The Many Video Formats of Doctor Who 

i think the main reason why series 1 looks so much worse than the rest of the DigiBeta era is that they used much stronger diffusion filters on the lens to subtract from the oversharpened DV look to try an achieve a more ‘filmic’ look, which is what gives it that hazy, smeary effect. It’s still present in series 2, but for series 3 and 4 it is toned down even more and is noticeably sharper. I think it was a mistake to have used such strong diffusion filters in the digibeta era, as when combined with poor dynamic range, highlights turn into huge white blobs. I have also attempted to ‘restore’ certain shots from this era using photoshops AI generative fill tool and some colour grading to recover clipped highlights with varying levels of success, but as they are only screencaps, which manually often take a couple hours, if a serious attempt to improve the look of the digibeta era, AI will need to come along way. I do wonder why I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time obsessing over ‘fixing’ the look of those episodes, as I don’t necessarily mind it and it can feel a bit more magical to a clean, sterile, super sharp look, but it’s still interesting to mess around with. I’ve really enjoyed these videos and I’m glad there are other people who are interested in this topic :)

This type of video is literally like the perfect combination of my niche interests.

S1: Pro-Mist filters. Even Billie Piper made a joke on Confidential about how Ernie Vincze was obsessed with the haze created by these camera lens filters. Hey presto...low definition images foe S1.

Torchwood was HD in its first season while Doctor who was still on video. I read on forums from 2006 that apparently The Mill, who did CG work for Who at the time, would have taken too long rendering effects in a higher resolution, and the show was known for pushing deadlines.

I actually love the aesthetic. It gives the feeling of colours washing out of objects in an almost figurative sense

Oh my god I think this video was handcrafted specifically for me, literally combines my main interests (filmmaking, old video formats and Doctor Who). Thank you :)

This video feels like a combination of a video essey about the history of doctor who and an episode of technology connections. Really loves this!

8:13 Can people PLEASE stop losing original Doctor Who recordings??? I'm a DW superfan, a filmmaker and a history nerd and the knowledge that so much of classic Who is lost keeps me up at night! And now I have to reckon with the fact that we don't have the original film from the TV movie as well? AAAH!!! (Also this video is brilliant! I watch a lot of DW analysis but people rarely talk about behind the scenes things like this. Keep up the great work!)

The one thing I will add with the differences in the modern series post Arri, first off there’s been a few different versions of the Alexa but it appears the show hasn’t upgraded to LF or newer 35 formats (different sensors) and thus look about the same… however the lenses change the look drastically. The Moffat era used primarily Arri or Cooke spherical lenses that have a cleaner look, Chibnall went in for Cooke Anamorphic lenses which have a distinct look.

Random Factoid - Day of the Doctor was not shot on an Arri Alexa. It was shot on a Red (I wanna say the Epic or Epic Dragon) as it was allegedly more friendly to shooting in 3D.

I’m glad the people who made the TV Movie stayed true to Doctor Who tradition by immediately destroying the original film cans after scanned them. Very true to the source material

Something I noticed recently while watching Voyage of the Damned the other day is that the slow motion sequences towards the end (Astrid driving Max *bling* into the engines) were actually shot on over cranked film instead of a digital slow motion camera. The slow motion scenes look hilariously better than the rest of the episode, something my boyfriend kept saying after being spoilt from being introduced to DW by Nouri's series before I forced him to watch S4 lmao. I have nothing to back this up btw other than just knowing what film looks like compared to digital (All the sparks and highlights have a gorgeous halation to them)

That frame rate difference you were describing for the TVM is also why (until last year) the BD copies of the RTD era ran at completely-different speeds than the DVDs: They were upscaled from the US conversions and simply pitch-corrected the audio for the UK market rather than starting from the UK copies. (As you can imagine, it made using them for watchalong events completely impossible as some people would be reacting to things others wouldn’t see for over a minute at certain points!)

Working in Post-production and being a nerdy Whovian has inter-sectioned nicely in this video lol. Great video my dude!

