Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time 4K UHD (2017)

[morphinapg]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

Making primary channels incompatible with existing TVs overnight. You just cannot do that. SD vs HD is easy as you can just do an up or down conversion. Stereo and surround is easy as stereo is still broadcast and incompatible equipment just ignores the surround stream. Changing the framerate is a lot more complicated and introduces a myriad of issues depending on the source being converted. Doing that for live broadcast would be nightmarish. I also wouldn't fancy watching every single one of my old favourites running too slow and de-interlaced.

If they did ever go this way, which for the reasons I cite would be unlikely or on a very slow changeover, I agree variable framerate is the only sensible option but true variable as opposed to switching refresh rate TVs are still something for the future and don't exist right now.

My point was that when they started with HD, their HD channel could have been an HD-only channel, not one you down convert to SD. Keep all the legacy stuff on the SD channel and progressively move things towards HD with the more universal standards.

Also you're wrong on the sound. I have channels that would switch between stereo and 5.1 dolby tracks, one or the other, not both. That started at the very beginning of HD. Every HD capable TV had to support dolby decoding, so it would be able to handle the downmix if it needed to. Similarly, HDTVs should support 24fps, so it would be able to handle switching formats just the same.

Originally Posted by laughingmaniac

Movies are filmed at 23.976 fps. Non-American TV shows are most certainly NOT filmed at that framerate.

There's zero reason to make the distinction between 24 and 23.976. They're visually identical, movies are actually usually filmed at proper 24fps and converted for home sales, and most people recognize that "24fps" is describing both formats. Most TVs also support both formats, just as they also support 59.94 or proper 60fps as well now, and some Blu-rays are proper 24fps.

Most shows outside of the UK that film at a film-like rate are doing so at 24fps, not 25.

Sure thing buddy, because everyone that doesn't live in America is outdated... You might be surprised to find that most of the world still films their TV productions in 25/50 fps because of PAL legacy.
Here is map: http://www.whatonearththemovie.com/s.../NTSC_PAL.html
Americans don't see a map of the world too often.

PAL is irrelevant today. It was an old format that HD sets were designed to move away from. Same thing with NTSC. This has nothing to do with those outdated formats.

LOL, Doctor Who is a BBC UK production not a BBC America production. If BBC America took creative and technical control over Doctor Who I would stop watching it because they would ruin it.

Where did I ever say anything about BBC America?