Wiped Episode Discoveries

[diankra]

I'd say that tweet can be translated as "DWM has stirred up a hornet's nest, so we've got to issue a reply, but there isn't actually anything to say, so here's something a bit vague that doesn't commit us to anything. That'll calm things down, won't it? (Not that I know much about Doctor Who fans, but...)"

 

[DWF]

Just when you thought this was all over...

"We're hoping to release more Classic Doctor Who and we'll let you know when we have news."
- BBC Worldwide, Twitter, 5:46 am 26 Jun 2015

So now Auntie Beeb herself is stirring the pot. Big Finish already dropped their bombshell this morning, so that's not connected to this tweet.

I'd like to think that they're considering the possibility of season boxed sets.

I suspect it'll be blu-ray season sets of at least some of the complete seasons.

Except for Spearhead From Space I doubt if the rest of the series can converted that easily to blu-ray.

 

[Relayer1]

I'd be surprised at Blurays - there's not that much that's suitable.

HD needs good quality source material. Even if the originals are on well preserved film (and it would have to be), it'll show up the set production values of the time rather badly. These shows were never meant for that kind of clarity of reproduction.

Even TNG falls foul of that sometimes, and that was an expensive production...

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I suspect it'll be blu-ray season sets of at least some of the complete seasons.

Except for Spearhead From Space I doubt if the rest of the series can converted that easily to blu-ray.

Storage capacity, maybe? You're right, none of pre-2009 Doctor Who except for "Spearhead" is HD-quality. But they can fit a heck of a lot of SD episodes on a Blu-Ray disc.

 

[Relayer1]

Storage capacity, maybe? You're right, none of pre-2009 Doctor Who except for "Spearhead" is HD-quality. But they can fit a heck of a lot of SD episodes on a Blu-Ray disc.

True, but Bluray's haven't really caught on.

The world's full of people happy (or unaware) that they're watching SD on their new HD TV's. Nearly everyone has a DVD player, it's still the main carrier for video. Not many have a Bluray machine and those that do want HD. I'd think the market for SD reproduction on Bluray media was pretty small. I can't think of an example at the moment...

 

[StalwartUK]

Too bad they don't make The Underwater Menace a limited edition release, exclusive to bbcshop.com or something. I mean they had the cover art prepared and special features ready to go.

If they want to make it more attractive they could always stick on The Curse of Fatal Death. Wonder why that never got a DVD release (it did on VHS).

 

[Lonemagpie]

I suspect it'll be blu-ray season sets of at least some of the complete seasons.

Except for Spearhead From Space I doubt if the rest of the series can converted that easily to blu-ray.

Storage capacity, maybe? You're right, none of pre-2009 Doctor Who except for "Spearhead" is HD-quality. But they can fit a heck of a lot of SD episodes on a Blu-Ray disc.

Yep - I can see them wanting to do that with either seasons, or themed collections, and they know people like the saving on shelf space.

 

[Mr Awe]

I suspect it'll be blu-ray season sets of at least some of the complete seasons.

Except for Spearhead From Space I doubt if the rest of the series can converted that easily to blu-ray.

Storage capacity, maybe? You're right, none of pre-2009 Doctor Who except for "Spearhead" is HD-quality. But they can fit a heck of a lot of SD episodes on a Blu-Ray disc.

That would be my take on the rationale for Blu-ray. You could fit a whole bunch of DW into a small space!

Mr Awe

 

[Mr Awe]

I'd say that tweet can be translated as "DWM has stirred up a hornet's nest, so we've got to issue a reply, but there isn't actually anything to say, so here's something a bit vague that doesn't commit us to anything. That'll calm things down, won't it? (Not that I know much about Doctor Who fans, but...)"

Except that type of statement is only going to stir things up, not settle them down!

Mr Awe

 

[Doctorwhovian]

Some of the stories such as Five Doctors, Day of the Daleks, Earthshock etc. had optional reworked effects, in some cases put into the film parts. However, I'm guessing that like with Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's edition the FX were done solely at DVD resolution and would be hard to put in HD.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Some of the stories such as Five Doctors, Day of the Daleks, Earthshock etc. had optional reworked effects, in some cases put into the film parts. However, I'm guessing that like with Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's edition the FX were done solely at DVD resolution and would be hard to put in HD.

The redone effects aren't an issue. The basic problem is that you can't put any of the classic series into HD, except for "Spearhead" which was shot on film. The rest of the series is part film and mostly video, and video doesn't have the resolution for HD. There's simply not enough data to work with.

I'm not sure how the Blu-Ray releases of the first four seasons of the new series worked, as they weren't filmed in HD.

 

[Christopher]

The redone effects aren't an issue. The basic problem is that you can't put any of the classic series into HD, except for "Spearhead" which was shot on film. The rest of the series is part film and mostly video, and video doesn't have the resolution for HD. There's simply not enough data to work with.

Isn't there something called "upconversion" that's used to improve the clarity of SD video? How well/poorly does that work?

I'm pretty amazed by the "Vidfire" process used in restoring degraded film copies of DW episodes and giving them video clarity. And then there's that technique they used to tease out the tiny bit of color data in the black-and-white copies of a couple of Pertwee episodes and recreate the color. If they could do that with limited data, it seems to me that it must be theoretically possible to upgrade the clarity of SD video.

 

[diankra]

I'd say that tweet can be translated as "DWM has stirred up a hornet's nest, so we've got to issue a reply, but there isn't actually anything to say, so here's something a bit vague that doesn't commit us to anything. That'll calm things down, won't it? (Not that I know much about Doctor Who fans, but...)"

Except that type of statement is only going to stir things up, not settle them down!

