Following the release of the "What's Wrong with Buffy's HD?" video on Youtube (3/4/15), some members of the show's original team published their thoughts on the HD remastering of Buffy. By the way, you can find older ones in the video by Joss Whedon, David Fury and Steven DeKnight. Here they are:
"I probably should know more about this before I open my big mouth but from the little I do know Fox has made a mess of remastering the great work of Joss Whedon and Sarah Michelle Gellar and all the other actors, directors and technicians who worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The show and the work were important to me at the time and there are fans throughout the world that still get inspiration from the little girl with the big wooden stake and her struggle for justice and a simple dinner date in a nice black dress. This is worth a look." - Mark Metcalf (The Master)
"Hey #BTVS purists: What's wrong with Buffy's HD upgrade? How about a new remaster, #Fox?" - Nerf Herder (Writers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme song)
Buffy's "behind the scene team" insisted that Fox never made contact with them. Moreover, some of them even reveal that 16:9 episodes were realized at the time, free from all errors and goofs! For more information and anecdotes, read the next two messages
"I was the post coordinator for Season 5 and we actually made a list of 16X9 fixes for every show that would need to be done when the show was remastered for HD. They definitely did not contact me at any time." - Aaron Miller (Post-production coordinator)
Aaron Miller, post production coordinator on Buffy season 5 (and Firefly):
"Here's a comment from my post supervisor/AP that I worked with on Buffy. He was a post PA on Season 1 and moved up to AP by Season 6. He and I both went to work on Firefly so we did not do Season 7:" - Aaron Miller (Post-production coordinator)
"Thanks for asking! I am a little torn. The true purists should only ever watch the 4:3 standard def original release versions (exception being the "Once More With Feeling" which was intended to be shown widescreen). Not only is the framing as was originally intended, but i suspect that there will be lots of details in sets, props, costumes and makeup that might not hold up in HD. That's for the purists. BUT... Right or wrong there is a large population of average Joes who just want the picture to fill their frame. The same group who 15 years ago would have preferred the center cut to the black bars on top and bottom. Would be a shame for a whole new generation to miss out just because they (or their local TV station which is more likely) got turned off by black side bars. I agree that if it must be done there's a better way to do it. Season 1 was 16mm 4X3 so there is no way to make it 16:9 without blowing up the image. One of the things that bugs me the most about the ones I have seen is that top of show credits appear over peoples faces. We always had a rule to keep credits below the chin in closeups. Starting with season 2 we shot 35mm composed for 4X3 but protecting for 16X9. After we delivered the 4:3 air master I would sit down and watch the 16:9 version and take notes and do blowups and repos where necessary to avoid crew, equipment and ends of sets in shots. We called these the "16X9 safe masters" and archived them with everything else. I thought these were pretty cool to watch, the problem is when they went back to negative for the HD rexfer in this latest release it looks like they did not consult the original for either color timing or re-framing reference. I'm sure the stories and characters will hold up but it's too bad more care was not taken. Nobody asked me, but if they did I would have loved to have consulted on this. Probably could have organized a crowdsourcing effort of comparing the originals to the re-transfers. Lots of crew alumni with lots of love for the originals would have likely participated. Maybe for the 4K/3D version?" - Brian Wankum (Post supervisor/AP)
Note that he probably meant they started shooting 35mm with season 3, season 2 was (super) 16mm.
The video was also shared on social networks by Kristine Sutherland (Joyce Summers), James C. Leary (Clem), and writers David Fury, Tim Minear, and Nancy Holder.
List of articles with the "What's Wrong with Buffy's HD?" video published in the media:
http://thewertzone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/how-fox-has-screwed-up-buffy-in-hd-but.html
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bprofitt/some-people-really-dont-like-the-way-buffy-the-v-v954#.flX5R21AW
http://www.newscinema.it/buffy-il-disastro-della-rimasterizzazione-in-hd-45220/
http://www.vertigo24.net/news/2015-03-23/Buffy-The-Vampire-Slayer-quando-l-alta-definizione-rovina