3rd Doctor eps that still need color

[creed462]

We know they have all the eps for the third Doc, but some are availible only in black and white. I wonder what is being done to restore the black and white to color or which have been.

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

We know they have all the eps for the third Doc, but some are availible only in black and white. I wonder what is being done to restore the black and white to color or which have been.

The Silurians has been recolored.
The Ambassadors of Death (1 in color; 5-6 recolored; 2-4, 7 in b&w)
Terror of the Autons has been recolored.
The Mind of Evil is b&w.
The Daemons has been recolored.
Planet of the Daleks (3 is b&w; 1-2, 4-6 is color)
Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1 is b&w; 2-6 is color)

Go to the Restoration Team website.
They have details there. Go to "VHS Releases" then go to "Colour Restorations".

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

Many of those recolored episodes will need to be re-recolored to DVD release.

[creed462]

SOme one was saying they were tring to use modern tech to recolor then, but the cost is high

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

SOme one was saying they were tring to use modern tech to recolor then, but the cost is high

I heard it cost $50,000 dollars per episode.
It might be worth it for Planet of the Daleks and Invasion of the Dinosaurs.
Perhaps new technology will allow them to find a cheaper way.

[Nuallain]

There's basically two levels of recolouring that need to be done.

For the stories that have already been recoloured, there were tapes that had been sent to PBS (and the like) in the 1970s that still survived in colour and these were used to recolour the Black and White masters in the BBC archive. There have been huge leaps and bounds in technology since then so the BBC intend to redo that process for future releases. That's financially viable but they want to experiment and perfect the process before running into headlong. AIUI testing is ongoing on sample clips and they'll start to schedule those stories for release once they're happy with the results they can get.


The other problem is where stories ONLY exist in black and white and not even the American colour copies survive. To recolour this by computer-painting the individual frames will either (i) be cheap and LOOK it or (ii) be so expensive as to cause the BBC to make a loss on the release (assuming the same sort of sales as they get at the moment)

AIUI, the current plan is to simply put those stories to the back of the queue and release them in several years time when (hopefully) the cost of the colouring tech has come down substantially.

[Metarock Sam]

Perhaps they could release the eps in colour for the 50th anniversairy. Now that would be great !!!

[creed462]

Maybe color copies could show up, ant the release could be moved up, Or they could do a sceen here or there, that will take awile, but it will get done.