I've wondered about all these details for years and I'm really grateful for this video finally giving me answers. The most profound revelation to me here, however, was that Life on Mars totally fits the definition of an isekai show and I'd just never thought of it until now lol

11:07 HAHA Man this is able to continue haunting me even in my little doctor who corner. I will never escape it.

Always wondered what “flying spot” kit did. Nicely explained. Keep up the good work. Loving these tech-heavy vids and your presentation style.

"Filmed on film, but finished on videotape." All of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Voyager fans shudder as they hear these words. They know what this means. Alas, TV movie... alas.

I'm so glad you mentioned teletext just because I'm really fascinated by it for some reason.

I know it would never happen but I’d love if doctor who kept that season 1 early 2000s camera look just with modern special effects. It just looked so cozy compared to the fake cinematic look they use now

This channel showing up on my feed is a damn gift

This was so interesting! Thanks for uploading 😊

They used soft focus lens filters too, and it was recorded in SD at 50i (50 interlaced frames) then they use a snell and Wilcox deinterlace box to make it 25p (equivalent, as it was still 50i but zzz complex) (also it was digital Betamax in SD)

Great follow-up video. Glad to see you corrected the telecine misinformation. I'd actually love to see _more_ diabolical technobabble. I think it's fun and cool and I'd love to see you talk about the difference between Suppressed Field and Stored Field. I talk about this all the time when hanging out with my friends. Yes, I do have friends. No, they don't care about the difference between Suppressed Field and Stored Field. They just enjoy seeing how enthusiastic I am.

Just found your channel! Love doctor who! Loved this video! You sold me on the channel! Thank! You!

Just found this, fucken great video man. The technical aspects of shooting are very fun as a DP, and the whole changeover era from mostly-analogue to mostly-digital is such a fascinating time in film and television history. It's interesting though, with new new who being shot on what I can only assume are various Alexa bodies since their introduction, that it's only in the last few seasons that I've actually really noticed it. Having shot on a lot of Arri kit, from the Classic to the Mini LF and 35, I wouldn't have immediately placed the image from season 6 as being from one of their cameras. I suppose it's probably the post production still being very differentiated from a film PP, which isn't where we are now. Watching the new episodes today, and the specials over the summer, I really got the "steaming" vibe from them.

Dude. This is fascinating. You can’t go too nerdy for this kind of audience (me).

This was great! Perfect balance of niche topics, interesting details, and "wow technology!" :)

I remember years ago David Tenant said 'Doctor Who will never be in HD, because they rely on SD for the FX.' I can never find the clip of this... I can't even remember what interview it was. It has always stuck in my mind though...

"Best Boy Paul McGann" 😄

Thanks for making this

Fascinating video! I wrote an article ('Light Years') on the history of Who's cinematography for a DWM special a couple of years back and it is really interesting how much has changed creatively and technically over the show's long life. One thing I would add is that the differences in look since landing on the Alexa camera aren't all due to post-production - lens choice is a big part of it, most notably the use of anamorphic lenses in the Chibnall era.

Perfect timing because I was thinking about this question today

This was extremely interesting. Thank you😊

Might a niggling thing, but I'm petty like that, as DV was a specific format widely used from consumer to pro from like '98 to '09, Digi-Beta used higher fidelity 10-bit YUV 4:2:2 encoding than the DV(DV, DVcam, DVCpro) which were lower bitrate 8bit 4:2:0 in PAL cameras. Basically Doctor Who used the highest fidelity standard def digital format of the era in Digi-Beta, not the DV format used by most wedding videographers of the time.

"The Sontarran Experiment" was the first DOCTOR WHO episode this Yankee saw (Sunday mornings on Long Island's PBS station), so I was very impressed that the BBC shot the entire thing on videotape on location! Everything else the BBC had put out that American television showed was the "video for studio, film for location" style That seems so alien to American television viewers, and which Monty Python mocked by having Graham Chapman warn everybody else that the room they were in was surrounded by film...! Of course, it was made easier by the arc only having one location-Ye Old Rock Quarry that serves as so many alien worlds on that show.

Seeds of doom was the first episode of Dr Who I watched sometime in the late 70s when I came across it on PBS. (At a guess I think around 79) OMG, I just did some googling and actually figured out the date when I first saw Dr Who, March of 1979. So I have been watching the show for about 45 years.

