DVDs of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer were produced by 20th Century Fox and released beginning in 2000. As well as containing the episodes, the DVD sets have extra features such as: audio commentaries by the show's producers, documentary features, blooper reels, and shooting scripts.
| DVD | Release date | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Region 1 | Region 2 | Region 4 | |
| The Complete First Season | January 15, 2002 | November 27, 2000 | November 20, 2000 |
| The Complete Second Season | June 11, 2002 | May 21, 2001 | June 15, 2001 |
| The Complete Third Season | January 7, 2003 | October 29, 2001 | November 22, 2001 |
| The Complete Fourth Season | June 10, 2003 | May 13, 2002 | May 20, 2002 |
| The Complete Fifth Season | December 9, 2003 | October 28, 2002 | November 29, 2002 |
| The Complete Sixth Season | May 25, 2004 | May 12, 2003 | April 20, 2003 |
| The Complete Seventh Season | November 16, 2004 | April 5, 2004 | May 15, 2004 |
The Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVD sets were released in at least three encoding formats:
Aside from the region encoding (and the packaging), the Region 2 and Region 4 DVDs are identical. However, there are several content differences between the Region 1 DVDs and the Region 2 and 4 DVDs.
The Region 2 and 4 DVDs include the scenes from previous episodes ("Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer") at the beginning of each episode (except season 2); the Region 1 DVDs do not.
This even applies to the final episode of season five, "The Gift", in which the "previously" scenes are a montage leading into the episode itself. This montage was deleted from "The Gift" on the Region 1 DVDs. This montage was later included as an easter egg on the Season 7 DVD set, even in Region 2 and 4.
The series aired in a 4:3 aspect ratio for all seven seasons in the United States, with the exception of "Once More, with Feeling" which was aired in widescreen. While the first three seasons were shot exclusively in 4:3, beginning with the fourth season the series was shot with a 16:9 safe area, though according to Joss Whedon the series was intended to be shown in a 4:3 ratio, stating "Adding space to the sides simply for the sake of trying to look more cinematic would betray the very exact mise-en-scene 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."[1] The extra material in the widescreen versions is never important for the plot, although it gives additional views of the sets and backgrounds.
Beginning in season four, the Region 2 and 4 DVDs include an open matte 16:9 version of the television show. The Region 1 DVDs include the standard format (4:3) version.
The reason for this difference is that the Region 2 and 4 DVDs were released before the Region 1 DVDs, with less involvement from Mutant Enemy Productions. When the Region 1 DVDs were released, Joss Whedon decided that they should not have the widescreen version.
In 2011 Netflix began streaming seasons 4–7 in the 16:9 ratio, but would ultimately revert to the 4:3 ratio. In Nordic Region 2 countries Netflix streams those seasons in 4:3 ratio, despite the local DVDs being in widescreen.
As of August 4, 2016, Netflix began streaming all seven seasons in an updated HD version, replacing the original broadcast version. This version of the series is a remaster of the series in HD produced by the studio 20th Century Fox against the wishes of original production team.[2] Many of the original production team, including Whedon himself, and fans have criticized the HD remaster for poor transferring of standard definition to high definition, the poor transition from 4:3 aspect ratio to 16:9 aspect ratio, improper lighting, lack of lens filtering and poorly redone special effects that were either upscaled or redone in HD not true to the original.[3] For season 1, each episode up to episode 8 had to be cropped[citation needed], leaving everything in frame looking zoomed[citation needed]. Season 1, episode 7 has a few scenes fixed so they are using more of the frame.[4] In other instances the 16:9 aspect ratio shows goofs in frame like crew members or filming equipment on screen.[5] 20th Century Fox originally released the HD remaster as a syndicated broadcast on the network Pivot.[6] Currently the HD remaster is not available for purchase on home media.
The Region 2 and 4 DVDs play the episodes at 4% faster than the Region 1 DVDs. This reduces the running time of each episode by about two minutes (not counting the "scenes from previous episodes"). It also causes the sound to be raised by two-thirds of a semitone. For example, a C note is raised to a note two-thirds of the way from C to C♯.
The speeds of the different region DVDs match the speeds used during the original television broadcasts in the respective countries. Thus the Region 1 DVD plays the video at the same speed as the American broadcasts (which is the speed at which the show was filmed), while the Region 2 and 4 DVDs plays the video at the slightly faster speed that was used during the original British broadcasts. This effect is not particular to the Buffy DVDs but affects all television shows, because film that uses 23.976 frames per second is sped up for PAL that uses 25 (in the 30fps NTSC standard it is subject to 3:2 pulldown and there is no speed variation). But since the signal from a DVD player is ultimately analog, the Region 2 and 4 DVDs will still play at the faster speed when played on an American television with a multi-region DVD.
In Brazil the standard color system is not PAL, but PAL-M which is also 24 frames per second. In addition to that, all DVD releases, despite being Region 4 are in NTSC, so the frame rate is also 24 frames per second.
In the Region 2 and 4 releases, episodes with commentaries include two English subtitles: the show itself, and the commentary. The Region 1 releases do not offer subtitles for the commentaries.
The Region 1 DVDs also offer a smaller choice of non-English languages subtitles than the Region 2 and 4 DVDs.
| DVD | Release Date | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Region 1 | Region 2 | Region 4 | |
| The Chosen Collection (Seasons 1–7) | November 15, 2005 | ||
| The Complete DVD Collection (Seasons 1–7) | October 31, 2005 | November 23, 2005 | |
The Region 1 Buffy 40-disc boxed set includes a note from Joss Whedon as well as an extra disc (the 40th) with exclusive special features:
A repackaged 39-disc version was released on October 12, 2010, excluding the extra disc of bonus features.
The entire series was re-released on DVD in 2006, in a "slimmer" package with the same bonus materials that were featured in the original fold out versions. Even "slimmer" versions were issued in 2008.
Two special Region 1 DVD releases contain assorted episodes from various seasons:
In Region 2, there have been several single-disc releases named after individual characters from the show, under the overarching title of "The Slayer Collection". Each contains four episodes and a character profile. The Spike-centric DVD contains the same episodes as the Region 1 "Love is Hell" collection. Other discs focus on Willow, Xander, Giles, Cordelia, Dawn, Angel, and Faith.
Two other single-disc Region 2 DVDs have been released. The first is titled "The Very Best of...". It contains these four episodes: "Becoming, Part One", "Graduation Day, Part Two", "Hush", and "The Gift". The second contains the episode "Once More, with Feeling" and a number of special features including a featurette on season 1 of Angel and a featurette titled "Buffy, Inside the Music".
In October 2008, a limited edition bonus DVD was made available exclusively to the retail chain Best Buy. The Region 1 85-minute DVD documents the 2008 Buffy Reunion at the Paley Festival, filmed on March 20, 2008. The DVD features interviews with Amber Benson, Nicholas Brendon, Charisma Carpenter, Emma Caulfield, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seth Green, David Greenwalt, James Marsters, Michelle Trachtenberg & Joss Whedon. The DVD is available on Amazon and manufactured on-demand using DVD-R media.