Ambassadors OF DEATH coming to DVD in 2012 +Cover added+

[SiHart]

Apparently, this month's issue of Wired magazine features an article on the Restoration Team, focussing on their work on Ambassadors of DEATH (in full colour!) which is due to be delivered to the BBC within weeks!

Sounds good to me!

Si xx

[Rob McCow]

First Shada completed, now Ambassadors of Death in colour! At least some of that is potentially excellent news! [/overqualified]

Though I did love the way it subtly faded from B&W to colour on the VHS release.

[Si Hunt]

Brilliant!

I hope they've forked out for some manual recolourisation to top up the Chromadot recovery!

"Ambassadors" in full colour is a very good thing indeed. About time this adventure was liberated from "patchwork quilt" status!

Si.

[Logo Polish]

They kept that one quiet, didn't they? Assuming the report is correct.

[Terry Leptil]

Let's hope it true. It sounds very exciting!

It may even come out before The Mind of Evil, where the chroma dot process has not been very successful, due to producing poor colour signals and Episode One having no chroma dots.

I've heard that Invasion of the Dinosaurs Part One is also problematic due to the quality of the telerecording and that the chroma dots are trapped in the bottom right of the screen (or something like that).

If they can overcome these problems, we could soon have all the Pertwee episodes in colour!

[Si Hunt]

Poor Chroma Dots! Trapped, you say? Maybe we ought to be thinking less about our own greedy desire for colour Pertwee episodes and more about the plight of those poor, scared, trapped Chroma Dots.

Si.

[Rob McCow]

There are always problems with Mind of Evil, aren't there? Still, it's the one story that I think wouldn't look as good in colour - because of the sickly yellow walls in the prison.

[SiHart]

Poor Chroma Dots! Trapped, you say? Maybe we ought to be thinking less about our own greedy desire for colour Pertwee episodes and more about the plight of those poor, scared, trapped Chroma Dots.

Si.

Perhaps they could be transmigrated like...

Oh never mind!

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

I hope I get a free Chroma Dot with my copy of the story. I want to keep it as a pet.

Si.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

There are always problems with Mind of Evil, aren't there? Still, it's the one story that I think wouldn't look as good in colour - because of the sickly yellow walls in the prison.

I still have the entirely Black and White version of Ambassadors (even episode 1) from UKGold, and I think it's very atmospheric in black and white. Not that I wouldn't like to see it in colour and all vidfired and everything.

[Jamie McCrimmon]

Yes, I think it's very nice in b/w too! I wouldn't say no to a coloured version, though. Very exciting.

[SiHart]

Well, turns out it's not weeks away at all, according to Steve Roberts on GallifreyBase:

"I would take certain aspects of that article (such as it being "weeks away" and me being 35(!!!) ) with a huge pinch of salt. They approached me about this months ago and the interview was done over the phone. Wired's policy is not to allow articles to be seen before publication, otherwise I would have pulled them up on the errors. There's nothing new in this story that hasn't been widely reported and discussed on here previously, which boils down to simply this: We are working on 'Ambassadors' and *hope* that it will come out in colour, but there are significant hurdles to overcome and some of those might simply be too high."

Sorry for getting everyone's hopes up

Si xx

[Dirk Gently]

I'm sure though that they put 'weeks' deliberately. Because it sounds like it's near & gets people buying the magazine having heard about the article and being excited. But 'weeks' could be 2 weeks, 22 weeks or 222 weeks from now. Saying weeks is technically true, but unhelpful.

[Larry]

TBH, if they are recolourising episodes then I'd expect Invasion of the Dinosaurs, to be released before Ambassadors and Mind of Evil, if I were a betting man I'd put my money on these two stories being amongst the last to be released.

[Si Hunt]

TBH, if they are recolourising episodes then I'd expect Invasion of the Dinosaurs, to be released before Ambassadors

Why? We don't know that IOTD is going to be any easier to colourise, in fact I'm sure I recall reading that there were some issues with the filmed stuff, plus if they decide to do something with the Dinosaur effects then that's an added complexity.

Si.

[Dirk Gently]

Yes, I seem to recall that there were not any colour artifacts on IotD 16mm print & as we've heard 1 episode of Mind has some but they are off to 1 corner. (What that means I have no idea as I'm not familiar with how the colour recovery system works).

[Larry]

Why? We don't know that IOTD is going to be any easier to colourise, in fact I'm sure I recall reading that there were some issues with the filmed stuff, plus if they decide to do something with the Dinosaur effects then that's an added complexity.

Si.

No real reason other than it's just got the one episode that needs colourising .

[Si Hunt]

That's not the only factor though; a story with one existing black and white episode could have more problems and artifacts requiring correcting than one with four needing recolouring.

That said, the amount left to colour could be a factor if they go down the road, as with Planet, of having the episode manually recoloured in the US to augment the chroma-recovery process. But can they afford that? They only did it with Planet because they didn't know about the chroma-dot recovery. Can they justify a full manual recolourisation if the job is already half/mostly done by CDR?

Si.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Monsieur, with these Rocher, you're really spoiling us!

[SiHart]

For "obvious" reasons Ambassadors is coming in a boxset with The Sun Makers, called The Solar System. This isn't even this years least obvious boxset.

Si xx

[Andrew Curnow]

A very bizarre pairing... but a rather attractive pair nevertheless!

[Rob McCow]

A strong representation for Mars and Pluto then. Has the Doctor visited any other planets in the solar system?

[SiHart]

Earth!

Si xx

[Lissa]

He got his black belt at the Venus dojo.

[Larry]

anothe baffeling pairing .