Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'm going to focus my review on Blu-Ray quality since Tom Baker is always the quintessential Doctor, most die-hard fans have the DVDs, so the question about the purchase involve extra materials and video/sound quality to justify a double-dip. And is it justified? The packaging is wonderfully minimal considering the number of discs included. So much nicer than the old DVD releases in this regard. I've always been skeptical of blu-ray titles that do nothing more than upscale standard definition (525 line, interlaced NTSC videotape) content, especially as it is impossible to add detail into an image. But I don't see much in the way of problems. Especially given problems that aging videotape can have. Being made in England in the 1970s, they used 625 line interlaced PAL videotape. Which means a frame has a little extra vertical detail, but interlacing means one frame is split into two halves (fields) that cannot be seen by the naked eye and the two fields, containing movement, can cause problems. It's important to know that, since upconverting takes a video stream and deinterlaces it, combining two fields into one native frame. The resultant frame can have anomalies that just look odd (jagged lines, blur, distortion in rapid movement scenes.) The only thing I've seen is a slight "filmic" effect (24 frames per second instead of the 29.97 are accustomed to in NTSC regions. Considering the original DVD release looks more fluid, is it off-putting in this remastered release? Not really. I was not expecting the image quality to look this good considering its low-resolution limitations. Especially reds, which develop problems over time when stored on videotape and far more when compressed onto DVD. The blu-ray shows remarkably little bleed and zero compression artifacts that one can see on a paused frame. Just the usual signs of upscaling (edge sharpening halos and other issues that aren't really seen as prominently when watching the episode in motion as opposed to gawking at a frozen screen frame.) The other issue about detail and upscaling: Look, for example, at the police box's "pull to open" sign when it is at medium or distance shot. If the story was filmed in HD, you'd be able to read it all clearly. But shot on SD, the text is still blurry - even when enlarged. Upscaling doesn't add detail, but the lack of compression still allows the text to be somewhat readable. Despite the haloing around the text that's indicative of edge sharpening algorithms, which you would not see in true/native HD content. The dual mono audio comes in handy on surround sound systems rather nicely as well. Sound quality is excellent, top notch. The new material and Tom Baker interview - absolutely, it's a must-see and is alone worth the price IMHO. The episodes won't ever sound any better, and won't look any better unless there's a future home video format that doesn't require video compression - but a terabyte per disc instead of blu-ray's smaller (appx 1/20th) capacity? That's not going to happen any time soon, and certainly not for upscaled 625i material no matter how well it looks. This set was made with care and it shows. Is it worthy of a double-dip? That's up to you. Personally, I was pleasantly surprised by the video and sound quality so, yes, I believe it's worthy. Especially as home video players and TV sets, which also do upscaling if they need to, won't do as good of a job with upscaling DVDs on their own - and those sets also have to deal with DVD (MPEG) compression on top of resizing the image to fit its display. MPEG compression is something I'm not seeing in freeze-frame on the blu-ray edition, but is seen quite often on the DVD. Again, detail is not added, that's impossible. But the lack of MPEG compression-related artifacts helps reveal detail that had been shrouded by blurriness, color bleed, reduced color palette, jagged box-like artifacts, or similar. All of these more than compensate for the original material's limited resolution, and it's still glorious to see. Never thought I'd say that. :) And the price, $50, it's hard to go wrong either way. The pros outweigh the cons, which are none. Another Blu-ray benefit is the scratch-resistant coating to help protect the disc from getting damaged or unplayable. Am looking forward to the rest of Tom Baker's run and, indeed, the rest of the classic era on blu-ray. I really have been wowed by everything in this set.