February 7th, 2013
113 comments
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Classic Doctor Who DVD and Blu-ray releases confirmed
Classic Doctor Who DVD and Blu-ray releases confirmed
From the official site www.doctorwho.tv
Five enhanced Special Editions, a ‘reimagination’ and the first classic Doctor Who Blu-ray are amongst titles confirmed for release in 2013.
The Third Doctor’s first adventure, Spearhead from Space – which sees him battle the Autons and their masters, the Nestene Consciousness – will be released on Blu-ray in July. Due to industrial action, Spearhead is the only adventure of the 1963-89 run of the series to be made entirely on location film, which can be upscaled to Blu-ray HD.
June sees the long-awaited DVD debut of classic Fourth Doctor adventure Terror of the Zygons, with a extra sequences added to episode one; alongside gritty Third Doctor story The Mind of Evil, restored to full colour glory for the first time since the 1970s.
In August The Ice Warriors will be released, with the missing episodes two and three reconstructed using soundtrack and images, as on the 1998 VHS release.
And there will be further special editions of The Ark in Space, The Aztecs, The Visitation, Inferno and The Green Death, all of which were released early on in the Doctor Who DVD programme and missed out on improved remastering techniques and expanded special features.
The release schedule so far:
February 25: The Ark in Space: Special Edition
March 11: The Aztecs: Special Edition (plus Galaxy 4 reconstruction)
May 6: The Visitation: Special Edition
May 27: Inferno: Special Edition
June 3: The Mind of Evil
June 24: Terror of the Zygons
July 15: Spearhead from Space Blu-Ray
August 5: The Green Death: Special Edition
August 26: The Ice Warriors
September 16: Scream of the Shalka
(Note: these are Region 2 dates, Region 1 releases are normally a few days later. All dates are provisional and subject to change.)
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Doctor John Smith
March 27th, 2015 - 9:13pm“Due to industrial action, Spearhead is the only adventure of the 1963-89 run of the series to be made entirely on location film, which can be upscaled to Blu-ray HD.”
Upscaled is not quite the right term to use. Rather SCANED. Film as more information then any High Definition System today, so what they have to do is scan the film on 4K, for instance, and then downscale to 1080p for Bluray.
In the case of the episodes that were made on 2-Inch or 2-Inch tape the only solution is digitalize the 625-LINE PAL (what gives 576 lines verticaly) Tapes to 576i Digital File then upscale it to 1080i. And then de-interlace it, what gives 1080p ready for Bluray release.
This is for most of the colour episodes. As none of the B/W episodes survived on tapeonly on 16mm or 35mmm, they can be scanned on HD (they are only to aid digital restoration) and released on Bluray, but it will still look like and upscaled version, because they were filmed electronically onto 2-Inch tape. So what the DW Restoration Team does is releasing everything on DVD.
We have to wait possibly more 15 years, so technology will give us some other way to watch the Good Old Doctor Who on amazing High Definition (or Super-High Definition). Time will give us answers.
Kevin
December 3rd, 2013 - 4:19amIm pretty confused
Is Classic DOCTOR Who all being released on blu ray
I read ‘industrial action’ does his mean that it’s NOT getting released other than Spearhead from Space?? Please let me know
I have Mostly all on old VHS lol
Don’t really know of DVD is the route to go
The Greater Intelligence
April 8th, 2013 - 4:38pmOn Amazon here in America, it just put pages to pre-order all of these titles up. Because of the price right now, I have the four titles (Zygons, Mind, Inferno, Green) that aren’t animated; if I had a hundred dollars (they’re charged at $24.49 each), I’d totally buy them.
space1999
March 17th, 2013 - 9:15ammaybe on the ice warriors DVD it could come with the underwater menace episode 2 or the underwater menace could come out on DVD on animated
The TARDIS
February 13th, 2013 - 9:49amCome on BBC, stop doing all of these damned re-releases and get on with finishing off releasing everything else… And also, couldn’t they release Spearhead from Space alongside another release rather than propping up the main schedule for the month? Not everyone has a HD TV.
On a positive note though… The mind of evil, terror of the zygons, the ice warriors and scream of the shalka!!!
Gordon
February 13th, 2013 - 10:03amDoes not work like that. These revists give the remaining tricky stories more time to complete. Anyway they are getting on with releasing the remaining stories. Only episodes unreleased after shalka are tenth planet eps 1-3 and underwater menace ep2. Thats 4 eps in total left. More People would complain if spearhead blu ray was released with something else as some people that bought the box set would complain they cant play it because they can play the dvd disc but dont have an hdtv to watch the blu ray disc
The TARDIS
February 13th, 2013 - 10:48amI meant as a separate release but at the same time as another one to keep those of us without a bluray player happy in July. And I know what you mean by the special editions giving the time and I’m more than happy to buy them for better picture quality and special features, but I’d rather they were more evenly distributed. As it is, we just have a block of them.
