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

[morphinapg]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Fair enough points. Like a lot of things I'm sure subjective taste matters a lot. I really dislike serialized TV for the most part, so we probably have different interests and such when it comes to which season-long aspects impress us.

Moffat had a lot of stinkers in his run but overall I liked it better mostly because it focused on sci-fi and adventure, while RTD's era tended to have a lot more soap opera and farcical elements. It will definitely be interesting to see what Chibnall does because his episodes prior to this tended to be very sci-fi adventure in focus, which I liked, but as showrunner he might have different priorities.

The main thing I know him from is the showrunner of Broadchurch, which is heavily serialized, so that's why that could be a concern for Doctor Who. I personally do like some serialized shows, but I think for Doctor Who it's better to have different stories so we can have a lot of adventures, but just keep some kind of overall cohesive direction for what the season is about, and 2 parters are usually pretty good, but stretching a single story beyond that can sometimes be too much (although I think that worked well for the season 4 finale)

[The Dark Shape]

I need some measure of serialization because if the characters don't change, I don't care.

It's not my favorite series of Torchwood, but the Chibnall-run Season 2 had a nice balance of serialization and standalone, I thought.

[morphinapg]

Originally Posted by The Dark Shape

I need some measure of serialization because if the characters don't change, I don't care.

It's not my favorite series of Torchwood, but the Chibnall-run Season 2 had a nice balance of serialization and standalone, I thought.

Nice I didn't realize Chibnall ran part of Torchwood. I definitely liked Season 2 for sure, and Torchwood is a clear example of pros and cons of doing things both ways. While season 3 and 4 could tell more focused stories, and allow those stories room to breath and grow, with more character development, they were also really limiting in that you only had a single story vs the many of the first two seasons. From what I recall of the first two seasons of Torchwood though, they still had a decent season theme and story arc, despite being more procedurally written stories. That's exactly what I want from Doctor Who so that does get me excited.

[openviews]

14.99 at HMV as well.

https://store.hmv.com/film-tv/4k-ult...ce-upon-a-time

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by The Dark Shape

I need some measure of serialization because if the characters don't change, I don't care.

Well even the most episodic of shows usually have some character progression and such. On Star Trek for example crew members change, old episodes are referenced, enemies return, etc. I'm fine with all that. I also liked the way X-Files did it, with mainly episodic stories but also 10% or so of the season being a more serialized section that furthers an overall story. That's fine too.

I just really dislike shows that feel like one endless story. To me it kills pacing, and almost always is stuffed with filler content and padding. When it's really well done I can handle it, like Sopranos or Game of Thrones, but usually I get super bored. I'm a movie guy at heart, so I like endings and planned out, self-contained stories.

[Deciazulado]

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time 4K Blu-ray

[morphinapg]

My Amazon preorder moved back to September 25

[StingingVelvet]

Same.

[Joe Siegler]

Originally Posted by nickelmouse

Any confirmation on whether this will include a standard blu-ray version? The listing on this site seems to indicate it will, but nothing else is confirming that. I'm hoping it does, but at the current price point I'm kind of doubting it.

It won't. One disc:

https://shop.bbc.com/doctor-who-twic...-4k-21707.html

Originally Posted by jokercard

Interesting that the US seems to get the new logo while the UK has kept the old.

It's an attempt by the BBC to brand EVERYTHING Doctor Who and the new logo. They've gone back and put the logo on all kinds of old stuff. I'm not fond of the decision either, but it is what it is..

https://imgur.com/tP5I3hh

https://imgur.com/a/UCg5gMO

What I'm more interested in is however, the content on the disc.

The existing Blu-Ray doesn't have a lot in the way of extras, and from what I can tell, this is just a resolution upgrade, the content on the discs is the same.

I'm actually less interested (despite having the 4K gear) in this if it's exactly the same content, just upscaled.

[StingingVelvet]

If this doesn't include the BD then it's literally the first UHD only release I can think of. Certainly the first I'll own (though I'll keep the BD).

[morphinapg]

Yeah that's really weird. This gives me an interesting idea though. For short run length releases like this, particularly ones with 2K masters, could it theoretically be possible to include both a standard Blu-ray and UHD version on a single 50GB disc? Sort of how they included 3D and 2D on the same disc. Like, if you only have a standard Blu-ray player, it just defaults to the standard 1080p menu and titles, but if you have a UHD player, the menu will intelligently detect that and load a separate menu that allows for UHD playback?

