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Bit of trivia about high definition and Doctor Who
floopy123
Posts: 6,003 Forum Member
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Did you know that when it was suggested Doctor Who be shown in high defintion, Russell T Davies (or it could have been someone else) said "Doctor Who won't be in HD because the high definition will show the sets in a bad way, people will see the sets don't look so good."
I remember reading this on Digital Spy. Funny or strange reason not to go high definition. Quite rightly, common sense prevailed and DW went HD.
I remember reading this on Digital Spy. Funny or strange reason not to go high definition. Quite rightly, common sense prevailed and DW went HD.
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And that related to the way the series was at the time it was said.
That's why they've now had to build a new TARDIS set and Police Box.
And why the new series has dropped the number of Alien Planets visited again; since shooting in real world locations saves money that would have to be spent building HD suitable sets.
What a ridiculous attitude. Life itself is in far higher definition than HD. All of it, not just certain parts. No one walks around wearing special glasses to make parts of it blurry. They haven't made any dramas or comedies in SD in North America in years. The news is HD. Game shows are HD. Reality TV is (slowly moving towards) HD.
It's simply the way TV is produced. In a decade there won't be anything produced in SD, nor will there be any SD sets available. It's virtually impossible to buy one now in North America, apart from niche products (like a 12-inch TV/DVD combo).
Oh and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1116683/Poor-eyesight-makes-HDTV-waste-money.html
It was perfectly common sense for DW not to go HD at that time.
To be fair, there are programmes where there is no benefit gained from HD. Some look stunning, and for documentaries (particularly nature) or for sport it really adds to the pleasure of watching and simply enhances the quality of the programme. But for news, or and some dramas or comedy (not all, many look great in HD), it just doesn't add anything.
I'm not arguing that it's not all headed to HD, which of course it is, but it doesn't always up the quality of the show.
(I think Torchwood looked fantastic in HD, but with the Doctor Who specials there wasn't a significant improvement).
Many thanks - you put it better than I did, I was trying to make that point (badly). When some channels advertise things like worlds fattest\ugliest\scariest\etc in HD in actually makes me want to drop my telebox out my window. Whilst I am sure that DW will be pleasing to the eye in HD I also feel that I have had over 30years of SD and frankly is it worth all the who-har. As a licence payer I would prefer the beeb invest the money into better programming and not just a gimick that (lets be honest) will be obsolete in a couple of years (HD that is, not DW) How many tele boxes do we have to send to landfill? Simply I do not subscribe to HD for these reasons and many more. It is not about my appaling attitude (tee hee) more my common sense. And I do hope that Nwebie is chocking on his buger and spluttering all over his keyboard when he reads this.
Taking an existing 576i picture and upscaling it to 1080p or 720p is not going to give you anywhere near the same quality of image by any stretch of the imagination. There is a reason you see so very little of the TARDIS interior in the 2009 specials, unless its on fire or being destroyed. They were all filmed in HD, one assumes in preparation for the full series move to HD this time around.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/compare.htm
Here's one quick example:
Toy Story SD: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews17/a%20John%20Lasseter%20Toy%20Story%20%20Woody%20%20Buzz%20Lightyear%20DVD%20Review/an%20John%20Lasseter%20Toy%20Story%20%20Woody%20%20Buzz%20Lightyear%20DVD%20Review%20PDVD_016.jpg
Toy Story HD: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews50/toy_story_blu-ray/large/large_toy_story_blu-raysubs.jpg
Using an image which is not 720 x 576 and then comparing it to an image which is not 1920 x 1080 isn't the best way to compare.
Also you are comparing a progressive SD image with a progressive HD image. SD TV broadcasts in the UK are interlaced. Technically we should have scan lines on that SD image, if its supposed to be a single frame. Same with BBC HD which is broadcast at 1080i (although on blu-ray releases, Who will be at 1080p, and not all HD channels are 1080i, some are 720p)
Its as simple as this
BBC One - 576i = 720 x 576 = 414720 pixels of data on screen every 25th of a second, or 207360 pixels of data every 50th of a second.
BBC HD - 1080i - 1920 x 1080 = 2073600 pixels of data on screen every 25th of a second or 1036800 pixels of data every 50th of a second.
OR
BBC HD outputs at 5 times resolution of BBC One.
Unless you have a massively huge TV you won't see the difference between 1080i and 1080p, but even an average sized 30 - 38 inch living room TV can easily see the difference between 576i and 1080i, or even 720p.
BBC HD is generally at 1440 x 1080i. I have one of the specials unprocessed from the BBC HD signal and it's 1440 x 1080 (The aspect ratio, of course, is the normal 16:19)
Doctor Who blu-rays have (so far) been released as 1080i, not 1080p. Unfortunately (and quite annoyingly!) they are released at the ATSC framerate of 59.97 frames per second instead of the PAL standard of 25. Converting them for storage on my hard-drive was quite a chore - they had to be converted to 23.97 fps resulting in some jerkiness. The Series 1-4 DVDs I just had to deinterlace.
The reason for this annoyance is to allow one set of masters to be used world-wide. European TVs will handle 1080i-60, but North American ones won't handle 1080i-50.
Indeed, the Next Doctor is upscaled on the blu-ray specials set and despite being done at the same bit rate as the others (the file is about 15 GB on the disc) and being done with much better algorhythms than can be used in real-time upscaling, it still looks like DVD quality. So do the short clips of Davros and other creatures that flash through Donna's mind in End of Time.
The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith (also HD) has decently long segment in the TARDIS with it well lit, and it definitely looks pants! The pillars look like painted styrofoam (which is probably not too far from the truth).
I think it was a mistake back in 2004 to not build the set to HD standards.
I mean, they're constantly using CG in EastEnders now, with CG tube trains, and a CG pull out to the classic EastEnders map in SD. If its cheap enough to do SD CGI in a freaking soap, then HD can't cost that much anymore
Yes - but if they'd built the set to HD standards they could have made the HD transition more easily when effects were more economical.
I admit I'm flabbergasted when I hear of a new programme being produced in SD. The Americans stopped making SD dramas and sitcoms in the early 2000s. Scrubs was still in SD until 2008, but all other programmes made the switch except Friends. Even long-running shows like Frasier and Will & Grace were in HD for the last couple of years of their run.
For Doctor Who, a show with proven long-term appeal for disc sales and rebroadcast, it was a really short-sighted decision.