Doctor Who: The Collection Season 12 • Tom Baker Season 1 - Limited Edition

[Buddy Ackerman]

Originally Posted by DaveSimonH

So will this be from a tape source? If so, while the bitrate could improve things a little from the DVDs, I imagine the main draw will be the new extras, collectors packaging and maybe cost (not sure what the equivalent DVD pricing would be).

A few quotes from poster Steve Roberts on Gallifrey Base who works on the restoration team for Who:

It's upscaled in hardware using a motion-compensated Teranex broadcast scaler.

The idea of putting them onto Blu-ray as upscales to HD is a sound one. DVD compression is very lossy and blocky, so upscaling to HD and harnessing more modern codecs at high bitrates means that the episodes can be presented as near to studio quality as possible for a domestic format, plus the audio will be uncompressed rather than AC3. New and some of the older DVD extras made in HD will appear in better quality too. For other seasons where film inserts exist, these can be included in true HD.

I saw a couple of posts asking about upscaling. Theoretically it's possible to put SD material onto Blu-ray and cram on more episodes onto fewer discs. However:

* The Blu-ray Disc Association frown on this, as they want Blu-ray to be seen to mean High Definition.
* The cost of, say, two discs in SD versus six in HD would still need to be the same, as the manufacturing costs are low compared to the clearance costs. So from a consumer point of view, six discs represents better value for money than two.
* Putting the episodes on in HD means that the Restoration Team have control over the quality of the upscaling rather than your player or TV.

For the most part, existing DVD masters that Jonathan (Wood, no longer on the team) graded will be used as the basis for the Blu-ray releases and in cases where newer transfers are used, they'll likely be automatically match-graded to Jonathan's previous work.

[delped]

Originally Posted by El_Fez

Why in the hell is the UK getting it in June and the States have to wait until October? I might have to think real hard about picking this version up and shunning the domestic release.

Really, because it is ours, all ours, *evil laugh*
It happens all the time, have you not noticed, USA first then here is the usual with quite a few movies.

[oddbox83]

Originally Posted by Buddy Ackerman

A few quotes from poster Steve Roberts on Gallifrey Base who works on the restoration team for Who:

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/in/products/teranex

I know my Oppo is good, but...

[Man From Hammer]

I'm surprised they've mentioned upgrading surviving film inserts to HD. The mix of studio VT with 16mm exteriors was always a grating experience so a switch from SD studio VT (no matter how good it is) to HD film inserts would be even more jarring

[thecooldud]

It was fine on Shada.

[Man From Hammer]

Originally Posted by thecooldud

It was fine on Shada.

I did get the steel but not watched it yet.
Where is the SD/HD mix?
I assumed the animated version was 100% animation

[Si Parallel Universe]

Originally Posted by Fnord Prefect

£39.99 ppd at HMV.com:

https://store.hmv.com/film-tv/blu-ra...tion-season-12

Presumably this will include all bonus material from all previous editions (there would be complaints if it doesn't), something however that may prove problematic if and when certain Troughton and Pertwee series get the blu-ray treatment but there's an obvious work around regarding that "problem" (keep the original DVDs)

Will be going the HMV route with this

[thecooldud]

No, it preserves everything that was shot at the time, mixed with animation for the unfilmed sequences. It works surprisingly well.

[Si Parallel Universe]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/in/products/teranex

I know my Oppo is good, but...

I'll have two please

Regarding omnibus versions not since since [insert year here] ... When I was living in Iowa, I used to watch every Friday night on Iowa Public Television (the local PBS station) and all the stories were omnibus versions. The War Games was a slog but sooo worth it.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by TheHutt

This new logo is not okay on the Classic Who episodes.
(for this part, it's not okay on any episodes before the upcoming season 11)

Agreed. The new logo looks really off for the Tom Baker years. What's wrong with the proper Logo for that time period? Nothing.

Of course, this is the same BBC that used the same menu music for every DVD, regardless of which Doctor it was.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Frame rate conversion? From 1080i 50i to 60i, or even 24fps 1080p.

