Your thoughts on the end of the DVD releases in sight

[Candlelight]

With less than two years to go before the planned end of the classic series on DVD, how are you feeling? Relieved? Sad? Wanting the entire series uprezed and re-released on Blu-Ray?

With DVD being the last likely format for standard definition programming for the consumer market (ignoring digital downloads) this will probably be the last full on release of Doctor Who which began with LPs, then VHS and Beta releases and now DVDs.

Just making conversation.

 

[Mr Pointy Ears]

damn,i m just starting to get the classic series on dvd,wont be able to get them all now.

 

[Chaos Descending]

damn,i m just starting to get the classic series on dvd,wont be able to get them all now.

???

Why not?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

If you asked me a few years ago, I would be saddened by the end of the era. However, I finally got on the Big Finish band wagon two years ago and that's been a major focus for me, both financially and on an entertainment level. Since getting into Big Finish, I've only bought a small handful of DVDs (most notably the Black Guardian trilogy and The War Games) and I'm only anxiously awaiting a few more releases: The Face of Evil, Terror of the Zygons, and The Reign of Terror.

Eventually, I'll fill up the entire DVD library but right now my focus is on the audio plays.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Relieved. It should save me a good 10 or 20 quid a month!

 

[Cutter John]

I'll be quite pleased, knowing that al the surviving stories are easily available to anyone.

Also, that I have a lot of catching up to do.

 

[23skidoo]

The DVD format isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It was supposed to be replaced by Blu-ray but that simply hasn't happened because it's not practical to release low-resolution shows like DW in the high-def format (there is only one single story that can be released in high-def from the classic series and that's Spearhead from Space which was shot totally on film). DVD also has the edge because it never needs "firmware upgrades". The format is likely to continue exiting alongside Blu-ray for the forseeable future. Not everyone wants temporary digital files or to watch everything on their computer. So there will always be a market. Like books and CDs I do expect that it'll become a strictly mail-order market in the coming years, grant you, but they'll be out there. And when the "Cloud" crashes, and people start getting "usage-based surcharges" on their Internet bills (which are coming here in Canada), and all that, I'm confident physical media will out in the end.

A lot of folks, myself included, are following a statement made by Steve Roberts of the Restoration Team back in 2009 that the DVD line will end in November 2013. But since then I have heard nothing to suggest this will actually happen. Now, naturally it is likely that all complete stories will indeed be released by then, since there's only about 10 left and all but one or two have been scheduled for 2012. So that leaves the incomplete stories. And I still think there's a market for restoration via animation of missing episodes. We have Reign of Terror coming up, and it'll be dead easy to animate the one missing episode of The Tenth Planet so we have the first regeneration story. Couple the prospect of more stories being restored (you tell me there wouldn't be a big market for Marco Polo or a complete Daleks Master Plan), coupled with the "Revisitations" of older titles, and I could easily see the DVD range continuing into 2014 and beyond as long as there's a market for it.

And I still think it's only a matter of time before someone figures out a way to satisfactorily upgrade lower-resolution video and film elements, at which point we'll start seeing Blu-ray releases of classic-era stories.

Alex

 

[Candlelight]

The DVD format isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It was supposed to be replaced by Blu-ray but that simply hasn't happened because it's not practical to release low-resolution shows like DW in the high-def format (there is only one single story that can be released in high-def from the classic series and that's Spearhead from Space which was shot totally on film). DVD also has the edge because it never needs "firmware upgrades". The format is likely to continue exiting alongside Blu-ray for the forseeable future. Not everyone wants temporary digital files or to watch everything on their computer. So there will always be a market. Like books and CDs I do expect that it'll become a strictly mail-order market in the coming years, grant you, but they'll be out there. And when the "Cloud" crashes, and people start getting "usage-based surcharges" on their Internet bills (which are coming here in Canada), and all that, I'm confident physical media will out in the end.

A lot of folks, myself included, are following a statement made by Steve Roberts of the Restoration Team back in 2009 that the DVD line will end in November 2013. But since then I have heard nothing to suggest this will actually happen. Now, naturally it is likely that all complete stories will indeed be released by then, since there's only about 10 left and all but one or two have been scheduled for 2012. So that leaves the incomplete stories. And I still think there's a market for restoration via animation of missing episodes. We have Reign of Terror coming up, and it'll be dead easy to animate the one missing episode of The Tenth Planet so we have the first regeneration story. Couple the prospect of more stories being restored (you tell me there wouldn't be a big market for Marco Polo or a complete Daleks Master Plan), coupled with the "Revisitations" of older titles, and I could easily see the DVD range continuing into 2014 and beyond as long as there's a market for it.

And I still think it's only a matter of time before someone figures out a way to satisfactorily upgrade lower-resolution video and film elements, at which point we'll start seeing Blu-ray releases of classic-era stories.

