Tom Baker Season 12 Blu-ray

I played The U.S. set with the T.V. speakers and it played fine the first time. The 2nd episode of the Sontaran story line did stop the audio the 2nd time i viewed it but I backtracked and hit play again and the episode completed without errors...I would take a replacement disc if they offer one. But if not I don't personally mind my set:).... Speaking of which, Would an error like this simply repeat occasionally or is this something that would worsen with time?

Winter wrote:

I played The U.S. set with the T.V. speakers and it played fine the first time. The 2nd episode of the Sontaran story line did stop the audio the 2nd time i viewed it but I backtracked and hit play again and the episode completed without errors...I would take a replacement disc if they offer one. But if not I don't personally mind my set:).... Speaking of which, Would an error like this simply repeat occasionally or is this something that would worsen with time?

Since you experienced an error with episode 2 (rather than episode 1), I cannot say, as there is no known issue with episode 2. It is episode 1 that is out-of-phase.

Maybe yours was just a random glitch?

My UK edition must have arrived last night as I found a package out side my door this afternoon when I went to get the mail I picked it up and it fell to pieces waterlogged. Why the delivery man did not put it inside the storm door Ill never know.

I will check it out after work today (tonight). I will say that the casing replaces the R2 clam shell DVDs of Robot, The Ark in Space and The Sontaran Experiment when I put it in the spots occupied by the prior DVDs. So it does save a little space yet but its not slim line packaging by any means. It also sticks out just a little bit farther than the R2 versions .

Not a mention on the outside of the package if it plays Regions A, B or C.

Will break into it tonight after work

As future releases go, I can't find any solid line of information as it regards what's next... Found a lot of rumors including Pertwee's and Davison's 1st seasons which would make sense as a sales model that has a precedents in the Complete History part work books... Also a straight continuance of Baker would be satisfactory. A lot of random seasons mentioned on the net as being possible contenders but who knows, Who knows:) when they do get around to announcements of what's next, I would imagine 6th &7th Dr. would be dead last releases...and without the finding of more lost episodes the 1st and 2nd Doctor's might not get released unless some brave soul wants to tackle coloring to sweeten the incomplete sets. Maybe sets called," the first and second Doctor Collections"?

I am currently watching the documentary in question that was left off the US version.  It is basically a clips program with continuity announcers from lots of BBC programing from the time series 12 was being aired.


One clip has a very young Sylvester McCoy on a 1974 kids show, lots of Clips from news shows like BBC2 news, John Craven's Newsround, a clip from The Changes .  A radio news account announcing the death of William Hartnell.



The only thing I can think is some of the theme music's of the TV shows that were used in the clips may not be clearable in the USA.   Otherwise I am at a loss as to what the problem is.


There is a big bit on the 1975 Eurovision Song contest with music clips including a brief
one by David Bowie who is highlighted.

More drama clips BBC-TV's The Survivors, written by Terry Nation, Colditz with David McCullum and a clip of The Brothers with a very young Colin Baker. A program with a young Gareth Thomas as well

And its a bit Ironic after watching that extra on a straight BD PAL TV I went out to put he lawn tractor away (I had cut the grass a few hours earlier).

When I get back in the house 50% of the screen on the TV had gone bad (I've had this SONY since 2008).

So I transfer upstairs' to the BD play that converts to NTSC to finish the BD. The Tom Baker interview looks great and is very interesting. Picture quality on that looks awesome

As for the Genesis of the Daleks omnibus recording I am not impressed with the quality of it.

I hope that the episode's on the other BDs look much better (I have not seen them yet)

Bob1963 wrote:

As for the Genesis of the Daleks omnibus recording I am not impressed with the quality of it.

I hope that the episode's on the other BDs look much better (I have not seen them yet)

The omnibus wasn't restored...it's a straight dun from the original compilation, so one shouldn't expect that one to look great.

I just watched episode 1 of Robot and it looks very good.  I did expect a bit more from the opening and closing credits, perhaps they were not remastered from the film negatives for the BD version but over all the first episode looks great

Just re watched episode 1 of the R2 DVD for comparison purposes. I can now see the minor improvement's to the title sequences and some improvement to scenes in UNIT HQ in the BD release.


The higher bit rate does help but some scenes look MUCH BETTER while other scenes look EXACTLY the same.

Will be checking random other episode's in this set as well

amckinney wrote:

Winter wrote:

I played The U.S. set with the T.V. speakers and it played fine the first time. The 2nd episode of the Sontaran story line did stop the audio the 2nd time i viewed it but I backtracked and hit play again and the episode completed without errors...I would take a replacement disc if they offer one. But if not I don't personally mind my set:).... Speaking of which, Would an error like this simply repeat occasionally or is this something that would worsen with time?

Since you experienced an error with episode 2 (rather than episode 1), I cannot say, as there is no known issue with episode 2. It is episode 1 that is out-of-phase.

Maybe yours was just a random glitch?

