confirmation on that. I’m pretty sure the syndicated versions of S6E1-2 are cut.

I only have the USA DVDs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. AND I had no clue about this either. Is it the same on the ANGEL DVDs? I haven’t checked in awhile.
I’ve the full series of both on DVD.

would like to help you with this project if you want? =)

I’m sure I have a bunch of episodes recorded on VHS. I’m not sure if I would’ve necessarily spooled it up in time to always catch the very start or not. Anyway, if I come across anything useful during my VHS tapes digitizing project I’ll get back to this thread. Could be quite a while. So many tapes and it will take a long time to digitize them. And I’m doing work on 4K02 and other stuff now too.

MonkeyLizard10 said:

I’m sure I have a bunch of episodes recorded on VHS. I’m not sure if I would’ve necessarily spooled it up in time to always catch the very start or not. Anyway, if I come across anything useful during my VHS tapes digitizing project I’ll get back to this thread. Could be quite a while. So many tapes and it will take a long time to digitize them. And I’m doing work on 4K02 and other stuff now too.

That would be great

Hey - long time lurker.

I’ve just gone through the local copies I have of Buffy - I was interested in Buffy back in the day, so I acquired various scene releases of the US broadcasts (#buffy-unlimited on EFNet), some of these were C-band satellite feed captures of the masters as they were fed to TV stations. I got busy with other stuff during the later seasons, and I made the mistake of lending my only copy of some of the material to someone who was more than a little flake-y. Lesson learned, but as a result: there are some pretty big holes.

I’ve compiled the following spreadsheet of openings over the past few days (csv format): https://pastebin.com/sKi7TGbt

Regarding the data in the sheet: Where I’m less than 100% sure I’ve put a “?” in the “Intro” column. The material I’ve checked to draw the conclusion is in the “Notes” column. I use the term “Cold open” to describe no opening - it’s not technically the right term - but you get the idea. “US Master” refers to a scene release that ripped the C-band TV station upload and includes master header, these would be the same as the station subsequently aired, so the relationship between the master and the broadcast should be 100%.

Key things:

• The PAL DVDs are not necessarily 100% reliable at determining how an episode opened. For example: S01E06 “The Pack” has a cold open on the DVDs - but I have a copy of the original US broadcast which has the boiler plate “In every generation…” at the start.
• Double episodes that were broadcast on a single night may be tricky: i.e. S06E01-S06E02 and S06E21-S06E22 skip the “previously on…” on the second episode - but streaming includes it. S01E01-S01E02 were broadcast on a single night, and I’m not clear if they had a “In every generation” intro on S01E02, but the US DVD includes it.
• “Last week on…” vs “Previously on…” on S02E10 Streaming says one thing - but the original UK broadcast says something different
• S06E01 “US master” also has a different ‘previously on…’ to streaming - with an entire series recap similar to the one on S05E22
• S01E01 had some WB specific intro bits that might be worth preserving - copy available here (is it canon?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvDbvHsqiOc
• I haven’t gone frame-by-frame comparing the “previously on…” between Streaming, broadcast and DVD, so it’s possible there are further differences, but I’ve called out where they are obvious to me.
• Later seasons seemed to have a “previously on…” for every episode - the last episode with no recap (excluding part two of double episodes) was S05E16, 50 episodes before the end of the series.

The WB specific bumper “Tonight’s WB presentation is intended for our adult and teen viewers, and is not recommended for younger viewers.” is kinda fun and it would throw it into the ring consideration for inclusion.

Would welcome feedback - it’s very possible I’m wrong in places. I may make some edits over the next few days - I’m trying to review the PAL DVDs, but it’s slow going.

CannonShy said:

Hey - long time lurker.

I’ve just gone through the local copies I have of Buffy - I was interested in Buffy back in the day, so I acquired various scene releases of the US broadcasts (#buffy-unlimited on EFNet), some of these were C-band satellite feed captures of the masters as they were fed to TV stations. I got busy with other stuff during the later seasons, and I made the mistake of lending my only copy of some of the material to someone who was more than a little flake-y. Lesson learned, but as a result: there are some pretty big holes.

I’ve compiled the following spreadsheet of openings over the past few days (csv format): https://pastebin.com/sKi7TGbt

Regarding the data in the sheet: Where I’m less than 100% sure I’ve put a “?” in the “Intro” column. The material I’ve checked to draw the conclusion is in the “Notes” column. I use the term “Cold open” to describe no opening - it’s not technically the right term - but you get the idea. “US Master” refers to a scene release that ripped the C-band TV station upload and includes master header, these would be the same as the station subsequently aired, so the relationship between the master and the broadcast should be 100%.

