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

-
Image
   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...
1 comment

The Ice Warriors on Blu-Ray?

-

 UPDATE - It appears Best Buy listed the DVD release as a Blu-Ray releases by mistake in 2013. just picked it up and listed it as a Blu-Ray. Stand down.

We’ve had some very unexpected Doctor Who physical releases over the years. Who could have predicted Dark Water in 3D, The Faceless Ones animated or even Scream of the Shalka. But perhaps we could have a new winner…

Listed on Blu-Ray.com is Doctor Who – The Ice Warriors with a cut and paste from description from the DVD release.  Even stranger is the fact it is listed as a Region A (Region 1) release.  Not even The Power of the Daleks has been released on Blu-Ray in North America.

Both Episodes 2 & 3 are missing from the story but was animated in 2013 for the DVD.

Is this listing just a mistake?  Is it coming out in the UK also? And most puzzling of all, what is the purpose of this release?

The animation company that animated the two missing episodes, Qurios Entertainment, has not been active for well over 5 years now and the Producer of this animation – Chris Chapman says this release is news to him.  Even then I do not see the need to do a “The Power of the Daleks” style revamp of the animation as personally I think it is good enough.  In fact, I like it.

It is possible it could be animated again from scratch by a different company to bring it in line with recent animations, but what would be the point?  For the same cost you could probably complete The Underwater Menace or animate The Web of Fear, Episode 3.  If I were to choose a previous animation to revamp, it would be The Reign of Terror, which is full of random cuts and close-ups which do not quite work and perhaps clearing the rights for Britbox at the same time.

An obvious reason to re-release this story would be if one or both missing episodes were found.  There were rumours circulating a few years back of demo prints being sent to Germany.  If the two episodes were recovered, then it might make sense to give it the story re-release before The Collection.  Other than that, I really do not see a purpose to this release.

The story is out of print in North America and there has been recent re-issues of some of the rarer titles.  Has someone got the DVD and Blu-Ray mixed up?

Unless the wind is blowing in the direction of Germany, I am calling this potential release a fake.  With the fact this would be the first Classic Series Blu-Ray outside of The Collection in Region 1 land, I would say being suspicious is an understatement.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Doctor Who Series 1-4 Blu-ray Box Set - What's the deal?

-
Image
 UPDATE 05/02/24 - Replacement discs are being issued for The Specials Disc 2 (The End of Time disc) to correct the wrong screengrabs on the scene selection menu and subtitles.    2023 saw another new release of Series 1-4 in the UK on Blu-ray. Containing new upscales of the standard definition episodes (this time at the correct speed!). Some fans have asked me is this release worth getting? That’s a very tricky thing to answer. In truth (with the exception of The Next Doctor, I’ll get on to that), this is the best release this of these episodes hands down - but there are some caveats. I’ll attempt to answer the question in more detail.   Now we have had a bit of time to digest this release, (there was far too much going on in November and December in the Whoniverse to look at this properly) I thought this package could do with a proper write up explaining my thoughts.   The Packaging In terms of how box set is laid out, it was definitely the right ap...
Read more

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

-
Image
   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...
Read more

Series 1-4 - New and Missing Special Features

-
In response to my previous article talking about the new Series 1-4 box set, ( you can read the original here ) some further items that have been identified that are different from the original releases. Simeon Carter (with a little bit of help from myself) has written a guide to these and he has kindly given me permission to publish it here. I've recently received this set and have been going through the features. With the help of Matthew Purchase, I've spotted a couple of very small things that are new and to my knowledge haven't been commented on yet. I've also noticed a couple of very slight omissions. So thought I'd produce an up to date list of what's new and what's missing across this set, in terms of special features. (In terms of the episodes themselves I know that The Next Doctor has some missing dialogue and the credits are not as broadcast for some of the other 2009 Specials. But this is the first time the episodes have been released on...
Read more