milo bloom

Here's the notices



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BackStJoe

I'd like to give a major shout out to the Restoration Team. I'm watching the Trial of a Timelord on blu-ray (I don't think I've cracked open the DVD set I own) and the amount of special features is mind boggling. And that so much new content was produced and how much of the cast participated is wonderful. I especially loved the cookbook segments.

Now to special cut of Terror of the Vervoids then maybe open the Peter Davidson blu's...

kd5

Why do these Tom Baker seasons on Blu-ray have to show as a little FS box in the middle of my WS TV when all the other FS series I own on DVD appear FULL SCREEN?

Jay G.

Check your player and TV settings and make sure the player doesn't think it's sending to a 4:3 TV.

Blu-ray doesn't really have a 4:3 mode, so 4:3 shows are actually 16:9, with the 4:3 show horizontally centered and black bars on the side, i.e. pillarboxed. So when the player sends that 16:9 image to a 4:3 TV, it thinks it needs to letterbox it, so vertically centers the 16:9 image and puts black bars on the top and bottom, but as the 16:9 image from the Blu-ray only has an actual 4:3 visual with pillarboxing, you end with the visual both pilllarboxed and letterboxed, meaning black bars on all 4 sides, i.e. "windowboxed".

For the DVD format, there's actually both a 4:3 mode and a 16:9 anamorphic mode for discs that support it. So for a 4:3 DVD, the player sends it to the TV as a 4:3 image with no letterboxing or pillarboxing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windowbox_(filmmaking)

kd5

Everything is setup in 16x9 widescreen, these Tom Baker seasons (on blu-ray) are the only times I've experienced this. All my other FS TV shows (on DVD) don't have this problem. Guess I should've bought these on DVD.....except I don't think that's an option.

Jay G.

Are those the only Blu-rays of classic Doctor Who that you have? Not Peter Davison, Jo Pertwee, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker? They're the US releases?

Is it everything on the discs, or just the feature episodes? How do the extras play, especially the 480i extras? How about the disc menu?
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Docto...196885/#Review

Is is possible to take a picture of it playing on your TV and post it? What's your TV brand/model, and Blu-ray player brand/model?


Just for reference, I have several of these Blu-rays, including a Tom Baker season, and they play fine on my TV. Likewise, I haven't seen anyone else complaining about these discs with the issue you're having. So I'm suspecting it's something with your particular setup, not the discs.

Josh-da-man

Maybe kd5 is having an issue where some kind of flag is getting tripped and it's letterboxing the pillarboxed HD image? Could there be some kind of quirk with his hardware setup that's making the discs do this? Like, somewhere between the player and tv, it's thinking the display is 4:3, so it's automatically letterboxing the image?

Could it also be an authoring issue with the discs that only shows up on certain players, tvs, or combinations thereof?

Jay G.

Yes, I think it's an issue with the settings of the player and/or TV. He may be getting issues with other titles, such as a 16:9 image appearing letterboxed, but those might not be as noticeable as the windowboxing.

I can't think of an authoring issue that would only affect certain combinations of player & TV. Also, I've done various searches, and I can't find any reference of this happening to anyone else. Typically authoring issues are going to cause fairly prevalent issues.

It's also the fact that these Blu-rays may be kd5's only 4:3 content on Blu-ray. They mention all their other TV shows are on DVD, so that would only leave older movies as a possible option. If there was a way to check if this was affecting all 4:3 HD Blu-rays, or at least one other title, vs it only affecting the DrWho Blu-rays, then we could make a better determination, but for the moment, I'm thinking it's something wonky with his setup that affects all 4:3 HD Blu-ray content that kd5 just hasn't encountered until now.

kd5

I have a Sony BDP-S570, connected to an LG65UM7300PUA TV via HDMI, picture mode is set to Cinema, these Tom Baker Doctor Who's are the only 4:3 blu-rays I own, no I don't have any of the other classic Doctors. I don't have any issues with any of my other videos, be they DVD or blu-ray. Picture a 4:3 box inside a 65" WS TV screen, you'll have it. I went through the settings on both TV and blu-ray player, I couldn't find anything that might act as any kind of a culprit for this phenomena. If I had another 4:3 BD, I'd know something was amiss but I don't.

http://kr.eguide.lgappstv.com/manual...nga/index.html

Jay G.

Is the aspect ratio on the TV set to "Original"? Check here:


Also, check the resolution the TV is receiving from the Blu-ray player. Based on what I can find, you do it this way:
https://www.lgwebos.com/topic/3679-h...ing-displayed/
Also, the issue could be with what you Blu-ray player is outputting, so you need to check those settings.
https://www.sony.com/electronics/sup...p-s570/manuals

Under Screen Settings, make sure everything is set to the defaults. TV Type: 16:9, Screen Format: Original, DVD Aspect Ratio: Letterbox, Output Video Format: HDMI "Auto". If that doesn't fix it, try one of the other HDMI options; let me know if there's more than just "auto" and "original," which is all the manual mentions.

kd5

^ Checked all my settings, the only one that was different was I had the aspect ratio set to 16x9, set it to Original but it didn't change anything with regard to these BDs. All my HDMI settings are correct, everything else is good, the 4:3 Tom Baker still shows as a 4:3 box inside my WS. All updates are current on both the TV and BD player.

Tom Baker's S1 & 7 are the only 4:3 BDs I own, so it's not an across-the-board problem, everything else is peachy.

milo bloom

Just spitballing here, but aren't there different specs on HDMI cables? Maybe a newer one is needed to properly transmit a signal?