You were not all the way wrong in defining a telecine as a camera pointed at a film screen. The simplest telecines were just that--a box with a projector at one end, a camera at the other and a little translucent square in between. It accounts for why our collective memory of certain ancient films on TV often conjures grainy, contrasty, juddering images.

Saw the title and immediately mentally hoped this was exactly what it was!

Aww, I wanted to find out why Series 1 looked so different. I already knew about DigiBeta in general 😅 Good video though! You're getting better at presenting. Also, thank you for sharing my grief at PAL Speedup.

This was a really good video! I discovered the main reason behind Series 1s definitive look. They shot on Mini DV tape and cameras! If you look at the old Whospy photographs, they have one of a box of Mini DV tapes.

Almost all films made for the cinema were shot at 24 FPS. In the UK all these films were transmitted at 25 FPS for many, many years. Few people ever noticed; nothing could be done at the time. It was just the way it was. The same was true for VHS and DVDs. Blu-ray did start being released in 24 FPS. The very first parts of Dr Who were transmitted live and never recorded as such. No one ever thought a repeat was required. Afterall with only one BBC channel at the time, no need to repeat anything. However, a 16mm copy was made but very poor quality. It was basically a 16mm camera pointed at a TV screen. Never meant for viewing, simply used in case of a complaint or something someone said, lawsuit etc. In many cases, the 16mm copy was never even developed. Often these images were very poor with poor geometry as the TV screens in those days were not flat.

Hi again, many thanks for part two, and even more for the mention. I was not a TK man so can't be specific about those details, VT, I knew :-) Sorry, further correction needed... 'Click track'? No... Time code, yes. They are different. There was an audio Control Track on Quad 2 inch machines that tried to get the replay scanning set of four heads, set at an almost 90 degree angle to the tape to match the tracks made during the recording. There was a 'tracking' control that altered the phase of the audio frame rate buzz to get within the range of analogue systems to get the picture to display with no 'tracking errors' - ie noise. There were two stages of analogue timing correction to get the monochrome image set to the same frequency as the rest of the BBC's pulse chain, the Amtec ( on n Ampex machine ) and the Colortech provided the rest of the timing fixes to get colour to decode. Note, the control track had nothing to do with either sound or the unused video lines. TimeCode was often used for synchronising an external audio tape, for 'radio simulcasts' in stereo sometimes, but mostly it was used to ensure tape machine knew where they were in terms of recorded time on the tape. This code was later used for 'Sypher' SYPHER is “SYnchronised Post-dub Helical-scan and Eight-track Recorders”. Also, the producer would have Umatic cassettes ( or Shibaden1/2 inch open reel) tapes with the timecode burnt onscreen for use with choosing shots. They would take a list of numbers to an edit session. and the poor playin man, me, had to find the right shot on the right tape. This code WAS recorded on video lines, but never transmitted back then - it looked like Teletext, because it was a very similar system. You can see it these days as a long of dashes at the top of some archive recordings. Oh, there is one more thing to add about the lost lines. When 1inch broadcast 'Helical Scan' machines, 'Omega Wrap', simply put, there was a gap in the tape path where the heads switched over - that gap was adjusted to fall in the lost lines area. There was no gap on a Quad machine, but a helical machine would record an entire picture on one 'wrap', so it could do still frames. Loads of info is at tech-ops.co.uk/ and at www.vtoldboys.com/

Found my people in this comments section (I’m a nerd for file formats and doctor who). I find series 3-4 to have an almost x-files look to it with the use of low-key and motivated lighting and on-site filming (think of the lighting in episodes like blink). I wish there was more info out there about the cinematography in this show.

I miss the look and feel of Series 1-4.

I’m a Doctor Who fan but probably a bigger fan of stuff like video engineering and film restoration so this is really cool

I like the early look of new who , it has a unique charm to it

I’m glad to see more videos like this! Boy do I wish all of Classic Who could have been shot on film, it would have looked incredible today.

About telecine, you probably stumbled upon definition of type of camrip, where camrip is hidden camera, ans TC is camera placed more freely to shoot the projected movie.

