I recently watched the "Scrubs" seasons, "My So-Called Life", and now on "Buffy" and really don't like the fade to blacks for where the commercials used to be.

How come it isn't just seamless branching or is it just easier to produce this way? And do all TV sets have them?

That really doesn't make much sense, especially since a lot of those are scene transitions and the way the were produced (inteded commercial break) there is often a tense moment - wouldn't make sense to immediately cut to the next scene.

And no, I do not know of any that go straight on through.

Since the program was filmed the way to make room for commercials, and lots of TV show plot/storylines are written in 'acts' coinciding with the commercial breaks, I would assume most TV on DVD have them.
The majority of act breaks I remember are one of two things:
* either a scene change concomitant with the act change, so it wouldn't flow well if it were seamless; or
* a cliffhanger of some sort [for tv, to keep you around during the commercial break], so merging them together would make that shot drag on too long.
I generally like them because they provide a good stopping point if I'm not going to watch the whole show, or a pause point to get a drink or whatever. And for many anime titles, they include the 'bumper' animations which I like.

HBO sets don't.

* runs from thread *

Stargate doesn't have the fades which they explain in the extras at some point. They make sure they always come back from the commercial break with a different scene than they left with. This allows for a more seamless dvd transistion. Otherwise like other shows, if you end a scene with a cliffhanger and immediately continue the scene without the fade it would seem very odd.

Yeah, often the shot isn't exactly the same when they come back - just different enough to be jarring.

What DOES bother me though is watching my Reno 911 sets and seeing the "Reno 911" slate with the spinning lights and music both before and after where the commercial breaks would be. So it goes slate-black-slate. One would be fine - we don't need to see both.

I haven't watched one in a while but it seems to me some tv movies, especially ones that were originally in two parts but just one long movie on dvd don't have commercial fades.

The made-for-TV movie "The 70s" on DVD dissolves to the next segment, it's still easy to tell where the commercial breaks would have been though.

Just be glad they haven't decided to put commercials on the DVDs themselves in those spots. I'm actually kind of surprised somebody hasn't tried a cheaper Wal-Mart (or wherever) version of their set subsidized by commercials on the DVDs themselves.

I never noticed that Stargate didn't. Interesting.

But as an editor, fades are necessary in most television shows. You may or may not have noticed that fades can be timed differently depeding on how dramatic a moment should be. (A long fade out is symbolic of a very dramatic moment, where as a short fade out is just for transitioning). So, it does have it's reasons.

That's because it's not TV on DVD. It's HBO on DVD.

I don't think The Dead Zone season sets have the fade-to-black.

A lot of British shows don't have commercial breaks since they orignally aired without commercials.

I think it's just easier for the DVDs to be produced with them left in. To remove them would require re-editing, and could produce jarring results. And seemless branching would still give jarring results, plus is costly to impliment. I think most people, including myself, don't really mind the break points still existing on the DVD.

HBO shows also dont have commercials for the most part

Wow.....just.......wow.

What I'm thinking is that Pete knows........

Aw the heck with it.

Back in the days of Laserdiscs and MCA/Universal's DiscoVision, they released the episode of The Six Million Dollar Man that introduced The Bionic Woman. Universal took out the commercial breaks, which usually cut to black (rather than fade). This was awkward, because the cut to black was often punctuated by a dramatic, musical sting. Universal didn't bother to rescore the show properly, so it ended up sounding wrong.

I hate how on most bad reality shows, when it comes back from commercial they always replay about the last 30 seconds from the previous commercial break. I always wondered how bad that would look on DVD, but thankfully I have never bought one of those shows on DVD.

Probably the worst that I've seen seen is season 3 of Big Brother. Each episode is JUST as you saw it on television, minus the commercials of course. What I mean is that the promos during the show that are put at the bottom of the screen during broadcast (you know the ones for the new season of Survivor or whatever other show) are still there. So, you're sitting there watching something that is years old with the same promos from that time intact. How difficult would it have been to remove these? I can't imagine it would have been THAT costly.

^Are you sure you have a Region 1 DVD? They would actually have to go out of their way to add these...Whoever produces Big Brother delivers the episodes to CBS, then CBS adds their in-show ads and bug and whatnot. I also just looked at the DVDTalk review and Im pretty sure that would have been addressed, and it was not.

But yeah, I prefer them leave the spaces in....if the general consensus was to edit them together, it would never be done properly, and it would be as bad as cropped movies.