I wasn't going to believe this until I had a copy in my hands and now I have.
All episodes of series one uncut with one un-noticable minor edit of a piece of music.
I can finally lay my VHS and Satellite recordings to rest.
Tagged: Commercial Release
This week I took delivery of my latest copy of Genesis Of The Daleks. This release is from the Vintage Beeb range which is releasing classic albums first available as BBC LPs, now reissued on CD, as advertised on the CD's notes.
So how many copies of Genesis Of The Daleks, and in what formats, do I have?
So that makes eight; the most copies of a single programme that I own and I don't suppose it will be the last either.
Tagged: Commercial Release / Doctor Who
Last month I bought a DVD of Gerry Anderson's little-seen puppet/live action series The Secret Service. It was the one series of Anderson's colour output that I had never seen.
VHS tapes of this series were available in the mid-90s but at £10 for four episodes (£30 for the series), and me trying to keep up with so many other releases, The Secret Service was never picked.
However, I happened across Network's Gerry Anderson sale in January and bought the DVD release, brand new, for £5.99. Bargain!
But the biggest bargain that I have ever bought, in comparison to the VHS days, was a release of another Gerry Anderson series Thunderbirds. To collect the whole series when Channel Five video released them in the late 80s, thirty-two episodes on sixteen tapes at £10 per tape, would cost £160. That's over £300 in 2009 value
I bought the entire series of Thunderbirds in a DVD box-set for £20 in an HMV sale in 2010. Best high street bargain ever!
Tagged: Commercial Release
I recently did a review of my old blogs and found some articles that were left a little open ended. Now that we are in a new year, I thought I'd take this opportunity to do a review and update some of them:
BBC iPlayer And Stuttering Full-Screen Playback
(November 2008) When I first linked my Dell Inspiron 6500 to my LCD television, I was unable to play any video from the BBC's iPlayer in full screen as the playback was very stop-start.
Since then I have upgraded the RAM to 4gb from 2gb and the operating system from Windows Vista to Windows 7; the full screen playback is now perfect.
In fact, combined with Virgin's fibre optic broadband, my laptop has become the preferred hardware for playing on-lne video. One issue to overcome is that the laptop is not powerful enough to play HD content from the iPlayer but that is an issue for later.
BBC DVDs That You Can't Get Here But Can Over There
(October 2010) When I uploaded that original blog only series one and two of Silent Witness had been released in the UK. Now the UK releases have reached series eight. However, the Netherland releases are far in advance of this.
The newer UK releases have all been double-series box sets (three/four, five/six and seven/eight) but appear to have stalled again at the last release. Also, very annoyingly, series three was released with the picture at the wrong aspect but so was the Netherlands issue.
There is no sign of Daziel And Pascoe further than series two, in the UK, yet but, more interestingly, the rumour of a Netherlands release of series one of Shoestring has reared its head again. I'll believe that one when I hold a copy in my hand.
Television And Windows 7 Part Three (A Bit [rate] Of A Contradiction)
(Feburary 2010) Back then I was quite impressed with the recording capability of Windows Media Center (sic) and quite taken in by the quality of the recordings. A year later and I have hardly used this program for any capturing, only to watch a programme from time to time.
From the handfull of programmes I had recorded, I did notice a difference to the quality of the picture after all. It wasn't a large difference than from my normal recordings but it was enough to notice. This can still be a useful back-up.
So no contradiction after all!
I'd Like A Bigger Telly, Please!
(July 2010) Upon reflection, maybe I don't. My investigations into this has led me to the decision that a 32" screen is the optimum for the distance that I sit from the screen. In every larger televison I investigated, the SD picture looked horrible from two metres.
A full HD 1080p may happen soon but I can't see me getting a larger screen until I can either re-arrange my living room or get the loft converted into a cinema (like that's going to happen)!
Tagged: Commercial Release / Computer / Hardware
One has to wonder if it is ever worth the effort of getting into a new television series ever again.
After being recommended to me, and having missed this programme when it was broadcast, I ordered the first two series of ITV's The Fixer from Play.com. I had high hopes as this was made by Kudos, who make the fantastic Spooks, and I wasn't disappointed: gritty, tense and (thankfully) largely soapless.
So, having watched and enjoyed the first two series, I wanted to know when series three started (series two was broadcast in 2009). A short Google later gave me the answer: it doesn't. It's been axed. Yet another example of an enjoyable show prematurely thrown in the skip.
Why is there this insistance of cliffhanger endings when there is a chance that it won't continue?
Tagged: Commercial Release
This month, the latest Doctor Who DVD release, Revenge Of The Cybermen, dropped onto my doormat. This is of great significance to me as Revenge was the very first commercial VHS that I bought in 1984, twenty-six years ago (as described here).
I haven't seen this story since watching that first video cassette and part of me doesn't want to watch it again because I have this warm fuzzy memory of that first, almost ceremonial, occasion of playing my first purchased video tape.