Turns out my disc of Sontarans is fine, my audio went out on my player on 2 other non Who films. Might have to purchase a new disc player:(

This man incorrectly states the set as "DVD" also he mentions season 12 as 6,000 units sold... Sooo, the numbers might just represent U.K. sales (due to him stating season "12") or it may just be U.S. sales as the site follows what appear to be U.S. titled films and shows, and it may be total units sold as per 4 day's ago...or he could live in an alternate universe where Blu-ray hasn't been invented yet😀

...so assuming they made 50% off the sales of 6,000 units then the BBC cleared like $150,000 dollars at $25.00 a set plus the units sold from BBC Shop probably made a little better than 50%. Disc replacement might put a dent in the profit but really just a miniscule one. Assuming no screwups on discs in future releases and the fact that this set is still to be released in Australia and likely other markets we have a winner as a viable range for continuation! If the Beeb goes with a celebratory limited edition Steelbook version or limited edition Tom Baker Autographed set or Stores pair the set with some related merchandise they might be able to milk the release for more. while I'm not up for repeatedly purchasing the same stuff over and over again, I would definitely purchase an Autographed version (and I'm sure Tom would be delighted with the extra cash) I also am a sucker for steelbooks, I have 2 Steel Ghosts in the Shell, regular Versions of about 20 Blu/4K and the later Steel book releases. I've bought HarryPotter 4 times. Original, steelbook, 4K, and upcoming 4K Steelbook. (Granted I'm selling all versions except the steelbooks so I will have just the two sets.

Don't see a Tom Baker autographed set coming out. Mainly do to his age, I just cant see him sitting down and signing all those autographs. At a Big Finish event he may sign stuff for sure but I don't think he signs that many autographs at one of those events

He did sign his autobiography that came out in the late 1990's though I have that one on my book shelf,

No idea on how much profit BBC Worldwide made off this et but I purchased the UK version for $48 and that included like 5 day shipping.

Replacement discs and shipping also eat into the profits of the set but as they are being release in Australia they were going to be making more BDs any way so they simply up the order on the BDs that had problems with it

Winter wrote:

Sooo, the numbers might just represent U.K. sales (due to him stating season "12") or it may just be U.S. sales as the site follows what appear to be U.S. titled films and shows, and it may be total units sold as per 4 day's ago...or he could live in an alternate universe where Blu-ray hasn't been invented yet😀

I'm almost 100% certain the sales figures (and chart position) are for the UK release, not combined worldwide totals.

For a start, there's no way any Doctor Who release would ever top the US charts, but DW releases have been UK chart-toppers going all the way back to VHS days.

His calling it a DVD is just an error. I'd say there's a certain segment of people out there who think all video discs that size are DVDs (just that some are high-def and some aren't).

Bob1963 wrote:

The higher bit rate does help but some scenes look MUCH BETTER while other scenes look EXACTLY the same.

The moving away from MPEG-2 encoding helps, too.

The RT explains that the reason some stuff looks lots better and some looks about the same is more down to the technical limitations of some of the camera equipment (remember, all the studio scenes were shot multi-camera). They said what's on these blu-rays is pretty close (quality-wise) to a direct dub from the master tapes.

For Robot episode 1 the scenes in the UNIT HQ where you see The Brigadier and RSM Benton in there dress uniform's the insignia and stuff look sharp and bright but it eh same scenes where Tom is wearing Jon Pertwee's smoking jacket it often looks flat, sometimes you cant see some of the details on Jon's jacket and the back ground of the lab looks fuzzy.

But one thing I did notice for the first time in the BD edition was the hat / coat stand in the UNIT lab has Jon Pertwee's cloaks hanging on them in the first scene which was filmed on the set of Planet of the Spiders but is gone when Tom sneaks into the lab later in episode 1 .


As for the Sontaran Experiment I will say the location footage looks MUCH Improved over the outside broadcast footage for Robot part 1

Fiinaly got around to watching Revenge of the Cybermen on BD today. Now this one rocks, the picture quality is awesome all around. This blows away Robot and The Sontaran Experiment. If all the releases look this good I may end up getting more of them.


As for the missing special effects that were mentioned to me earlier this afternoon before I watched it I spotted 2 both shots of the sky striker missile on the wall in Vorus office, once in episode 3 and once in episode 4. Not a big deal for me I wont be returning a BD Disc for an exchange for something so minor.

As for the audio I did not notice any problems on any of the episodes either.

Video wise I saw no problem with Ian Marters credit on any of the 4 episodes.

Here's instructions on how to get replacement discs...

http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2018/08/s12-replacement-discs-230818070008.html

I just got a reply email about the goofed up discs and I only sent it yesterday, I am sure they are getting hundreds if not thousands of emails.

I wonder at what point there will be a safe time to pick up a set with already-corrected discs?

I got this in the mail this morning, and I just played Sontaran Experiment and the audio is fine now. Next to try the Revenge disc, but those defects are less noticeable.

I got mine today, too!

I didn't notice any problems during playback of my set. Was this a universal problem?

Supposedly, yes.

Hmmm. Mine should be due in soon.

I had no audio play back problems on mine either on The Sontaran Experiment. I did notice one minor SFX error on Revenge of the Cybermen