Alex

I wasn't implying the format was dying off, merely the number of shows to be released is fast dropping, which you mention later in your post.

Have the Revisitation sets been selling well? Will 2Entertain continue to fund rehashed stories? I guess it is a way of extending the show's DVD lifespan.

And yes, recreating the lost episodes should (hopefully) continue to get cheaper.

Plus we'll have a large missing episode discovery that'll need releasing at some point too...

 

[The Wormhole]

I've only been collecting classic series on DVD for a little over a year now, but damn, I've already obtained 51 of them. I've been buying the new releases each month, plus I've been ordering a steady stream of previous releases online.

So I don't care that they're nearly done releasing the classic era on DVD, because for me the journey will go on for awhile yet.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I needs me some more Patrick Troughton! Bring on the animated reconstructions! (Certain audios might benefit from animated versions as well.)

 

[Stevil2001]

I am so dang far behind that this news is completely irrelevant to me.

 

[zarkon]

I'd hope it would contine with animated recons and revists, both of which I'd be interested in.

Been a fun ride though - I've loved the retrospects they've been putting on most of the dvd's, as well as the chance to see Invasion in its entiriety with the animated recon.

 

[The Wormhole]

The animated recontstruction of The Invasion was awesome! Makes me wish they'd do more. Bring on Reign of Terror!

 

[ATimson]

The DVD format isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It was supposed to be replaced by Blu-ray but that simply hasn't happened because it's not practical to release low-resolution shows like DW in the high-def format (there is only one single story that can be released in high-def from the classic series and that's Spearhead from Space which was shot totally on film).

Hi-def versions aren't practical. Theoretically they could release SD versions with much nicer encodes than the crappy MPEG-2 that DVD requires (and fewer discs), but supposedly there's licensing restrictions preventing the main program on a Blu-ray from being SD content.

 

[Captain Crow]

The DVD format isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It was supposed to be replaced by Blu-ray but that simply hasn't happened because it's not practical to release low-resolution shows like DW in the high-def format...
Alex

Blu-ray is a storage medium not an image format. You can put whatever the heck you want to on it.

...(there is only one single story that can be released in high-def from the classic series and that's Spearhead from Space which was shot totally on film).

Uh, being shot on film does not make it automaticaly HD compliant. They used cheap film stock so it's still a low quality picture.

 

[Candlelight]

The DVD format isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It was supposed to be replaced by Blu-ray but that simply hasn't happened because it's not practical to release low-resolution shows like DW in the high-def format...
Alex

Blu-ray is a storage medium not an image format. You can put whatever the heck you want to on it.

...(there is only one single story that can be released in high-def from the classic series and that's Spearhead from Space which was shot totally on film).

Uh, being shot on film does not make it automaticaly HD compliant. They used cheap film stock so it's still a low quality picture.

Blowing up 405 line material to 1080 will look a bit iffy. Being natively on film makes Spearhead the best option for a Blu-Ray release as it's not constrained by video line structures.

 

[Captain Crow]

Blowing up 405 line material to 1080 will look a bit iffy.

You just leave them in SD. They're going to look iffy on a modern TV anyway, no matter how much you try to up convert them. They where made when the standard was 4:3 CRT ranging from around 5 to 24 inches big, not 50 inch plus 16:9 LCDs and plasmas.

 

[Candlelight]

Blowing up 405 line material to 1080 will look a bit iffy.

You just leave them in SD. They're going to look iffy on a modern TV anyway, no matter how much you try to up convert them.

So... what's the point? Yes Blu-Ray is a storage medium first and foremost but it's associated with HD. Releasing shows on Blu-Ray as SD is pointless; just stick with DVD! You could do entire seasons on Blu-Ray if you wanted to cut down on the number of discs in a box set but why bother.

 

[Candlelight]

For me I currently don't own any DVDs. I sold mine off to pay for bills, and they hadn't been watched much anyway. Heck I haven't watched much of the rest of my DVD collection in ages. Babies and a small house does that to you!

If I were to go back to having a collection it wouldn't be a major set, maybe 30 titles in total. I'd get all the Dalek & Cybermen releases (including any associate titles that I'd have to buy, such as The Space Museum coming with The Chase), plus a few others I consider favourites (Lost in Time, The Ark & Inferno to name a few). But I wouldn't go much beyond that. I'm a fan but I wouldn't have time to rewatch the whole show again, and don't like having stuff sitting on the shelf when it could go to someone else who would watch them more often than me.

 

[ATimson]

Releasing shows on Blu-Ray as SD is pointless; just stick with DVD! You could do entire seasons on Blu-Ray if you wanted to cut down on the number of discs in a box set but why bother.

In addition to cutting down the number of discs, it'll still look better than DVD (assuming they encode in AVC or VC-1, which is the default for the last 5+ years) because of the much better compression algorithm available.