Mr Awe

Sort of my point - the person tweeting doesn't realise that fans desperate to believe that there are missing episodes out there will interpret anything like that as a hint!

 

[diankra]

The redone effects aren't an issue. The basic problem is that you can't put any of the classic series into HD, except for "Spearhead" which was shot on film. The rest of the series is part film and mostly video, and video doesn't have the resolution for HD. There's simply not enough data to work with.

Isn't there something called "upconversion" that's used to improve the clarity of SD video? How well/poorly does that work?

I'm pretty amazed by the "Vidfire" process used in restoring degraded film copies of DW episodes and giving them video clarity. And then there's that technique they used to tease out the tiny bit of color data in the black-and-white copies of a couple of Pertwee episodes and recreate the color. If they could do that with limited data, it seems to me that it must be theoretically possible to upgrade the clarity of SD video.

Point is that the data was there, however distorted it was as speckled echoes, or info split across frames. But there's no way to increase the resolution beyond that originally shot - 377 lines in the case of what are officially called 405-line recordings, 576 for PAL.

In theory you could interpret the the missing detail between the lines, which is in a sense what Vidfire and the r-NTSC techniques are doing, but in those cases you're only adding a single step between each frame, or approx one line in five to convert the 486 lines of NTSC back to the 576 lines of PAL (the main improvement in r-NTSC over older techniques though is that it successfully discards the extra frames added to convert 25fps to 30fps).

To upgrade 405/PAL to HD you're adding up to three lines to every existing one (five if the only surviving copy is suppressed field)... it's going to look odd.

 

[Nightowl1701]

A person on the Planet Mondas forum (Handle: Rockfordbeckett) posted some interesting thoughts I think are well worth considering.

Spoiler: Tagged mainly for length. [ ] additions and italics are my own.

The one thing that baffles me with this whole situation - and I suppose gives me hope that there is more to come - is that if [Philip] Morris is anything other than a totally straight up guy, then why did he hand over his entire haul for the 50th [Anniversary]?

All the views that he is a hoaxer, limelight lover or con man don't seem to fit these actions. If any of these views were true, then surely all he needed to do was hand over a few of the 9 episodes or 1 of the stories at most, while keeping the rest for a further reveal at a later date. The choice of stories is quite interesting too, with [The Web of Fear] probably being top of fans most wanted list and [The Enemy of the World] turning out to be one of the most underrated gems ever. Quite a lucky find, then, if this is all he got from 10 years of searching? If another story was returned today, would we all still think he didn't have anymore?

If on the other hand he is a genuine guy, with the fans best interests at heart, and handed over everything he had, then all of his teases that have come since should perhaps be looked on in a more favourable light. If all he could find was these 9 episodes, then by now you would think he would have come clean and be making a tidy income from the convention circuit.

I think there must be something stopping all parties speaking openly about the missing episodes, and the only thing that would realistically fit this blanket silence is that some sort of negotiations are ongoing [to return more episodes]. Morris comes across to me as someone who is frustrated that he can't say more about the situation and has his hands tied. Why would this be if he isn't under some sort of non -disclosure agreement? The whole NDA situation around the last recoveries seemed very strange. Would there be that much security around nine 1960s episodes being released in a few months time if that is all that was involved?

Something that never gets mentioned is who the "higher powers" that would deal with this at the BBC actually are. I'm assuming there isn't a 'Department For Covering Up The Existence Of Missing Who Episodes' at the BBC, so there must be someone in [a] regular job role who deals with this?

If what has been announced is the total sum of the search, then so be it, but the secrecy and unusual behaviour still being shown by all parties makes me think the story isn't quite finished.

 

[NightJim]

I get the thinking there, but not all of the logic. The theory seems to revolve around the idea that he was bigging up a larger release, but then admits that the episodes returned are one of the most wanted by fans and an underrated gem.

Now if the BBC were going big for the 50th, the (theoretical) rest of his find might just be odds and sods that don't complete anything. Imagine if it was one episode of Marco Polo, Myth Makers, etc. Those that are entirely missing at the minute. At the best they could knock one off Daleks' Masterplan or The Abominable Snowmen.

The market for old episodes is pretty niche. Those for unfinished serials is even smaller. What are the BBC going to do with the odd episode?

If that is the case, it's not worth their money, and they might decide to just rely on Morris handing them back when he realises there's nothing more to do. Or the incredibly unlikely event that maybe he finds a few more to round some out.

 

[starsuperion]

who are these people anyways??? are they sitting on old episodes and just releasing them on a slow leak to try to milk as much as they can get?? I mean, it seems like that is the case.. few here, few there. they may have more then they are implying, or they may have less, and want the BBC and others to think they have more.. some of these are probably people who had family or those in the industry who made copies, or even lifted ones returned from other countries.. I wouldn't doubt it. back in the day it would have been easy to just say, hey, the package never came.. something happened to the shipment, and the film was damaged by water, or some other such lie.. all in an effort to keep their own copy..

it isn't beyond the realm of possibility for some collector out there to snag copies of originally broadcast episodes back then and hold on to them, especially considering the time frame was around Whovian and Dalekmania.. (there was a definite indication during that era, including a Big Budget 1960's Movie) would make some people hold on to those film or copies for their own future investment.

 

[Mr Awe]

^ Chances are that no one currently has any missing episodes in their collections.

Mr Awe

 

[Relayer1]

^ Chances are that no one currently has any missing episodes in their collections.

Mr Awe

I think there's always the chance of an a**hole or two sitting on stuff because 'F.U., I've got it and you aint !'

 

[mythme]

There's always that oddball chance. Just like those two episodes of "Daleks' Master Plan (I believe it was that one) that were found in a church basement. No one knows how or why they got there there.