What's the point of the Revisitations Box Set?

[Candlelight]

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_BBC_DVD_releases

Planned for sometime this year.

I mean, when there's still over 30 titles yet to be announced for released I don't see why going back and redoing stories already released has merit.

At least reconstruction specialists Loose Cannon waited until their entire line was out before going back and redoing old releases.

 

[StCoop]

(a) It's not taking away any slots from new releases.

(b) Better picture quality. Talons for one is very noisy.

(c) More extras to some of the early releases.

(d) And as always no one's forced to buy anything.

 

[Captain Pike]

If, by some miracle, this makes it to the shores of Oz with The Movie included I'll buy it.

 

[Phillip Culley]

At least reconstruction specialists Loose Cannon waited until their entire line was out before going back and redoing old releases.

Are you sure about that? The first re-release (The Macra Terror) came out before Abominable Snowmen, Evil of the Daleks and the still unreleased Web of Fear and Wheel in Space. In fact they've re-released 7 stories (with at least one more to come - the next one appears to be The Crusade) and there are still unreleased stories!

 

[shadowedgalaxy]

What about the best episode ever, The Happiness Patrol?

 

[Mr. Sin]

It'd be cool to see Tomb of The Cybermen get the "Vidfire" treatment, which I think is the only B & W story that didn't get that treatment.

 

[Candlelight]

At least reconstruction specialists Loose Cannon waited until their entire line was out before going back and redoing old releases.

Are you sure about that? The first re-release (The Macra Terror) came out before Abominable Snowmen, Evil of the Daleks and the still unreleased Web of Fear and Wheel in Space. In fact they've re-released 7 stories (with at least one more to come - the next one appears to be The Crusade) and there are still unreleased stories!

Just checked - I honestly thought they'd finished them!

 

[Candlelight]

(a) It's not taking away any slots from new releases.

(b) Better picture quality. Talons for one is very noisy.

(c) More extras to some of the early releases.

These three points are slightly contradictory; if Talons needs to be redone that means back in the edit suite (or wherever they do their restoration work), a new grading pass, a new master struck, a new printing run of DVDs.

It may be additional to the schedule but that time could've been used to release a Davison two parter for example.

 

[rramarr]

The point is they think a lot of fans will buy it. They don't care about missing episodes, better quality, etc.,

 

[VDCNI]

I think they've found box sets sell better so they're probably trying to take advantage of that. It helps that Caves & Talons were in the top 5 stories of all time in the DWM poll so a good way to try and push the range to new series fans.

That said I thought Spearheads & Robots would be in this release - they had almost no extras on them before. Now that Tom Baker seems much keener to do commentaries I hope he will be on Talons this time round.

If they had this in the pipeline I'm not sure why they chose to rerelase Remembrance on its own though.

 

[23skidoo]

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_BBC_DVD_releases

Planned for sometime this year.

I mean, when there's still over 30 titles yet to be announced for released I don't see why going back and redoing stories already released has merit.

At least reconstruction specialists Loose Cannon waited until their entire line was out before going back and redoing old releases.

You can't compare professionals to amateurs. The Loose Cannon people do a great job, but they don't have the resources available that the BBC has.

The reason for the revisitation is simple: the discs being redone were issued years ago, to begin with, and since they came out the people buying the BBC Video releases have become more demanding in what they expect for both picture quality and bonus features. Therefore the ones being redone are those the fans have been demanding to see redone. Talons was pretty sucky when it came to picture and sound.

It's not the first time this has happened. The Key to Time season was reissued in a far superior edition than the original releases. The Five Doctors was reissued in part due to fan demand that the original version be made available on DVD. And Remembrance of the Daleks was also redone.

There are about a dozen other releases I hope -- and in fact, expect -- to see reissued with improved sound quality and extras. In particular any 1960s era stories issued prior to the VidFire process being introduced (Tomb of the Cybermen, for example) I would expect to see reissued.

I don't see what the great sin is in doing this. Maybe I just make too much money ( - take sarcastically) for it to bug me. I'm willing to buy a new edition again if the episode is of interest and the contents are of interest. And if BBC Video down the line manages to figure out how to upconvert these old episodes to high def and start putting out the Blu-Rays, I will probably buy them again, too. It's no different than buying a new edition of a book.

I'm not a fan of double dipping within a few months or a year of a release (see, for example, Sin City and Watchmen) but once a few years pass, as far as I'm concerned the statute of limitations comes into effect. The Five Doctors, for example, was first released to DVD back around 1999 or 2000. Talons was issued back in either 2003 or 2004. Do the math.

Steve Roberts is quoted by DWIN.org as saying BBC Video plans to keep issuing classic series DVDs up until the 50th anniversary in November 2013. There aren't that many available stories, so there will be more reissues between now and then.

I only wish the BBC would buy out Universal's claim on the TV movie so we could finally get that made available in Region 1.

Alex

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Count me in as another fan who seriously hopes that someone will get off their ass and release the 1996 Paul McGann movie in R1. I don't care whether the BBC buys out Universal's rights or Universal decides to release it on their own. Just somebody do something!

If they had this in the pipeline I'm not sure why they chose to rerelase Remembrance on its own though.

IIRC, it was supposed to be rereleased as part of a Davros box set with "Genesis," "Destiny," "Resurrection," & "Revelation." Unfortunately, the Davros box set ended up being cancelled (at least in R1) due to music rights issues relating to a Beatles song in the special edition of "Remembrance of the Daleks." Instead, all the Davros episodes ended up being released separately.

With the new emphasis on box sets, I wish that, once all of the episodes in a season were out & remastered & everything, they would start putting out some complete season sets. In nice, slim packaging, if you please. Doctor Who is a terrible burden on my shelf-space otherwise. So far, the only actual seasons available are Season 16 (the Key to Time arc) & Season 23 ("Trial of a Time Lord").

 

[Rarewolf]

IIRC, it was supposed to be rereleased as part of a Davros box set with "Genesis," "Destiny," "Resurrection," & "Revelation." Unfortunately, the Davros box set ended up being cancelled (at least in R1) due to music rights issues relating to a Beatles song in the special edition of "Remembrance of the Daleks." Instead, all the Davros episodes ended up being released separately.

An international verison was prepped at the same time, that's not why the set was cancelled.

The Davros set was released in the UK at the same time as the last Davros story - Destiny - made it's DVD debut. As this set would include one of the first - Remembrance (which suffered a missed FX shot anyway) - the restoration team argued to bring it up to more recent standards of extras and fix the fault. They won that arguement.

As it happened the decoding process had improved anyway, so working for free they remastered it from scratch.

Robots Of Death and Spearhead will happen again, sales of the first set permitting - extras have already been done. Tom and Louise did a commentary for the former. Though Spearhead may reach BluRay instead/as well. As it was made on film its the only complete story that would really be worth releasing in HD.