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Showing posts from April, 2020

AI on Classic Doctor Who. Why it's bad.

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   I can’t believe I am writing a post like this, but I really fear for the future of The Collection.     The restoration work carried out on Classic Doctor Who had always been to such a high standard. When the show started coming out on Blu-ray in 2018 I was incredibly impressed how the picture looked. Free from DVD compression, allowing the master tapes of episodes shot on 2” or 1”inch video tape to shine through. There was picture noise, a bit of blurriness at times, but that was ok. No-one complained because we all knew how the episodes were made back in the 20 th Century. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. So I have to question why BBC Studios decided to risk all of that by starting to use AI to upscale the footage? In principle it may sound good, maybe even beneficial to the episodes, but the problem is AI is just what an algorithm thinks an image should look like, leaving in its wake a huge number artefacts that change how an episode looks. P...
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The Power of the Daleks - Extras Update

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Doctor Who Magazine (Issue 551) contains a disc breakdown with further details about the extra.   I will post the extras below, but please do still support the magazine.    It’s an excellent read. Disc 1 Audio Commentary from Anneke Wills (Polly), Edward Kelsey (Resno), Derek Dodd (Designer) and Michael Bryant (Floor Manager), Nicholas Hawtrey (Quinn), Alexandra Tynan (Costume Designer),  David Hankinson (Dalek Operator 2005-08), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek Voices 2005-Present), Robert Shearman (Writer Dalek), Adrian Salmon (Shader), Martin Geraghty (Line Art) and Charles Norton (Producer).     Ported over from the original release. BBC Breakfast – Report on the animation (new) 2x Animation Trailers (new) Animation Test Footage (Ported over from the original release) Storyboard Extracts (new) BBC Radio Spots – Reports on the animation (new) Animation Photo Gallery (expanded I believe) Disc 2 Tele-snap Reconstruction (a ...
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May the 4th (and 13th) Doctors be with WHO - The case of the Series 12 box set

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Whilst May the 4 th is considered by the wider world Star Wars day, for Doctor Who fans in Region 2 land 2020 will be quite an exciting with two Doctor Who box sets due out on the same day.   The first being The Collection – Season 14 and other being the recent Series 12 for which is coming out on Steelbook, Blu-Ray and DVD. They retail for the same price (expect for the Series 12 Steelbook which is £10 more). Season 14 (like every other release in The Collection) consists of 8 discs jammed packed with material.   Commentaries (and in some cases multiple on the same episodes), Documentaries (new and old), contemporary TV clips and footage and that is only the tip of the iceberg.    In complete contrast Series 12 contains commentaries on just 3 of the 11 episodes (and as I type I still don’t know who’s on them), Behind the Scenes videos (for which most of them don’t even scrape the 5 mins mark and spend half the time just regurgitating the plot of the...
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I've got The Power (again)

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It was excitingly announced today that BBC Studios will be releasing a three disc The Power of the Daleks Special Edition release that will be coming out on 6 th July 2020 in the UK on both DVD and Blu-Ray.   There is currently no news as to whether it will be coming out in other regions.   If you want to read the press release, click here . This release contains an updated version of the black and white animation for the story which has heavily been re-worked due to the production team not having enough time on the original release to get things right with a tight deadline.   Also joining this release are an array of new extras, some of which we know little about at this point. The Animation   According to Producer Charles Norton on Roobarb’s Forum “The animation hasn't just been tweaked. It's been very extensively revised. Big ground up re-build. Huge job. Every shot has been re-composited. Many sections have been re-animated from scratc...
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