Key things:

• The PAL DVDs are not necessarily 100% reliable at determining how an episode opened. For example: S01E06 “The Pack” has a cold open on the DVDs - but I have a copy of the original US broadcast which has the boiler plate “In every generation…” at the start.
• Double episodes that were broadcast on a single night may be tricky: i.e. S06E01-S06E02 and S06E21-S06E22 skip the “previously on…” on the second episode - but streaming includes it. S01E01-S01E02 were broadcast on a single night, and I’m not clear if they had a “In every generation” intro on S01E02, but the US DVD includes it.
• “Last week on…” vs “Previously on…” on S02E10 Streaming says one thing - but the original UK broadcast says something different
• S06E01 “US master” also has a different ‘previously on…’ to streaming - with an entire series recap similar to the one on S05E22
• S01E01 had some WB specific intro bits that might be worth preserving - copy available here (is it canon?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvDbvHsqiOc
• I haven’t gone frame-by-frame comparing the “previously on…” between Streaming, broadcast and DVD, so it’s possible there are further differences, but I’ve called out where they are obvious to me.
• Later seasons seemed to have a “previously on…” for every episode - the last episode with no recap (excluding part two of double episodes) was S05E16, 50 episodes before the end of the series.

The WB specific bumper “Tonight’s WB presentation is intended for our adult and teen viewers, and is not recommended for younger viewers.” is kinda fun and it would throw it into the ring consideration for inclusion.

Would welcome feedback - it’s very possible I’m wrong in places. I may make some edits over the next few days - I’m trying to review the PAL DVDs, but it’s slow going.

The original OP is no longer working on this project, so I’ve taken over. That’s awesome to hear that you’ve put alot of research into it and if you’d like to help out, I’d love to get a PM from you!

SpacemanDoug said:

But I will say for the season 6 premiere, that one aired as a two hour episode and part 1 has a lot of small bits cut from it in the two part version

The streaming version does have a “previously on” segment but it’s shortened compared to the original version

The US DVD at least has that episode in its original format despite editing out that segment

Yup S06E01 seems to have been messed around with quite a bit.
– The broadcast starts with a series recap that lasts about 1:35 beginning with "Previously on Buffy the vampire Slayer: You are the chosen one, you alone can stop them… ".
– The streaming starts with “Previously: I know you never loved me…” and recaps the events of season 5 and lasts about 0:45.

The other difference I noted was S02E10 - which begins differently: “Last week on buffy the vampire slayer” vs “Previously on …” Streaming vs UK broadcast. I don’t have a copy of the US broadcast of that episode, so I’d need to validate against the PAL and NTSC DVDs.

However, in general, the “previously on” segments on streaming seem to line up with the broadcast segments (I spot checked S01E07, S01E12, S02E06, S03E21, S04E22, S05E05, S06E06, S07E01 ) - are you aware of any others that differ ?

Regarding the 5.1 mix - I’ve only reviewed one episode (S01E02) - but if that’s consistent with the rest of the series I can say the following:

• I believe the 5.1 mix is the results of taking the stereo “music and effects” tracks, and running it through a Dolby surround decoder to get Left, Right, Surround Left, Surround Right and a low passed LFE channel - the mono dialog track is used to populate the center channel. My evidence for this is:
  – Zero dialogue leakage to left, right, surround, or LFE channels
  – Surround and LFE channel activity correlates pretty much 100% with activity in the left and right channels
  — Checkout the dialogue heavy section between 02:14 and 03:48 (Giles spins a globe and spouts exposition), no LFE, no surround.
  – Seems they’d likely have a M&E/Dialogue split so they could do other language dubs.

• This means a mixdown should be transparent-ish (see below images)
  – A downmix of the 5.1 streaming track I made using ffmpeg looks pretty similar to the original soundtrack, there might be some minor equalization differences - but notice the ~15khz CRT whine in the spectrogram particularly at ~16 minutes present in both it looks to be identical (seems to be coming from the dialogue track)
  – There is a question of the relative phase of the surround channels to ensure correct Dolby Surround compatibility in the downmix - would need to check that

Assuming this holds, it should mean that the streaming soundtrack can be downmixed (with the right ffmpeg command) to produce something very very close to the broadcast stereo soundtrack at much higher quality than any actual recording of the original broadcasts we happen to have copies of.

