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Showing posts from January, 2024

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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Doctor Who New Series Commentary Guide

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I was looking around online for an update list of the commentaries available for modern Who having discovered the original podcast commentaries were still available hidden away on the BBC website. For the ones on DVD, the contributors weren’t listed in the booklet. To make things easier for me I decided to write up who’s on them and with links to the podcasts and iPlayer commentaries to make things easier.   Series 1 Rose DVD / Blu-ray - Russell T Davies (Writer), Julie Gardner (Executive Producer), Phil Collinson (Producer) The End of the World DVD / Blu-ray - Phil Collinson (Producer), Will Cohen (VFX Producer) The Unquiet Dead DVD / Blu-ray - Simon Callow (Charles Dickens), Mark Gatiss (Writer), Euros Lyn (Director) Aliens of London DVD / Blu-ray - David Verrey (Joseph Green), Julie Gardner (Executive Producer), Will Cohen (VFX Producer) World War Three DVD / Blu-ray - Annette Badland (Margaret Blaine), Phil Collinson (Producer), Helen Raynor (Script ...
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Doctor Who Series 1-4 Blu-ray Box Set - What's the deal?

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 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...
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