Jay G.

HDMI is pretty much a yes/no situation, and the different specs are more about the cable being able to handle the tighter specifications for signal loss for the higher bandwidth in newer HDMI standards. You can actually get away with an "older spec" cable if it was high quality enough and/or short enough to be able to handle the higher bandwidths of newer specs. Anyway, the Tom Baker BDs shouldn't be maxing out any HDMI cable made in the last decade, and if there was a problem with an HDMI cable, I can't think of how it would cause an altered image instead of just intermittent dropping of signal or sparkles.

kd5, can you take a picture of what these BDs look like on your screen? Can you also take pictures of the various settings and stats on both the TV and BD player?

kd5

Cables were purchased new when the TV was purchased back in October/November '19.

No smart phone so will have to take pictures with digital camera, transfer to card then computer, upload to Imgur, then post here. Can't get to it right away (other stuff going on) so it might be awhile...

Josh-da-man

Let's see here... Just threw this image together...



I'm guessing that the image on kd5's television looks like the top image.

The bottom image shows the full HD 16:9 image in the center (the Doctor/Adric shot with the black bars on the sides, which should completely fill a 16:9 screen).

The dark gray parts represent the 16:9 image letterboxed to a 4:3 image, and the light gray parts show that image then pillarboxed to 16:9.

It looks to me like, somewhere in the system, it's taking the original 16:9 HD image and letterboxing into a 4:3 image (like how DVD players handled anamorphic widescreen images sent to an old 4:3 set). This is then percieved as a native 4:3 image, and then pillarboxed to a 16:9 image like what a blu-ray player would do if it was playing a 4:3 DVD..

I think the most likely culprit is that the player is somehow treating this like a 16:9 widescreen image that needs to be squeezed for a 4:3 set, and then that is then treated like a native 4:3 image and further pillarboxed into the 16:9 screen.

I have a Sony BDP-S360 (not kd5's model, but probably similar) player with the following screen settings:

SETUP>SCREEN SETTINGS>

TV Type: 16:9
Screen Format: Normal
DVD Aspect Ratio: Letter Box
Cinema Conversion Mode: Auto
Output Video Resolution: Auto
24p Output:
>BD-ROM 24p Output: Auto
>DVD-ROM 24p Output: Off
>Data content 24p Output: Auto
>Network content 24p Output: Off
YCbCr/RGB (HDMI): Auto
HDMI Deep Color Output: Auto
Pause Mode: Auto

I don't have the Doctor Who blu-rays in question, but I do have other 4:3 blu-rays that play fine. (Star Trek TOS, Star Trek TNG, The Prisoner).

Jay G.

You don't have to upload to IMGUR anymore, DVDTALK now lets you upload pictures directly to your posts.

No tablet? Laptop webcam?

Jay G.

You're forgetting that kd5 had the TV aspect ratio set to 16:9 instead of "original," so it could've been stretching the 4:3 image to fill the screen.

To my mind the only way this could happen is if the Blu-ray player is outputting a 480i/p signal. That's the only TV resolution with a 4:3 aspect ratio. When BD players are set to output 480i/p, they're going to letterbox any 720p or 1080i/p image, since those are 16:9 resolutions.

milo bloom

Best Buy and Amazon have S12 (Jodie) for 19.99, I just bought from Best Buy.

Not sure if it includes Resolution, the UK version did.

The Valeyard

I noted this in the Blu-Ray forums: The US DVD running time for Series 12 is 510 approx. minutes. The UK release says their running time is either 550 or 580. It's hard to read from the image I found.

We'll see on Tuesday.

mythmaker18

Maybe the 580 minute runtime on the UK label is taking bonus features into account, and the 510 minute time stated for the US release is only counting the episodes themselves?

The US sets should have either an identical runtime (if being released in 60i) or a longer runtime (if being released in 24fps-slowdown mode, where it would be 4% longer than the UK runtime).

I'm sure there's no way that there would be 70 minutes of cuts. Any edits to the US sets are typically minimal and for unavoidable copyright reasons only (like the Beatles footage in The Chase).

The Valeyard

Maybe. Resolution is 60 minutes so that could bring the run time to about 570 minutes (approx). Not sure about the run time on the special features. I know there's not too many this go-around.

UPDATE: It's official - Resolution is not included. From a Blu-Ray Forum poster:

milo bloom

Yup, just got mine.

Still, for $20 for the season I'm not complaining. I'll grab it off eBay.

Josh-da-man

They've been getting lazy about including the Christmas (New Years?) specials on the season sets. Guess they want people to buy them separately.

After picking up the complete Tenth Doctor set on blu-ray for fifteen bucks, I'm just going to wait them out. And, frankly, I don't know if I even want to own any of Chibnall's Doctor Who seasons, anyway.

mythmaker18

I'm not sure about the last couple series, but with Tennant/Smith, the Christmas Specials typically get added to the following series's release, rather than the previous series ("Christmas invasion" was on the Series 2 set instead of Series 1, "Christmas Carol' went on the Series 6 set instead of Series 5, etc.). Maybe they're following that pattern?

flansered

But they aren't consistent about that either. Last Christmas and the the Husbands of River Song were both on the ninth series set. But then with the tenth series the Doctor Mysterion episode was on the tenth series set but next years special Twice Upon a Time isn't on any of the series sets. But that was the long year without Doctor Who. Personally I'd rather they just bundle the specials in so it would save shelf space.