Excellent job, yet again. =:o}

The situation with the 1996 film reminds me of Babylon 5, shot on film, but all the composite and CG work was done for TV. Hence why that classic show's "Remaster" is in a 4:3 aspect ratio with the wholly live action scenes using rescans of the original film, cropped to the aspect ratio, and the CG shots are upscaled rather than horrendously cropped and blown up like they were for the 16:9 DVD release. Unfortunately this also means the composite shots see a noticeable dip in image quality as they had to upscale those, not so bad when someone is firing a gun, butnot so nice on long shots, for example, Sheridan looks weird when he's falling out of the exploding tram.

Just to be clear, that PAL speed-up problem isn't only limited to the Doctor Who TV movie. From my experience (I'm not exactly an expert), it seems that basically all PAL movie releases on DVD or videotape have this problem. The first time I actually noticed it was when A View to a Kill was shown on TV. I was very familiar with the theme song and had previously only watched the film on Blu-ray (where this issue - as far as I know anyway - has been corrected), so the increased speed and pitch really threw me off. The running times listed on the back cover are also always a few minutes shorter that the ones listed online. This is especially obvious in dual format DVD/Blu-ray combo releases where the running times are listed separately. NTSC never had this speed-up problem, but their 3:2 pulldown solution wasn't exactly perfect either.

I like the ashestic of the old doctor and the transition. It signalled a new era and a new decade.

If anyone wants to look at a great fan remaster, I highly recommend Owen Davies' 4K upscales of the RTD era on RU-vid. I'm really not fond of AI upscaling on film sources (ala the nightmares that are the new James Cameron UHDs), but I give upscaling video a pass and Owen in particular has done a better job at making the first four series stand up today (especially S1) than the BBC's two attempts at upscaling those seasons themselves. They look genuinely impressive while also remaining faithful to the original image (as in facial features and environments aren't scrubbed away, the colour grade is intact etc). He does great work.

The RTD 2 era is shot in 4k, the first era to do so.

Lovely stuff. 'Everything at Lime Grove and Television Centre was recorded on videotape' - there were oddly a few that weren't because the camera output was immediately telerecorded rather than being recorded to video: about 9 episodes if memory serves, mostly from the Troughton era (and a couple of Hartnells). Wheel in Space 5 and 6 were done this way, I think. It's also mad to think that the BBC were making productions on video for nearly twenty years (1936-1956, war excepted) before they could record them on videotape!

Am I the only one who thinks that 2005-2006 Who looks the absolute best (though I am otherwise partial to Classic and Capaldi)? Like, it just feels so much more welcoming and homey and cozy than everything past 2010.

Wow, I could have sworn that a telecine machine works the way you described initially. I think it must be quite a common misconception

I have been wondering about these exact things for a long time. Particularly how they even achieved the effect of the 2005 series 1.

I didn't have a problem with your previous telecine explanation. The simplest ones _were_ projection screens and TV cameras in a special box together to keep the framing right. Though the flying spot one you described isn't _that_ far removed either - it just gets rid of the projection stage, and basically runs the film through the middle of the TV camera. All TV cameras as the time used scanning CRT image sensors, before the advent of CCDs. In a regular camera light passed through the lens, through the photomultipliers, and then was scanned by the beam. In the telecine, it was kind of turned inside out, there was no lens.. but as far as the electron beam "knew" it might as well have been scanning an image from a lens. The optical distortions eliminated by removing the projection stage is of course significant, and explains how many telecines looked relatively high quality, but nevertheless the components and electronic function are still basically that of a video broadcast camera.

I love how crusty s1-4 look, just actually reminds me of how it would look on old CRT telly's back then 😂

I’ve been looking for easier to understand info on this for ages

First time viewer. I can remember reading a book in the 80’s that claimed that telecine was using standard tv cameras as you said in your explanation. I wonder if it was once done this way or if the book was just trying to keep things simple so it didn’t go into a detailed explanations?

