Classic Doctor who tv set-up

I currently own a rather large Samsung 4k tv and player, I immediately noticed how not great the Classic Doctor who discs now look. Does anyone own a 720p (768p) television and view Dr.Who upon it? What would you all suggest as the optimum set-up for viewing Classic who? DVD player and old box style screen? I was thinking about buying a 2nd television strictly for Doctor who viewing and thought maybe an extremely small screen of 19-24 inches with less pixels might work better. My options are flea market tube telly and a dvd player, smallest tv with highest pixels or fewer pixels and a dvd player or Blu-ray player. Perhaps the Blu-ray player will read the most data from the disc and a 720p will display the least amount of detail ?

I will be dealing with this myself when I make the move to Ultra this coming Xmas.

I looked into it a bit, and doesn't seem to be a definitive easy answer.

Most of what I have seen is what I figured... its a huge jump from 480 to 4K. With the original resolution being so small in comparison, it's just not going to look perfect.

Also, the source dvd is apparently a factor as well. DVDs that were manufactured earlier vs ones produced recently will not look as good. Back when they had non-anamorphic dvds, interlacing or not, etc.

So to me, that means if you want the video to look EXACTLY like it was supposed to, you have to stick with the original resolution, without any alteration or upscaling- a regular 4:3 TV and dvd player (or blu ray player, manually set to output at 480 and 4:3 (fullscreen).

Sacrificing a bit of detail and seeing some artifacts... you could take your step up to a 720 TV and still be happy with the picture.

I have mine going at 1080 and the picture looks good to me. Its not perfect, but still good. Again, the larger you go, you will see more artifacts and imperfections.

There is something to considering the source... older film/tape quality, has there been any remastering done...

I've seen some posts and articles that say the video processor that does the upscaling (either on the TV or blu player side) is a factor. Not all are created equal... lower quality/ cheaper ones wont do as good a job as higher end upscalers- so it may depend what you have hardware wise.

I can't tell which way the graphics load should be. Some say to turn off all upscaling on the player and let the TV handle the upscaling by itself, some say it should be the other way around.


I have a friend that just went to Ultra, I asked him how standard dvd playback was and he said it was fine. Id have to see if I have any Region 1 DW dvds to try on his system... all my DW are the UK releases.

I'm noticing the difference after watching Star Trek TNG on Blu-Ray and then continuing with DS9 on DVD.  My first impression was that it all looked soft.  But as I proceed to season 2 it's really not a bother as it's looking better upscaled by my Phillips DVD to my 50" HD TV than it ever did on broadcast.  I"m more annoyed by the poor DVD authoring than anything else (why do so many episodes have a green or white line up the left edge from overscanning than any other DVD set before?)

Watching some Tom Baker over Christmas break was only perceived for a few minutes.  After that I was so lost in the story that I didn't mind that the source material was so low resolution.

So sure it will look great on a 19" CRT TV when you're sitting 8 feet away.  But move up 2' away from the screen and the old setup will look even worse.  I'd say allow the DVD player to upscale things for you and just accept that you're effectively sitting much closer to the jumbo screen than ever intended.  Sit further away from your new 4K TV when watching old Who if you don't want to notice it so much.  Going with UK DVD's or the forthcoming Tom Baker Blu-Ray may save you from dropping from PAL and converting to NTCS if your TV can handle the PAL refresh rate and lines per inch business.  Some of the fancy de-interlacing and motion enhancements on newer TVs may mess up your VidFire effect and those could be turned off, but that's about it from my viewing experience.

Although none of this has been tried on a 4K screen yet.

Thanks@cruel angel & @ squishy, I shall experiment. First up: smallest 1080p HD 19" with a $20 Blu-ray... Samsung 65" 4k with a Samsung 4k player= soft and snowy pixelation 😐 watchable, but looked better on the Samsung 32" 1080p with high-end Sony Blu-ray player... LG, Emerson, and vizio 32" 1080p with Blu-ray player all look about the same as far as sharpness level. Color palette and brightness vary greatly and are more a matter of personal preference... I prefer Samsung and Sony, mostly Samsung for me. If we ignore the Classic Doctor Who and your going 4k then I highly suggest an Samsung Qled, LG Oled, Samsung Oled, Sony Oled,  (in that order). Also the display for the wallpaper Oled TV looks stupid cool and is thin as poster paper. Transparent tv was also really cool but both the last two will cost you round $8,000. So Happy shopping.

it's all about screen size vs. viewing distance. When I bought my LCD TVs (1080p), I took my Oppo blu-ray player to the stores with me and some test discs. One of those test discs was "Pyramids of Mars" (the original PAL version, not the US release).

I found that at a normal "living room" viewing distance of 9 to 12 feet, a 53" set was starting to show up picture imperfections, but the picture on a 50" set looked just fine. Now, if I'd been watching at a distance of 15 feet or so, a larger screen would be okay.

Of course, I was also testing the US sets out to see if they would give me a true, unconverted PAL picture, as that was equally important in my buying decision (higher resolution of PAL and no standards conversion).

So, in a nutshell: Probably should stay below 50" unless you're in a basement/home theatre type of situation (or have a very large living room with the sofa and TV on opposite walls).