Will a new viewing spoil that memory? Will I find it poor, now that I have seen so many more and better vintage Doctor Who stories?
Or will I still have that affection for the Doctor Who adventure that started off my video collection all those years ago?
Tagged: Video Collection / Commercial Release / Doctor Who
It has happened: I now own a Blu-Ray player. The machines might take a while to get going but the picture quality is well worth the up-grade; but I did have one issue to over-come first...
I have been collecting all of the Doctor Who DVDs (old and new series) and when it came to the box set of 2009's specials I did consider staying with the DVDs, even though it had been released on Blu-Ray, so that I would have a consistant format for the series.
I asked whether I should stick with DVD, or move up to Blu-Ray, on a TV/Radio forum and, although I wasn't the only person who thought this way, I was convinced to go with Blu-Ray. I soon had a copy of the Blu-Ray Doctor Who specials and was very glad that I did because the picture quality is superb.
Oddly, one of the specials included was "The Next Doctor" which wasn't filmed in High Definition. As a Blu-Ray it still looked like an upscaled DVD. However, that aside, from now on any television releases that I wish to have, and available in Blu-Ray, will be bought on that format. As the replies on the forum stated: it's the programme that I am collecting and not the format plus the better picture quality should always be the one to go for.
So when the releases of the new Doctor Who are out it will be Blu-Ray all the way.
My first Blu-Ray? Wallace And Gromit's "A Matter Of Loaf And Death".
Tagged: Commercial Release / Hardware
Whilst having a browse around ebay recently I happened accross a few BBC DVDs that have been produced for the Dutch market but are not available here in the UK (only via ebay or Amazon).
Now reading that last sentence back it would be fair to assume that these might be obscure or minority interest programmes but this is not the case; there are two BBC flagship dramas: Dalziel And Pascoe and Silent Witness.
Over in the Netherlands these enjoy complete series boxsets, having reached around series six/seven. In the UK these titles were both released up to series two but then stalled. One can only make the assumption that, in the UK, the sales of the initial releases didn't reach the required numbers so further releases were stopped.
Dalziel And Pascoe did enjoy a partwork (subscription) release but these were DVD by story and not series sets but I only ever saw this advertised once. Also, there was a proposed UK release for series three, which reached the pages of Play.com, but this never matialised.
However, for someone like me who does buy this sort of thing, this isn't too much of a problem when the Dutch versions are available on ebay and Amazon. As the description states on ebay, that all the DVDs play in English (Dutch subtitles can be switched off) and they are all coded Region 2. The only downside is that I can't imagine that the High Definition episodes of Silent Witness will ever enjoy releases on Blu-Ray.
It just seems odd that this situation has occured with two such heavy weight dramas and similar dramas, such as Waking The Dead and New Tricks, enjoy regular up to date UK releases.
Tagged: Commercial Release
Image from The Digital Fix forum's Thunderbirds Blu-Ray discussion.
I have talked a bit about Blu-Ray releases recently but there is one television release where there is a cause for concern; Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds. This programme, made in the 1960s, was filmed in 5:4 ratio and all subsequent releases, VHS and DVD, have been in this format. However, the Blue-Ray version has had the picture cropped top and bottom so that it is presented widescreen in 16:9.
It is funny how things turn fill circle; not so long ago when we all had 5:4 televisions and VCRs the vast majority of cinema VHS releases were in pan and scan or, to put another way, had the sides of the pictures cut off so that the picture would fill the screen. This is because the consumer wanted to have their television screen filled. However, we were quite used to this; for many years this is how a film would be broadcast by the television stations; only on rare occasions would a film be broadcast in widescreen (showing black bars at the top and bottom of the picture). There would be special widescreen VHS releases of some blockbuster movies - my VHS copies of the original Star Wars trilogy are in this manner - but these were not the norm.
Apparently, the opposite is now true; the average consumer now has a widescreen television and they want to have this screen filled too.
At a friend's house recently, I was horrified to discover that they watched all their old television DVD releases (made in 5:4) stretched to 16:9 widescreen. He thought that seeing black bars on either side of the picture was cutting off some of the picture but couldn't see that it made all the actors look short and fat! It is a little wonder as our high-street electrical retailers had been demonstrating widescreen televisions like this for years.
Just compare the three 5:4 images below as would be seen on a widescreen television:
The first picture (above) is correct for a 5:4 programme with black bars on either side of the picture. This picture is showing as it was originally intended to be seen for when 5:4 televisions were the standard.
The second picture (above) has been cropped at the top and bottom to create a widescreen version but when compared to the first picture it is apparent that part of the picture is lost! Is this how we are going to see all future vintage television releases on Blue-Ray? If so I'll stick to DVD!
The third picture (above) is stretched to make a 5:4 picture fill a 16:9 screen but the picture is distorted. When widescreen televisions first came out this is how nearly every electrical retailer would have their displays set up.
Tagged: Commercial Release / Doctor Who