[Soc]The New Buffy/Angel Discussion Thread

We are officially screwed. From [link="http://www.wb2.com]WB2.com [/link]:

"Viewer Note: Due to extended local news coverage of Blizzard '03 and breaking war coverage, we will not be re-scheduling shows that are pre-empted at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

They apologize for the incovenience. *fumes* How nice. And WHY can't they get rid of a few sitcom repeats to show the primetime stuff?

Well, I'm off to see if it is up for download. If that doesn't work, I'll see how I might bribe my sister to run a copy and send it out here ASAP. She says they got the whole thing out there in Calif.

 

I just called WB2, and when I said I wanted to know who made the decision not to reshow Angel, I was told to send any comments/complaints to the following two people:
Natalie Grant
Regional Programming Director
mgrant@tribune.com

Derek Dalton
Vice-president and General Manger
wb2news@tribune.com

And the catch-all for the programming department:
wb2programming@tribune.com

Let's get those letters going, and maybe we can get somebody to change their mind!

FYI, I tried to talk to somebody in charge at WB2 about the Angel decision or at least to leave a voice mail, but I was pretty much stonewalled by the receptionist. I don't know if she knows what she's talking about, but she told me that the decision not to reshow Angel will not be changed. She told me that when an episode is pre-empted, it is not replayed. When I noted that they have rescheduled programming in the past, she got a bit rude and kept telling me stuff like "it wasn't our fault that the President had a news conference", and "it's not our fault that the show was pre-empted" and "it's not our fault that it won't be reshown." I was also told that "dozens of people" have called this morning inquiring about the Angel decision, and it impossible to leave a voice mail with the programming department because their mailbox is full. With that in mind, a deluge of e-mails might be the best tactic.

 

By the way, Taeriel, please let me know if you get a copy of the episode. I'm dying to see it for various reasons, not the least of which is the fact that a certain female is making a guest appearance. (No spoilers here, folks. Nope. Nosiree!)

 

Now I wish I had taped it ; we got the whole thing here in Phoenix.

I have missed two episodes of Buffy this season, though. They were pre-empted for BASKETBALL GAMES and not rescheduled!!

At least one of them is being re-run next week, although I hate watching them out of order.

 

My e-mails are sent!

 

For those of you e-mailing Derek Dalton (VP of WB2), I just got his direct e-mail address:
ddalton@tribune.com

The other address for him I posted would apparently just go to a general corporate mailbox, and it would "eventually" get to him.

 

Sigh.

And apparently I misheard the address for Natalie Grant.

It's ngrant@tribune.com.

That makes sense, actually, given that her e-mail address reflects her name.

Sorry about that!

 

No problem, JE

Got the second barrage sent.

 

I've sent a few messages around the Internet asking for copies of the episode, and this reply sounds really interesting. I haven't tried it out yet, but I thought I'd post it here in case anybody wants to give it a shot (and let everybody know the results).

-- Eris

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do you have a cd writer? Or one of your friends? There are a couple of
ways to do this that would be simple enough. Either I send you the cd
with the episode in VCD format (that's mpg that you can play on some DVD
players and for sure on your computer), which is what I have. Of course,
I wouldn't send one to all of your friends, that could become a little
bit much, but you could spread it around by copying it with a cdwriter.

The other way to get it even sooner would be for you to install the MIRC
program (that is a chat program where people exchange episodes of
various tv shows) It takes some time to download the episode but much
less than waiting for the post office.It would also have the advantage
that the next time the show is preempted you can still get it from
there. The reason why you can is that most of those shows offered for
download were taken from satellite feed and not subject to preemption.

In case you decide to do this, let me give you the info you'll need to
have to enter those channels where you can find ANGEL.

Ok there are many places where you could download the programs you need
to download Angel, but this one is well done.

http://www.irchighway.net/index.php

Download the MIRC SCRIPT: INVISION 2520 and the CLIENT MIRC: MIRC 6.03

Install the Client first, and then install INVISION in the same
directory. Choose a user name and password and enter it in the option
windows once you've opened the MIRC program. (FILE, OPTIONS)

In the status window that will also open and once you've entered your
username and password, write this:
/server irc.irchighway.net or if this one doesn't connect you (sometimes
there are too many users) try this one
/server irc.irc-chat.net

Exactly like this and it will connect you to one of the server.

Then register your username like this:
/msg NickServ REGISTER [your password] [your email]

Once you've registered, you simply connect to the channel where the
shows are offered. You can be in many channels at once which makes it
easier to find the shows. Here are a few:
/join #tv-central
/join #tv-shows
/join #TV-SeRieS
/join #Wolfram-&-Hart

You can search for more or ask for help directly in the channels since
Mirc is primarily a chat program.


