Torchwood Season 1 on Blu-Ray

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Permalink Reply by Esco on June 1, 2008 at 3:29am

I am no expert on this topic, but I see no reason by Torchwood would be recorded in HD and not the current Doctor Who program. In other words I'm assuming Doctor Who is filmed in HD as well. It is the tent pole program, the mainstay of the current ever expanding franchise (including the Sarah Jane Adventures) and has a much more substantial budget compared to Torchwood.

And speaking of TW in HD, did you ever happen to catch it on HDNet or whatever HD channel it was on? I was surprised the first time I watched an episode on television in HD instead of the regular BBC America. Sure it very clear, but almost too clear. IMO it actually made the sets and costume design appear much more frugal and "cheap" looking. It seemed like all of the lighting in scenes was equally bright coming from the same studio lamp just off-camera.

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Permalink Reply by Baff on June 1, 2008 at 5:30am

I know that previous seasons of DW were not recorded in HD. I don't know about the current season. TW is newer. HD camera prices are dropping. So they bought HD cameras for TW to start with. For DW it would mean replacing the SD cameras, which is a very different thing in the budget. I'm sure it will happen at some point.

Yeah, I've watched most of TW on HDNet. Being a fan of the original DW, I just expect all the sets and props to look cheap, so in comparison the sets on all the current shows are pretty fancy. I am surprised at how unsanitary many of the sets on TW look though.

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Permalink Reply by Esco on June 6, 2008 at 9:47am

Let's see, some thoughts off the top of my head:


TW series 1 was produced before series 3 of DW. They're both filmed in, at, or by BBC Wales. I'm assuming the sets of both programs reside in the same studio or studio complex. I'm also assuming they are produced by many of the same crew using much of the same equipment so why not do it all in HD?


Ok, it was killing me, I had to Google this topic to find out more. Looking at what others are saying, the prevailing wisdom seems to be that TW is recorded in HD and DW is not. Consensus states this is because DW is more effects driven and that rendering the effects in HD would increase their budget that much more.

But it still doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I'm stubborn? If this is in fact the reason, I still don't see why they wouldn't at least film everything live in HD, since they have the equipment already and then, if they must for effects reasons, dilute downgrade the resolution of their material to SD or ED or whatever they choose. Well maybe they do already... Who knows?

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Permalink Reply by Esco on June 6, 2008 at 9:57am

Ok, I confirmed it, 'Who co-producer Julie something basically said as much: The rendering and post-production time for DW b/c of the hundreds of effects per episode vs TW 10 or 20 sfx in a given episode are the reasons.

I still think they're being cheap and/or un-innovative though. I realize they may not be "film grade quailty," but next gen gaming systems like Xbox 360 or PS3 are certainly able to render their real-time in-game graphics in 720p, 1080i, 1080p. Again, this may not be the best comparison, and I've never worked post-production on a TV show before, but does it really take that much for them to produce their effects? Does it really take that much time to "render" everything in more detail. Couldn't some FX artist come up with a way to just design something in the computer and come up with a simple automated process to upscale it the way modern DVD and BD players and many new TVs do? I'm saying if this is all really the problem, can't someone come up with some relatively easy solution to at least get by until FX costs come down even more?

For goodness sakes, this is Doctor Who we're talking about!!!

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Permalink Reply by jampony on June 6, 2008 at 2:29pm

I don't know if I want to see Doctor Who in HD. Seeing the TARDIS and all the interesting locations they travel to so clearly might ruin some of the mystery for me.

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Permalink Reply by Baff on June 6, 2008 at 4:13pm

The sets and effects on the original show are hard to look at even in SD. They had something like $500 per episode for sets and such. I think they had a lot less than that for some, which is why so many took place in quarries and old factories (and they still do).

$500 now might buy a couple seconds of CGI these days, might not. British shows have far smaller budgets than American shows. Big American actors get over $100k/episode, which is probably more than the entire Dr.Who budget for an episode. Big U.S. shows run $500k to $1M per episode and they do twice as many episodes as the UK does.

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