Great video! This stuff fascinates me. I read RTD didn’t want to film Doctor Who in HD because of issues they faced on Torchwood with people not being experienced, do you know why people need experience to film in HD? It’s a shame because I read a comment from years ago that someone said DW would never be upscaled in future anyway so why does it matter but fast forward all these years later and DW has been upscaled not once, but twice and yet still doesn’t look great. RTD said the Tardis would look bad in HD with its little flaws but someone made a great suggestion that they could have filmed in HD and still released the episodes in SD because video being compressed from HD down to SD would still look way better than filming from straight SD. RTD also said it was filmed in SD because of the amount of CGI being used would take longer to process but Torchwood has a lot more CGI aliens than The Sarah Jane Adventures for example so that still confuses me.

No way!! I swear I’d heard that telecine explanation many, many times, over many years, before I watched that vid of yours! I even remember myself kind of nodding in agreement while you were saying it and thinking, “wow, for a young-looking person, this kid knows his sh1t!”. So I almost fell off my chair just then when I heard you say what you said! This is seriously up there with mind blowing moments like the first time I were told, in Year 9, that the bible was just a metaphor and none of that stuff actually happened for real. 🤯

It sounds to me like you were mistaking a telecine for those home film-to-videotape transfer devices that your dad bought to transfer the family's old 8mm/Super-8 movies to video. They work pretty much exactly the way you described in your original piece - you project the movie onto a mirror or a screen which your video camera is pointed at.

I don't know much about it all but I heard David Lynch at the time used a video camera like what they used for Series 1, because it looked rough and cheap. It was funny seeing RTD saying they had state of the art tech.

I agree, I am very cool and very sexy, and The Seeds of Doom is one of my favorite episode ever made

Could you share the sources for those whom desire to learn more?

S2 is weird cus some episodes are more like S3/4 but some are like S1 and have that weird fuzz on it.

what’s the tune in your intro? been bugging me a LOT lol

"famed isekai Life on Mars" took me OUT

I wouldn't be suprised if the reason they sped up the TV movie was so that the ambulance chase scene looked faster and more intense!

When i saw the thumbnail, personally my brain thought "oh another video of a nostalgia blind person going on about how every single bit of the rtd era was amazing and uncriticisable" but i watched the video and it's actually very well done technical information. good job. i feel it's important to mention something you left out which is that the SD look of the rtd era was according to a lot of sources largely to cut costs on cgi rendereding and make the lower quality cg fit in better, but besides that it's a very good video. also personally i think the capaldi era is the peak of the show's look. series 5 and 6 have that beautiful cinematic quality to them sure, and the newer series have that wide and modern look too them with some distinct and intresting lighting. but the capaldi era is that perfect level of clean simplicity for me. it's beautiful without trying too hard to look so. it's not screaming "look at how pretty we are" in my face, it just is pretty. although the amazing colour grading in the 60th does run for the prizee.

You ever see a video title and just think yes! Yes! Finally somebody is talking about it!

POV youve found the coolest guy at the party

BBC HD had hardly anything back then.

Electron BEAM!

Me, a lil tired, a lil distracted, watching the entire prequel vid and this: I don't know what it means yet but I like it Excited to rewatch later lol!

I hate that the first season is so glowy

They made film copies of Classic for international broadcasters by pointing a film camera at a screen I believe, so that might be where you got that idea about telecine. P.S. Please pronounce 'era' the non-American way and not like 'error'. That would be an error!

The Seeds of Doom... It may not be my Favorite? But it was my first Introduction to Doctor Who. (PBS Re-run in the Early 80's. Edited into "Movie" format. Episodes edited together)

With the classic era u can tell the difference between studio scenes and location scenes in a lot of serials but it never really took me out of the plot cause I just love watching the show in general withere it’s classic era or modern era my first full rewatch of the classic era is Jon Pertwee cause from him forward have all been recovered and available to watch for free on Tubi unlike William and Patrick who still have incomplete serials but are still available on Tubi also just the 1996 movie isn’t available on Tubi even though I have 2 copies of the movie due to it being the only thing Paul mcgann did for the show so it got used as the apart of the doctors revisited specials done as part of the 50th anniversary celebration so now I have that copy and the stand alone release I already had

I loved the look of Series 5 and wish they kept it, series 6 did look nice but also kinda bland at times compared to series 5 where even mundane locations did really pop.

