The Great Tragedy of the 'Buffy' HD Remaster
Why Hacker News recommends it
Used as the main example of bad HD restorations and aspect-ratio recropping of older TV shows.
What it is
A critique of the HD remaster of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, walking through cropping, color and effects problems that damaged the original look. It also advises which versions to buy.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2019 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Cites remram · 2021-10 · on “‘Seinfeld’ Fans Upset That Netflix’s Aspect Ratio Cuts Out Jokes, Literally”
Also the Buffy remaster, where interestingly they uncropped the footage, showing some of the filming crew, microphones, etc. [this video] (edit: already posted in this thread, oops: [LINK] )
Critical empyrical · 2019-06 · on “YouTube is working with Universal Music Group to remaster iconic music videos”
One thing I really hope they don't do is altering the aspect ratio of the restored music videos. By altering the aspect ratio of the video, you are also messing with the cinematography of the video and putting your own "spin" on it. To make things even worse, sometimes companies will even crop 4:3 footage to be 16:9, resulting in less things being visible than in the original. Thankfully judging by the videos linked in the blog (at least the ones I've looked at), they've left the restored videos in 4:3. For a good idea of how bad things can get when a company doing restoration messes with aspect ratios, this video highlights the bad restoration of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: [this video]
Critical Andrex · 2021-10 · on “‘Seinfeld’ Fans Upset That Netflix’s Aspect Ratio Cuts Out Jokes, Literally”
There are way more issues with Buffy on top of that too, and my Disney ire will forever be stoked until they rectify the situation (as the current owners of 20th Century Television.) [LINK] [this video]
Critical BiteCode_dev · 2023-12 · on “They want you to forget what a film looks like”
Agree. All those remastering are often done with more importance given to the economic side of things, instead of respecting the art. Some are destroying the original work. The first thing that pop into my mind is how they destroyed Buffy with the HD makeover: [this video] As a reddit commenter said about the cropping job: "All they had to do was nothing and they still fucked it up." It's a disgrace.
Critical echelon_musk · 2024-04 · on “AI made these movies sharper – critics say it ruined them”
The automated HD 'remaster' of Buffy is the prime example of how badly this can go wrong. A great breakdown of the problems is on YouTube here: [this video]
Critical upon_drumhead · 2024-07 · on “Sony Is Killing the Blu-ray, but Physical Media Isn't Dead Yet”
Not every HD redo is better. [this video] And honestly a ton of why dvds look so terrible is people forgot about deinterlacing. Toggle it on and things look a lot better.