Christine Lemieux Webmaster of "Julian's Haven"
http://www.julian-mcmahon.net
------------------------------------------
Guardian of "The Hollow"
http://www.charmedfic.com
---------------------------------------------------
Co-Founder of the "Julian McMahon Fan Club"
http://www.mcmahoniacs.com

 

I'm currently about half done downloading the SVCD version of this week's Angel. I'm taking a couple of things on faith (no pun intended!) though:

1) that all the files are available on the binaries newsgroup

2) that I'll be able to correctly burn a copy

3) that my DVD player will be able to play this version of a VCD file.

If I'm successful at getting and playing the episode, I'd be happy to either burn copies for people or have people come over to watch here.

I'll write my letters of protest after I finish trying to snag these files.... it's back to downloading for me. (Ah, the uses of snow days, though admittedly I need files off my computer at work even more than the Angel episode.)

 

Woo hoo!!!

All the letters seemed to have worked!

Breaking news straight from WB!

Because many of you missed portions of Wednesday's "Orpheus" episode of Angel due to breaking news, we are offering you another opportunity to see it this coming Sunday, March 23, at 9/8c. This replaces the previously scheduled airing of the movie "Blade."

 

FYI, I just got an e-mail straight from Derek Dalton, VP of WB2, in response to my e-mail (earlier today) concerning the original decision to not rebroadcast Angel. You can read into it what you want, but it seems to me that he actually seems to care about what viewers want.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bryon,

Thank you for your interest in WB2. We have worked with the WB network to
rebroadcast the episode on Sunday evening (march 23rd) at 8p.

Enjoy the show-

Derek Dalton
VP/General Manager

 

Wow, that's great news! Good work, everyone!

On my end of things: the good news: I downloaded and extracted the episode. It even gave me a file that my computer recognized and would play in Media Player. The bad news: the sound is synched about 1-3 seconds behind the picture.

I think it may be a problem with playing it on the computer. In the read-me file for the download, I saw a note from someone mentioning that they saw a synch problem palying on their computer. It sounds like most people burn to VCD and watch on DVD players. However, my first attempt to do so, by simply dumping the two files onto a CDR, gave me an "invalid entry" error message on my DVD player. Have any of you burned VCDs before? If so, is there some trick to it, or file extention that's necessary?

 

To be viewable on your DVD the mpeg files must have specific filenames, pretty difficult to do manually. What CD writing software are you using?

Easy CD Creator (the deluxe version) has an option to create a video cd, you give it the files and it will name them properly and setup the cd correctly.

 

I'm using Easy CD Creator v4.05, not deluxe. I burned another CD, and got closer on try #2, but still no show. This time my DVD player recognized that it's a VCD, and seemed to think it was playing... but nothing happened.

Here is one of the filenames that dumped out of the original extraction:

Angel.04x15-Orpheus.(n00b).XSVCD.part1

This is what I tried first, (probably unwisely) burning the file and it's sibling to CD using DirectCD.

Here is what I renamed the file for try 2:

A1.XSVCD

This time, I created a data CD rather than direct CD, again burning this file and the second one. It will load in my DVD player, but the player thinks there is just one track of a little over 71 mins. When I hit play, the little play icon comes on... but the screen stays as the player's title screen.

 

It'll never read like that, i'll take a look tonight at one of the VCD's i've done and see if I can tell ya how to format the disk.

 

Cool, thanks!! I've been trying to read some tutorials on the web, but they mostly seem to do with starting from avi files...

One of the things I did find that might have been wrong was the file format properties. One of the tutorials mentioned ISO9660 file type, whereas my program seems to default to Joliet. It also defaults to data on a single track only, which explains why my player saw only one track for two files, I guess.

 

All hail the power of the pen! (or in this case the power of the PC. )

 

OW sent me a link for a program last night that should solve all my problems and allow me to burn real SVCDs. Yay! I'll be trying it tonight.

Of course, all of this feels less important now that we're getting it on tv on Sun! I guess I just have leftover momentum from when we thought it wouldn't be on... that and I went to all the trouble of downloading 55 files for this thing!

 

It's always useful to learn new things even if it isn't as important anymore.

(47 hrs 28 mins.)

 

You guys suck!

I sat and watched 2 episodes of that show tonight instead of reading I was completely lost, but I enjoyed them. Maybe the stigma of the hose beast has worn off of them, or maybe listening to you guys talk about it all the time has done it, but I can't believe I actually watched and enjoyed that show

 

A CONVERT!

I assume you are talking about the Buffy episodes on FX.

 

Yes! So, who's gonna help me figure out what the heck's going on ?

 

Okay, you're about a quarter of the way into season six.

 

Good night! I have 6 seasons worth of episodes to catch up on