You may want to mention the only other time film was used in NuWho - the trailer for Season 1 looks excellent, and teased us a picture quality we would not get. Does that season look different on Blu-ray? It’s been reprocessed from camera originals now. It also has a new audio mix, different to the broadcast (and every repeat we’ve seen) - but that’s a whole kettle of fish that you don’t want to open I bet. Arri Alexa was used in Series 7 not Series 6 - except for the shots of the house that Amy and Rory moved into. This house was used several times in the 7th series. You can see the definite difference in contrast ratio. Speaking of contrast ratio, Gen Z’er, are you going to talk about HDR and 4K? RTD2 absolutely shoots on both 4K and HDR, but a couple of Jodie episodes do too - it’s just hard to prove when none of the modern streaming services “own” the content. Then there’s all the aspect ratio changes as of Jodie’s seasons, and all the 3D and 4K experiments in the Moffat era. The 50th anniversary was shot and stored in stereoscopic HD, and Capaldi’s first season finale was released in 3D (but probably not shot that way). His final episode was released on Blu-ray in 4K HDR. This makes it a bit like Pertwee’s first episode, an outlier in a higher definition (on home media, only). You should probably talk about all the JNT episodes that contain snippets of HD too, which are glorious to see, and an excellent reason to buy my favourite science-y episodes (the Chris H Bidmead ones) in Blu-ray for the third time, if you’ve bought the DVDs and VHS before. Don’t be so surprised 24fps film is shown at 25fps in Britain (and Europe, Australia, etc) - this is TOTALLY normal and is just as common as the stupid 2:3 pulldown in NTSC or the 29.97 drop frame speed. More interesting about the TV Movie is that the visual effects were NOT produced at 24fps (or 23.94 fps) but at 30fps. This is why the puddle outside the TARDIS moves so weirdly.

Seeing as I am a degenerate video nerd and doctor who fan, I clicked on this video so quicklyyyyy

oh hell yeah, i’ve always wondered about this and lacked the vocabulary to even express my curiosity

I used to be confused over the difference between PAL and NTSC runtimes on movies and TV until I realised PAL is sped up by 4-5%.

i believe based on what i've read the series 1 look comes primarily from a mix of Len types, the fact it was at the time trendy to vaseline certain len's but, im guessing one of the directions, didn't know how to properly apply the technique so it's WAYY ooverused in some shots perticularly in the Rose/Aliens of london/ww3 shooting block. plus differant direction and stylistic techniques than later series's of the show, which might exaserbate the older look

It’s so weird seeing the raw footage and it looks like it was just shot on iPhone Pro Max or something.

sorry i will watch video now🖒

You say "they sped it up", as if that were unexpected or even outragous. It was pretty normal, and in my epxerinece the more common way. If you watched a movie or U.S.-TV-series in PAL-land, chances were, it would be sped up, hence the common term "pal speed-up". Not always, but often, probably more often then not. And it was fine. Even more so on DVD. Like search for a few well-known movies on DVD and I bet you will find that 95+ percent of those movies will ran faster, and as an effect shorter, on PAL-compatible DVDs, as opposed to NTSC-DVDs.

7:40 why we will never get an HD scan of Deep Space Nine and Voyager. They did all the cgi on video to save $.

I’ve always wondered my British shows and commercials look different from shows in America. Watching something like Call The Midwife, for instance, when people move there seems to be a slight distortion and lack of really clear contrast. I wondered if it might have to do with frame rate, since that’s, famously, why the Hobbit movies looked so unusual.

DOCTOR WHO 🛸🫶💙💙 ✨🚀🌈 I am always here for

the BBC archives are a Mess

yo that bzzt sound at the start is actually painful way too loud pls compress

Honestly i wish they could go back to this aesthetic, the modern era of the show season 10 onwards just looks incredibly strange visually and way more flat compared to the sorta dreamy look the earlier seasons.

poggers!

I think why Doctor Who Series 1 (2005) is lower in quality is the BBC didn't have faith it be a success so they didn't use the most expensive cameras.