Buffy the Vampire Slayer-Season 2 Box Set Part 1 (1997) |
BUY IT |
General | Extras | ||
Category | Horror |
Main Menu Introduction Menu Audio Script-3 episodes Audio Commentary-Reptile Boy - David Greenwalt (Director) Audio Commentary-What's My Line Parts 1 & 2 - Marti Noxon (Writer) |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 1997 | ||
Running Time | 509:54 (Case: 540) | ||
RSDL / Flipper |
Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (3) |
Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By |
Joss Whedon Bruce Seth Green David Greenwalt John Kretchmeyer |
Studio
Distributor |
Twentieth Century Fox |
Starring |
Sarah Michelle Gellar David Boreanaz Nichola Brendon Alyson Hannigan Charisma Carpenter Anthony Stewart Head |
Case | Slip Case | ||
RPI | $79.95 | Music |
Sean Murray Shawn K Clement Christophe Beck |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame |
English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.33:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles |
Dutch English for the Hearing Impaired French French Audio Commentary |
Smoking | Yes |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | No |
This box set contains the first half of Season Two. The first season was a short one (12 episodes), so it fitted neatly onto three DVDs. The second and subsequent seasons are 22 episodes. This box set contains episodes 1 to 12 of the second season. There is another box set (which we'll get to shortly) containing the remaining episodes of Season Two, and providing we all rush out and buy these box sets, I am confident that there will be further releases for Seasons Three, Four, Five, and so forth. Hopeless addicts have been able to get Buffy on VHS for quite some time; in fact, the first half of season five on VHS has recently been released in the UK. Why the big gap between DVD and VHS? Mostly, I suspect, because the DVD releases have only just started - they have to get through the earlier seasons first. Note that the gap between the release of Season One and Season Two on DVD was rather less than a year; with a little luck we could see Season Three before the end of the year (Buffy for Christmas!), which will be rather amusing in a way - you may not know (or care), but Buffy Season One is not available on DVD in the US yet. Apparently there are some problems to do with licensing or syndication in Region 1 due to the fact that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is made by Fox (and distributed on Fox DVD), but screened by Warners (on WBTV) - WBTV want their re-runs unimpeded by DVDs, or something like that. Nett result is that we have Buffy, and they don't - yay for us!
Regular watchers of the show keep track of each season by its major theme - the first season was The Master, the second is Spike and Drusilla, the third is the Mayor, the fourth is The Initiative, and the fifth looks like being Dawn.
Season Two was a good season - we had been introduced to the main characters (even Jenny Calendar, the techno-pagan computer teacher), so we could start off with a rush:
We get special features for Reptile Boy, and for both parts of What's My Line. For all three episodes we get the script and a commentary.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer is a TV series, made in the US. That means that it is shot in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and consequently is not 16x9 enhanced.
Daytime shots are crisp and clear, with excellent sharpness, shadow detail, and no low level noise, in general. A couple of the stock shots (like the establishing shot of the entrance to Sunnydale High) are starting to show a little low level noise, but they're only brief. Night shots outside, on the other hand, are dark and dim, with no shadow detail at all, harsh lighting on occasions, and traces of low level noise. Even so, what you can see during night shots is generally quite sharp. Fortunately, there seems to be no artificial edge enhancement. There's a little softness in parts of The Dark Age, but it is not objectionable.
Colour is vivid without being oversaturated during daytime shots, and during night shots in well-lit venues (such as the ice-skating rink). Night exterior shots might as well be in black-and-white - don't look for strongly saturated colours at night.
One of the problems of shooting at night is film grain - they do work hard at controlling the graininess, but there are moments when it gets away from them. Perhaps the worst example is at 18:52 in the first episode, where there's heavy grain for a moment. In fact, the entire start of the first episode (before the credits) shows serious grain, but it clears up for most of the rest of the episode. There's more grain at 17:30 and 28:06 in the second episode, but the rest of the episodes are reasonably clear.
There are few film-to-video artefacts to be seen, although we do see some faint aliasing. There are a couple of momentary film artefacts, but they are small, few, and far between - not distracting. There are no MPEG artefacts (I guess plain black compresses well).
There are three subtitle languages to choose from: English, French and Dutch. On episodes with a commentary track, the same commentary is provided as subtitles in French, but not in Dutch. Interesting choices.
The discs are Dual Layered, and not RSDL-formatted, which makes sense: rather than have a layer change disrupting an episode, they simply place two episodes on one layer, and two on the other layer.
Sharpness | |
Shadow Detail | |
Colour | |
Grain/Pixelization | |
Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
Film Artefacts | |
Overall |
Dialogue is uniformly clear and readily understood. Even Kendra's accent is readily understood, despite the clipped words. Heck, I even understood the Gorch brothers, with their strong Texan drawl.
Audio sync was perfect.
The background music in Buffy is ideal at providing the desired atmosphere, although I feel they did go over-the-top during the scenes where Xander and Cordelia kissed for the first time. Generally the music does not draw attention to itself, which tells me that it is doing the job intended.
The audio is Dolby Digital 2.0, and it seems not to be surround encoded (although the surround coding flag was present). As such, the surrounds and subwoofer were unused. Shame, really - they could do some interesting things with the subwoofer, and the surrounds could make things even spookier - maybe later seasons will be surround encoded.
Dialogue | |
Audio Sync | |
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
Surround Channel Use | |
Subwoofer | |
Overall |
The menus themselves are static, with background sound. They are easy to navigate.
One small odd thing: the menus appear to be 16x9 enhanced - the circles are circular in 16x9, but ovals in 4x3- an odd choice for a disc full of 1.33:1 (4:3) material. Maybe we can look forward to future episodes in widescreen?
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The video quality is good for daytime scenes, and fair for night-time scenes. That's how Buffy always looks - can't blame the DVD for rendering the source material faithfully.
The audio quality is good, for a stereo track.
The extras are a pleasant bonus.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Pioneer DV-737, using Component output |
Display | Sony VPL-VW10HT LCD Projector, ScreenTechnics matte white screen with a gain of 1.0 (280cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Denon AVC-A1SE |
Speakers | Front Left and Right: Krix Euphonix, Centre: Krix KDX-C Rears: Krix KDX-M, Subwoofer: Krix Seismix 5 |