Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The Region 1 DVD release of The Moonbase has been severely botched by BBC Worldwide and they have NO intention to fix their mistake or offer replacement discs to customers who already purchased this abominable release! It was mastered with an incorrect framerate of 23.98 (film speed) instead of the correct NTSC video framerate of 29.97 and essentially removes all of the VidFire sequences which is the process used by the Restoration Team to restore a "live" video look to sequences that were originally recorded in the studio onto videotape. The result makes these sequences look like they were incorrectly shot on film instead and the pixels are muddy and smeared on episodes 2 and 4. According to the Doctor Who DVD FAQ, BBC Worldwide is aware of the mastering problem and they have issued a statement that they have NO plans to fix it or offer replacement discs with a "Take-it-or-leave-it" attitude: "MOONBASE MASTERING ERROR - UPDATE Due to a tight schedule, Worldwide Americas had this DVD authored in the US instead of the UK (as they normally do). In the process of converting this from the PAL video system, it should've been authored as interlaced video at 60 fields per second, however, the US engineers instead treated this as if it were progressive video. This has resulted in the loss of the VidFIRE video-look effect, and the episodes play slightly slower than they should play; they're about 1 minute longer than they ought to be. They did apply a digital pitch-correction so that the sound didn't lower in pitch. It's still playable, but the video-look is absent, and it does run 4% slow." This is just inexcusable for fans who have waited DECADES for a proper release. With nearly all of the recovered Doctor Who stories already released on DVD, The Moonbase marks one of the last serials to get a DVD release and they just don't care! If they change their minds later they will likely issue a "Special Edition" to get another money grubbing "Double-Dip" out of the fans. For those of us who purchased this already, it is just unforgivable. For those of you who haven't purchased it, DON'T! Do not support a botched release by giving them your money. If more people who have purchased this return them as manufacturing defects and sales start to suffer, maybe they will get the message loud and clear that the fans demand a CORRECTED re-mastering and force them to do something about this atrocity!