5.1 Streaming mix

DVD Audio 2.0

Streaming mix downmixed to 2.0 in ffmpeg

I wish joss whedon wasn’t a controversial figure and Disney actually listened about releases fans want like the Aladdin the series and a hd remaster of gargoyles because if they won’t release them. I don’t think especially with the controversial they would ever do a remaster of Buffy and angel in hd and that’s extremely sad. 😦

SpacemanDoug said:

there are at least three different versions of the season 6 premiere I’m aware of:
-the original US broadcast version (which is on the US DVD minus the “previously on” segment), which runs about 89 minutes without commercials (86 minutes without the segment)
-the UK DVD version, which is a widescreen version of the same episode but it has the “previously on” segment restored, however the deer sacrifice scene has two shots cut from it
-the two part version which is on streaming services, it has various small cuts throughout and one scene is moved to another portion of the episode

Thanks - the broadcast masters header slate reports a “TRT” of 49:10 for S06E01 and 40:16 for S06E02, so 89:26 for the TV Movie. S06E02 is ‘short’ because it doesn’t include titles or a “previously on” segment (50 seconds and ~100 seconds respectively as streamed) - which, when added back in takes it to 42:46. I’m not sure about the accounting for the end credits/mutant enemy logo, but as streamed, 42:44 is the first frame of the end titles for S06E02 - so it feels like S06E02 is mostly complete.

However, I’ll run through both episodes side by side and note the cuts. One potentially controversial change is the end credits as broadcast have a split presentation with the bottom 40% showing titles and the top 60% showing a moon background “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” logo. This brings up the question of “as broadcast” vs “most complete”, but it’s not something that needs to be decided up-front.

CannonShy said:

• S01E01 had some WB specific intro bits that might be worth preserving - copy available here (is it canon?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvDbvHsqiOc

oh wow I had completely forgotten about the cool intro it had, especially that freaky first part
I hope I got that on tape.

CannonShy said:
Assuming this holds, it should mean that the streaming soundtrack can be downmixed (with the right ffmpeg command) to produce something very very close to the broadcast stereo soundtrack at much higher quality than any actual recording of the original broadcasts we happen to have copies of.

Is often heavily compressed streaming audio actually better quality than VHS HiFi audio recording?

MonkeyLizard10 said:
Is often heavily compressed streaming audio actually better quality than VHS HiFi audio recording?

I agree that VHS HiFi can sound pretty good, almost as good as CD quality in the right conditions (good tape, good deck).

But: the streaming audio is 640kbit Dolby Digital 5.1 encoded from (probably) a 6 channel 48khz 16 bit PCM master.

If you have an off-air recording onto VHS, the signal has been on long journey before it hit your VHS deck. Starting from a comparable master tape (probably 48khz 16bit PCM stereo) -> C-band (NTSC) -> Beta SP tape (whatever your local TV station had at the time, maybe DVCAM or digiBeta towards the end) -> SDI (for adding station logos) -> NTSC over whatever medium -> VHS -> whatever you can digitize it with.

The VHS tape, even on a good day, is a couple of analogue generations behind the streaming audio.

I know the TV networks were shifting over to high-bitrate MPEG-2 based distribution of material (not sure if the audio was compressed or not in the MPEG-2 feed) towards the end of Buffys run, and digital tape like DVCAM was becoming pretty cheap - so for the later seasons, assuming you had digital cable (probably Dolby Digital stereo at 192kbits) fed from a digital-only station - it’s much closer. But it’s still adding a layer of wow-and-flutter and an digital -> analogue -> digital round trip to a Dolby Digital signal encoded at a lower bit-rate than the streaming.

That said - if you do have VHS recordings of any of the original airings of Buffy episodes - it would be great to confirm the openings I posted above are correct. It would also be great to clarify which “Tonights presentation is intended for our …”/“New Tuesday” bumper was used with which episode - if you can post any information you have that would be great !

Canon.

Re: S06E01 changes - streaming vs broadcast

I gave up trying to list them all. Even in the first few minutes of the episode there are editing changes, alternate dialogue, possibly even different takes of some shots. It’s a lot different. I’ll validate the NTSC DVD is the same broadcast instead.

Can confirm that apart from the missing “previously on…” S06E01 + S06E02 on the NTSC DVD is exactly the same as broadcast including the “Moon logo” end-credits.