7 Season Bluray set question

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Did anyone pick this up?

I was looking for a box-set of the Matt Smith era, been holding off on buying the overpriced single seasons (or even half seasons) in the hope of getting the Eleventh Doctor era up to at least Day of the Doctor in one swoop for a more reasonable price.
Apparently there is no such thing, but a Box set including all of nu-Who up to Name of the Doctor (which would mean I need to get Day of.. and Time of... separately again.


I would consider this if the Eccleston/Tennant era is an improvement in quality over the DVDs which I also have in 2 box sets up to End of Time already.

Has anyone compared the DVDs to the blurays?

I assume they could have remastered the older episodes, but probably just upscaled them somehow.

 

[3chordboy]

the first four series have just been upscaled sadly, no proper remastering

 

[Timby]

the first four series have just been upscaled sadly, no proper remastering

It's not a matter of "proper remastering" -- Doctor Who wasn't filmed in high definition until "Planet of the Dead." There's nothing to remaster; upscaling is all they can do.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Which begs the question if the upscaled episodes gain in quality or are at the very least on par with the DVDs.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

the first four series have just been upscaled sadly, no proper remastering

It's not a matter of "proper remastering" -- Doctor Who wasn't filmed in high definition until "Planet of the Dead." There's nothing to remaster; upscaling is all they can do.

It also wasn't filed on...film, right?

 

[Mr. Adventure]

For us in the US, PAL has a higher resolution than NTSC (576 vs 480) so upscaling would have more to work with so it might make for a better picture than the DVD (depending how the magic upscaling algorithms work).

 

[MickJo1701]

the first four series have just been upscaled sadly, no proper remastering

It's not a matter of "proper remastering" -- Doctor Who wasn't filmed in high definition until "Planet of the Dead." There's nothing to remaster; upscaling is all they can do.

It also wasn't filed on...film, right?

Nope, its all been filmed on digital video. Its a shame the first 4 series were recorded in 576 when it was very clear even in 2005 that HDTV was the way forward.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

It also wasn't filed on...film, right?

Nope, its all been filmed on digital video. Its a shame the first 4 series were recorded in 576 when it was very clear even in 2005 that HDTV was the way forward.

That was one of the reasons Sci-Fi passed on the series on 2005 when the BBC first offered it. The main reason was price (Worldwide wanted a lot of money for Doctor Who from an American network), but the visuals were also a factor.

 

[Aldo]

I'm not sure how much of an issue this is, but according to reviews on Amazon their seems to be a few blunders with the sets. Like one set will have two discs of a season and leave out another season entirely.

 

[ATimson]

I'm not sure how much of an issue this is, but according to reviews on Amazon their seems to be a few blunders with the sets. Like one set will have two discs of a season and leave out another season entirely.

Manufacturing issues are nothing new in the world of round shiny discs.

For what it's worth, my set was fine.

 

[Lance]

For us in the US, PAL has a higher resolution than NTSC (576 vs 480) so upscaling would have more to work with so it might make for a better picture than the DVD.

This is the crux of it. It depends where you are.

If you're in America, then the Blu Rays are a significant improvement over the Region 1 DVDs, because they circumvent the problems of a PAL/NTSC conversion that was necessary for DVDs. So what you're getting on Blu Ray is for the first time a more 'pure' version of Series 1-4. I've compared the S1-4 Blu Rays side-by-side to the Region 1 DVDs of same and the difference is palpable.

PAL regions however (UK/EU/AUS etc) will see no quantifiable benefit in their Blu Rays whatsoever, as they are effectively not going to be much better than the existing PAL source (which was always better than the NTSC Region 1 versions anyway, even on DVD).