[Freemind62]

Interesting. I really enjoyed the episode, but I'll probably hang off on buying this release until later down the line if it won't be part of the S11 box set like the others have been.

Hopefully this means we may see future 4K releases of the show as well which would be nice. I have a 4K Blu ray player to play the disks, but haven't got a 4K TV to watch them on though

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by morphinapg

Yeah that's really weird. This gives me an interesting idea though. For short run length releases like this, particularly ones with 2K masters, could it theoretically be possible to include both a standard Blu-ray and UHD version on a single 50GB disc? Sort of how they included 3D and 2D on the same disc. Like, if you only have a standard Blu-ray player, it just defaults to the standard 1080p menu and titles, but if you have a UHD player, the menu will intelligently detect that and load a separate menu that allows for UHD playback?

Nope. The disc itself has to be authored with one format spec or another, BD or UHD. You could put two separate encodes on there for sure, even solely 1080p SDR content if you were feeling perverse, but if it's put onto a UHD-authored BD50 it still wouldn't play on anything but a UHD player. UHD Blu does have another 'dual stream' encoding feature whereby you can set two video streams (SDR and HDR) to the same audio so you don't have to double up the entire encode, audio and all, but again it would be playable on UHD players only.

(Even 3D Blu didn't work by storing two complete versions on the disc. The MVC (multi view coding) method works by encoding the left eye onto disc as a standard 2D stream while the right eye is encoded as the difference data between left and right and isn't a viewable video stream as such. This data stream is decompressed and reconstituted by the player and sent out as a 'frame packed' 1920x2205 image for the TV to unpack into the final 3D version.

And even though the left eye was always intended to be 2D compatible in the spec it's not the actual final 2D version of the movie anyway, it will contain whatever colour grading and visual anomalies (floating windows, conversion artefacts etc) that were designed for the 3D version, hence several studios choosing to lock out the left eye from 2D playback.)

[peskdale]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

And even though the left eye was always intended to be 2D compatible in the spec it's not the actual final 2D version of the movie anyway, it will contain whatever colour grading and visual anomalies (floating windows, conversion artefacts etc) that were designed for the 3D version, hence several studios choosing to lock out the left eye from 2D playback.)

So if I’m undertanding correctly, DotD was the perfect storm? Actually filmed with a 3D camera, in 16:9 with no floating windows, and with the intention from the begining to use the left eye for the 2D version? Speedup issues aside, does that make the left eye a perfect copy of the broadcast version?

[morphinapg]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Nope. The disc itself has to be authored with one format spec or another, BD or UHD. You could put two separate encodes on there for sure, even solely 1080p SDR content if you were feeling perverse, but if it's put onto a UHD-authored BD50 it still wouldn't play on anything but a UHD player. UHD Blu does have another 'dual stream' encoding feature whereby you can set two video streams (SDR and HDR) to the same audio so you don't have to double up the entire encode, audio and all, but again it would be playable on UHD players only.

(Even 3D Blu didn't work by storing two complete versions on the disc. The MVC (multi view coding) method works by encoding the left eye onto disc as a standard 2D stream while the right eye is encoded as the difference data between left and right and isn't a viewable video stream as such. This data stream is decompressed and reconstituted by the player and sent out as a 'frame packed' 1920x2205 image for the TV to unpack into the final 3D version.

And even though the left eye was always intended to be 2D compatible in the spec it's not the actual final 2D version of the movie anyway, it will contain whatever colour grading and visual anomalies (floating windows, conversion artefacts etc) that were designed for the 3D version, hence several studios choosing to lock out the left eye from 2D playback.)

That's too bad. There is some potential for a hybrid format. Basically if you could trick the disc into looking like a standard Blu-ray in a non-UHD player but looking like a UHD disc in a UHD player, you could do something like this, which could be a cool way to handle shorter releases that feasibly didn't need more than 50GB to do both formats.

[tyrok]

[StingingVelvet]

lol @ putting the new Doctor on there.

[jokercard]

Glad to see it has extras that weren't on the regular Blu release

[oddbox83]

Any opinions on the transfer yet?

I presume this was shot exactly the same way as series 10, which looks lovely, sharp and colourful on BD but suffers from a lost of posterisation/banding artefacts it'd be great if HDR would solve.

[KazzPetrelli]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

Any opinions on the transfer yet?

I presume this was shot exactly the same way as series 10, which looks lovely, sharp and colourful on BD but suffers from a lost of posterisation/banding artefacts it'd be great if HDR would solve.

I was wondering that too, still waiting feedback / reviews from our US buddies