Doctor Who in HD DVD/Blu-ray?

[HovhannesB]

Would you purchase Doctor Who in either format? I'm not talking about the current run, I mean starting from the beginning. If they offered Doctor Who on HD-DVD/Blu-Ray in Season Sets (and back in 1962 up until the latest run seasons were LONG and had multi-part episodes!)? It would be old, it would be B&W, they would have to do some restorative magic... but would you buy it?

I think I would, in a heart beat (as long as it wasn't some $300+ dollar season sets lol).

[illegalprelude]

for anybody boxset, your gonna be looing at $120+ i would say. So each season running $100+ easily times how ever many seasons. Not sure if Seasons are worth the price yet. Movies, i pay no problem but seasons are way too expensive for my care level but again, depends on your interests and passion for that particular show too

[BerserkerTails]

This idea gets brought up quite a bit, and everytime I have to come in and say this:

There would be absolutely NO difference if Doctor Who was released in HD than on normal DVD. Even since 1963, Doctor Who has been shot on Standard Definition videotape. This is unlike old movies that are shot on film, which has even more detail than even 1080p resolution and therefore can look even better than DVD on an HD format.

SD Video is shot at a specific resolution that was made for old TVs, and will never have more detail than what is shown on a PAL TV.

True the Black and White episodes only exist on 16mm film now, however this does not mean it was made on film. The film that exists is called a telerecording which means that basically when the episode was first broadcast, a special film recorder was pointed at a special screen showing the episode and it was recorded. This was done to perserve the episode so the BBC could wipe and reuse the video tape for shooting another episode, since videotape in the 60s was very expensive, whereas film was not.

Most location work in the show (Things that were not shot in a studio) was mostly shot on film, though basically only a handful of the actual film negatives actually still exist. Most episodes only exist in their videotape master (or telerecorded 16mm master), meaning the film segments have been already downconverted to Standard Definition. Although the dozen or so stories that have their location work still existing would benefit from an HD upgrade, it would be very jarring to go from SD video to HD film and back within the span of one episode.

Even the new show is filmed on SD video at the moment. There were plans to make the upcoming Series 3 in HD, but due to technical problems with Torchwood's HD cameras at the time, plus the staggering cost of doing all the special effects in HD, the BBC decided to make Series 3 in SD. Hopefully series 4 will make the jump.

There would be one benefit from a jump to an HD format, though it wouldn't be in detail. With more space on each disc, there would be much less compression artefacts on the episodes.

Box sets wouldn't work, at least for the Black and White episodes, unfortunately, since so many episodes no longer exist. I don't know if you're aware, but 108 episodes of Doctor Who are no longer held by the BBC, and are thought to be destroyed forever. Since my post is so long already, I'll spare you the boring details, though a quick seach of "Missing Doctor Who Episodes" on Wikipedia will tell you all you need to know if you're interested.

Seasons 1, 2 and 6 may be doable, since there are less episodes missing from these seasons than 3, 4 and 5. For example, only 2 episodes are missing from the second season, which is amazing considering it's 40 some odd episodes long.

The DVDs already coming out are fantastic though, and the restoration is much better than most higher profile old shows get when released. Compare an old B/W VHS release to the same release on DVD and you'll be astounded.

Sorry for the long post, I'm a big Doctor Who fan and I've gone over this discussion many times, haha.

[Godstar]

Originally Posted by BerserkerTails

This idea gets brought up quite a bit, and everytime I have to come in and say this:

There would be absolutely NO difference if Doctor Who was released in HD than on normal DVD. Even since 1963, Doctor Who has been shot on Standard Definition videotape. This is unlike old movies that are shot on film, which has even more detail than even 1080p resolution and therefore can look even better than DVD on an HD format.

SD Video is shot at a specific resolution that was made for old TVs, and will never have more detail than what is shown on a PAL TV.