Gordon
February 13th, 2013 - 11:19amIce warriors was delayed from april till august so it wasnt originally planned as a block.
Gordon
February 11th, 2013 - 9:44pmInferno Special edition up for preorder at bbc shop Released 27th may in the UK:
http://www.bbcshop.com/doctor-who/doctor-who-inferno-dvd/invt/bbcdvd3671/
also Visitation Special edition released 6th may in the uk
http://www.bbcshop.com/doctor-who/doctor-who-visitation/invt/bbcdvd3690/
josh smith
February 11th, 2013 - 5:40pmafter they finished shey should work on re coulering all episdoes they should start but the rescue i would defanlty buy episdoes in couler
Gordon
February 11th, 2013 - 9:40pmThat would require manual colouring as there are no chroma dots in 1960’s who episodes. Consider they could barely afford babelcolour do 1 ep of mind of evil its something i cant see hapening
josh smith
February 11th, 2013 - 5:33pmomg I cant buy many as I have a lot of others to catch up
but i am defiantly getting the mind of evil and visitation special as i don’t own the original
mambye inferno special as well
but why dont they just make a revisionist 4 it would make it a lot cheaper
Gordon
February 11th, 2013 - 9:36pmWhen they were doing the revisitation box sets of 1 2 and 3 there was no room on the schedule to release them seperatly which made sense to box them. Now there is only a couple of unreleased stories left to release there there is plenty of room on the schedule which makes sense to release them seperatly
Some bloke
February 11th, 2013 - 2:16pmI’ve just realised, there’s nothing coming out in april?
Gordon
February 11th, 2013 - 9:25pmGoing by the trailer on the aztecs se dvd it was supposed to be ice warriors but it has been pushed back 4 months to august for some reason
Some bloke
February 11th, 2013 - 9:31pmwill anything be released in its place?
Gordon
February 11th, 2013 - 9:36pmNothing else is ready
Classic Who Is Cool
February 8th, 2013 - 5:16pmTerror of the zygons YES ! mind of evil YES ! the ice warriors YES ! cant wait for terror of the zygons !
Mr Zarbi
February 8th, 2013 - 4:42pmSHALKA!
LG
February 8th, 2013 - 4:32pmI would rather wait to see a full animation on the ice warriors, this just feels like the bbc are copying loose canon
Gordon
February 9th, 2013 - 2:02amWell the article doesnt say its being animated but it doesnt say its not either. Just says its being released with the missing episodes 2 and 3 reconstructed using soundtrack and images as on the vhs release. Its inclusion has been anounced for some time so its not a suprise. That doesnt mean it will be on the main feature. Steve Roberts described it as simply “just a dvd extra” so that implies to me that something else is being planned for the main feature
drjakeyoung
February 8th, 2013 - 3:54pmha! noticed on the wiki list for dr who dvds it says “25 February 2013 or 8 April 2013” for the ark in space! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_DVD_and_Blu-ray_releases
drjakeyoung
February 8th, 2013 - 3:58pmeven they are confused!
Some bloke
February 8th, 2013 - 6:08pmwhy would it be the 8th of april anyways? It’s been officialy announced hasn’t it?
drjakeyoung
February 8th, 2013 - 6:54pmbecause amazon and a few other retailers have recently announced it has been delayed till 8th April due to something they cant tell
McGann is the Doctor
February 8th, 2013 - 11:43amWHAT ?! ❓ The Mind of Evil in FULL colour ?
I didn’t think it possible ! This can’t be right, as much as I hope it is ❗
Lucky for me I haven’t got round to watching any more Pertwee episodes since Terror of the Autons, and was planning to watch Claws of Axos next.
It is a blessing in diguise then, that I will get to see them in order (if this is true)! ❗
Some bloke
February 8th, 2013 - 11:52amYEAH, they’ve been talking about it for MONTHS, did you not know?
Gordon
February 8th, 2013 - 12:07pmIt was announced back in 2009 that the eps 2 to 6 had be colourised using the colour recovery and It was announced a year ago that ep1 was getting recoloured by babelcolour. News has been round for some time
hobbit dalek
February 8th, 2013 - 2:25pmso looks like tenth planet will be the last
Anonymous
February 8th, 2013 - 6:14pmEither The Tenth Planet or The Underwater Menace.
Cymon Hodson
February 8th, 2013 - 10:50amIt would have been better if Mind of Evil had come out between Aztecs and Visitation as we now have 4 special editions before a new dvd release.
Some bloke
February 8th, 2013 - 10:57amthat’s what I thought
Gordon
February 8th, 2013 - 11:11amIce warriors was originally supposed to be released in april but has been pushed back for some reason plus as mind of evil was only completed about a week ago there isnt enough time for it to be passed by the bbfc quality control authering house etc to be released in time to be released inbetweeen aztecs and visitation