The War Games - Available in all Time Zones now!

[SiHart]

It is a 3 disc release Larry, which is great news.

Si xx

[Simon R]

I've only ever seen this story twice or thrice and not for many a year so there's vast chunks of this I can't remember and it'll be like watching it a new. Ooooh.

[Dave Tudor]

This looks superb!

[Si Hunt]

I've a feeling this is going to look pristine quality-wise. Steve Roberts mentioned some time ago that he'd unearthed previously unseen and superior prints of the story in the Film Library.

Si.

[Larry]

I've a feeling this is going to look pristine quality-wise. Steve Roberts mentioned some time ago that he'd unearthed previously unseen and superior prints of the story in the Film Library.

Si.

haven't seen it for a while but the picture quality on the vhs release wasn't to bad if I recall but if what steve roberts says is true hopefully we'll have a picture quality as good as the ones on the dvd's of Seeds of Death and Tomb of the Cybermen .

[Pip Madeley]

I've a feeling this is going to look pristine quality-wise. Steve Roberts mentioned some time ago that he'd unearthed previously unseen and superior prints of the story in the Film Library.

Yep, they were found at the British Film Institute. The previous prints suffered from varying film damage (due to damp conditions if I recall correctly).

[Larry]

Yep, they were found at the British Film Institute. ).

just a shame they couldn't unearth a few "previously unseen" missing episodes there aswell.

[Antony Cox]

Yep, they were found at the British Film Institute.

At the risk of being pedantic (unheard of for a Doctor Who fan, I know... ), I don't think they were 'found' at the BFI as such; the BBC had donated a set of prints to them a while back, and it was because the prints the BBC retained were damadged that they went back to the BFI to check theirs.

Really looking forward to this one - haven't seen it in years and it's always been a fave!

[Pip Madeley]

Pedantic git.

[Jamie McCrimmon]

It's very exciting indeed! Is there any hint of when it will be out?

[Antony Cox]

Pedantic git.

I like to maintain a certain sense of continuity...

[Dirk Gently]

I like to maintain a certain sense of continuity...

Unlike Doctor Who.

[Si Hunt]

Article now up!

[Antony Cox]

Article now up!

Looking at the responses on the RT Forum, so are numerous DW fans, by the look of it...

[Pip Madeley]

Arrangements were made between 2entertain and the BFI to ship the films over to Television Centre under the BFI's Donor Access scheme. It was obvious from the very first episode that these were original film recording master negatives of excellent quality.

Squee! And I was glad to read about the Dominators:

The BFI copies have already been transferred by us for future use and are indeed original negatives - with the added bonus that overseas censor cuts to the episodes are intact on the negatives.

SQUEE!

Excellent stuff, we're so lucky to have the RT. Can't wait for this release.

[Si Hunt]

Arrangements were made between 2entertain and the BFI to ship the films over to Television Centre under the BFI's Donor Access scheme.

Makes it sound like Steve Roberts had to give them his liver in exchange for the film cans.

Si.

[Pip Madeley]

Ian Levine would've given his liver and onions.

[Rob McCow]

So if they're the original negatives, will they be as high quality as the clips from Mission To The Unknown? I believe that everything else in the archives has been filmed-from-the-screen, hence the grainy quality on VHS and the need for vidfire.

[Pip Madeley]

So if they're the original negatives, will they be as high quality as the clips from Mission To The Unknown?

No, because:

these were original film recording master negatives of excellent quality

Negatives of the 16mm black and white telerecordings (the original videotapes were all wiped). Still, they'll look better than anything we've seen before.

By the way, I think you meant The Daleks' Master Plan clips, there's no surviving footage from Mission To The Unknown.

[Antony Cox]

AFAIK, an original film recording negative is the actual film that it was recorded onto, so to quote Dennis Brent, there's literally no other better quality version than that. Prints and dupe negs are then taken from the original negs and that's where the quality degredation starts, to varying degrees.

If the Daleks Masterplan clips were prints rather than original film recording negatives, then the quality would be slightly less than the Dominators.

The quality of the content of what's on the Dominators films is another thing entirely...

[Si Hunt]

Lots of "The War Games" seemed like really good quality to me anyway.

Si.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

AFAIK, an original film recording negative is the actual film that it was recorded onto, so to quote Dennis Brent, there's literally no other better quality version than that. Prints and dupe negs are then taken from the original negs and that's where the quality degredation starts, to varying degrees.

But it's still a telerecording of the original video broadcast, so not the ORIGINAL original.

But really, how much effort does it really take for the BBC to get a hold of recordings of their own programmes for commerical release? The real question is why they made do with whatever crap copies they had lying around the office for the VHS releases.


edit: although reading the linked article does actually explain that

[Jason Thompson]

But it's still a telerecording of the original video broadcast, so not the ORIGINAL original.

No, but still the best quality version that can possibly exist now, given that we know the original video tape no longer does.

[Si Hunt]

It probably exists. Just not with Doctor Who taped on it!

Si.

[Antony Cox]

It probably exists. Just not with Doctor Who taped on it!

Si.

I doubt if many Quad tapes from the sixties survive, whatever they had on them! As you've suggested, they were used again and again and only had a limited lifetime - in fact I'm sure that in one of the RT articles it states that for one story "....the video tape must have been literally falling to bits as the telerecording was made."!