It will be 50i to 60i for the US, according to a post in the US thread. I hope so. Not sure if I'm going with the UK or US set yet, as I live in the US, but if it was 24fps the obvious choice would be the UK set. Thankfully it sounds like they're doing this right (except for the logo).

[calico]

Originally Posted by mar3o

It will be 50i to 60i for the US, according to a post in the US thread. I hope so. Not sure if I'm going with the UK or US set yet, as I live in the US, but if it was 24fps the obvious choice would be the UK set. Thankfully it sounds like they're doing this right (except for the logo).

Yeah, this was confirmed by Steve Roberts.

[Martoto]

I'm fine with the logo. You'll see the ones contemporary with the series at hand plenty of times. Don't worry. The new ones as good as we've had in the past wee while. Maybe not as good as the Tardis monogram though.

[Tornado Verde]

Logo, schmogo. Who's going to notice, your mum, the cleaner? This is a great set and one of my fave Who seasons. Even though I have all of season 12 on DVD, I'm still going to get this and I hope it does well enough to secure future collections.

[Martoto]

Originally Posted by Tornado Verde

Logo, schmogo. Who's going to notice, your mum, the cleaner? This is a great set and one of my fave Who seasons. Even though I have all of season 12 on DVD, I'm still going to get this and I hope it does well enough to secure future collections.

But they used a new logo that's not the same as all the previous logos that are different from each other. Do they even care or understand what it is that that they're always supposed to, and have always done? Even when they've done different things like this down through the years?

[Bobbyjoe766]

Screw the logo. The '70's diamond would have been ideal, but I can live without it.

I'm more concerned about the bonus features (and all the Easter eggs). I hope nothing is left out - by accident or design.

As others here very probably own this season (and others) already - as I do, I am looking forward to getting this. Along with (hopefully) seasons 13 & 14.

[calico]

Originally Posted by Bobbyjoe766

Screw the logo. The '70's diamond would have been ideal, but I can live without it.

I'm more concerned about the bonus features (and all the Easter eggs). I hope nothing is left out - by accident or design.

As others here very probably own this season (and others) already - as I do, I am looking forward to getting this. Along with (hopefully) seasons 13 & 14.

One thing they've confirmed about the old special features, is that they will be moved to the most relevant set. Sometimes in the DVD range, they would cram in an extra about a somewhat more off topic era. So, that will be optimized. I think that's the way to go, even if it means not always having a 1:1 representation of the same DVDs of a given set.

[Fnord Prefect]

Originally Posted by mar3o

Agreed. The new logo looks really off for the Tom Baker years. What's wrong with the proper Logo for that time period? Nothing.

Of course, this is the same BBC that used the same menu music for every DVD, regardless of which Doctor it was.

As fond as we all are of it the diamond logo is from a design perspective pretty dated and crude. For that simple reason they were never going to use it on the standard packaging. Better to "offend" the fans of the old show who'll buy it anyway than alienate fans of New Who.

[mar3o]

Hmm, the issue with the extras being moved to later releases is for those that want to part with their DVDs, or don't own all of the stories for a given season, moving the extras means you won't have all the extras that were originally included on the DVDs. If it's an extra that was relevant for a much later season, that could mean waiting years for that extra to re-appear (or maybe never if they stop the blu-ray releases before issuing all the seasons). So if you part with the old DVDs now, you will lose some of those extras until they decide to release them in a later set, if at all. I'd rather they just included all the extras as they appeared on the DVDs.

Something else that I always worry a bit about with carrying extras over - I've seen blu-rays where the extras actually look better on the original DVDs, due to either wonky frame rate conversion for the extras, or high compression on the blu-ray to save space, where they were actually given a bit more room to breath on the old DVDs. I hope the extras look good on these blu-ray releases. Some will want to part with their DVDs to be able to afford these blu-ray sets, and it would be a shame if the extras end up looking worse. The extras hold a lot of value for many fans for Doctor Who. It's not just fluff. It ranges from tons of behind-the-scenes shots, test effects and miniatures shots, loads of interviews, and then-and-now location footage.

[DrWally]

To be really picky, Terror of the Zygons IS the final story of Season 12 in production terms if not broadcast terms, so it's a pity that it's not included with the set. I hope Season 13 gets released too.