True the Black and White episodes only exist on 16mm film now, however this does not mean it was made on film. The film that exists is called a telerecording which means that basically when the episode was first broadcast, a special film recorder was pointed at a special screen showing the episode and it was recorded. This was done to perserve the episode so the BBC could wipe and reuse the video tape for shooting another episode, since videotape in the 60s was very expensive, whereas film was not.

Most location work in the show (Things that were not shot in a studio) was mostly shot on film, though basically only a handful of the actual film negatives actually still exist. Most episodes only exist in their videotape master (or telerecorded 16mm master), meaning the film segments have been already downconverted to Standard Definition. Although the dozen or so stories that have their location work still existing would benefit from an HD upgrade, it would be very jarring to go from SD video to HD film and back within the span of one episode.

Even the new show is filmed on SD video at the moment. There were plans to make the upcoming Series 3 in HD, but due to technical problems with Torchwood's HD cameras at the time, plus the staggering cost of doing all the special effects in HD, the BBC decided to make Series 3 in SD. Hopefully series 4 will make the jump.

There would be one benefit from a jump to an HD format, though it wouldn't be in detail. With more space on each disc, there would be much less compression artefacts on the episodes.

Box sets wouldn't work, at least for the Black and White episodes, unfortunately, since so many episodes no longer exist. I don't know if you're aware, but 108 episodes of Doctor Who are no longer held by the BBC, and are thought to be destroyed forever. Since my post is so long already, I'll spare you the boring details, though a quick seach of "Missing Doctor Who Episodes" on Wikipedia will tell you all you need to know if you're interested.

Seasons 1, 2 and 6 may be doable, since there are less episodes missing from these seasons than 3, 4 and 5. For example, only 2 episodes are missing from the second season, which is amazing considering it's 40 some odd episodes long.

The DVDs already coming out are fantastic though, and the restoration is much better than most higher profile old shows get when released. Compare an old B/W VHS release to the same release on DVD and you'll be astounded.

Sorry for the long post, I'm a big Doctor Who fan and I've gone over this discussion many times, haha.

Sorry to hear the lost episodes. They were all just so brilliant. Tom Baker is and will always be my favorite Doctor Who.

[Stevepro]

I have watched the new Series 1 and 2 on my HD-A1 and I must say that the upconverted SD was excellent. Also, the audio was quite good with some striking surround effects. I would love to see Series 3, or as you say 4, in HD. I tend not to watch the Sci Fi Channel run of the series due to the poor analog signal in the Boston area. I'd rather wait for the box set.

[SonicGT]

They should use standard dvd compression, but use the size of blu-ray / hd-dvd to fit a ton more episodes per disc. So you don't take up 2 shelves with one tv series, LOL

[HovhannesB]

Originally Posted by Stevepro

I have watched the new Series 1 and 2 on my HD-A1 and I must say that the upconverted SD was excellent. Also, the audio was quite good with some striking surround effects. I would love to see Series 3, or as you say 4, in HD. I tend not to watch the Sci Fi Channel run of the series due to the poor analog signal in the Boston area. I'd rather wait for the box set.

I tend to not watch Sci Fi because they cancelled Stargate right after they hit season 10 and beat X-Files as "America's Longest Running Sci Fi Show".

[Godstar]

Originally Posted by HovhannesB

I tend to not watch Sci Fi because they cancelled Stargate right after they hit season 10 and beat X-Files as "America's Longest Running Sci Fi Show".

Yeah, Sci-Fi has made some of the worst programming decisions of any channel I've watched. The took off Farscape, for what - some stupid worms show that looked like a C- show, where Farscape was well produced. They rarely have anything - SciFi anymore, they put on WWF wrestling for god sake, have all kinds of reality show garbage, and put out horribly produced monster movie flicks. The last "good" sci-fi movie was Dune and the Spielberg film. Why did they stop? Now they cancel SG1, one of their last good remaining home grown series, I have yet to hear anything about Atlantis, and what do they have to replace it? Dresden Files? Yuck. Leftovers from other cable networks? Shitty. What's next - Sex in the City reruns?