Doctor Who Restoration Team
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The ''Doctor Who'' Restoration Team is a loose collection of ''
Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
'' fans, many within the television industry, who restore ''Doctor Who'' episodes for release on DVD. The Restoration Team was formed in 1992 when a small group of ''Doctor Who'' fans approached the
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's Television
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wanting funding for a unique project. This original project was to restore
monochrome A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, monochrom ...
recordings of a
Jon Pertwee John Devon Roland "Jon" Pertwee (; 7 July 1919 – 20 May 1996) was an English actor, comedian, entertainer, cabaret performer and TV presenter. Born into a theatrical family, he served in the Royal Navy and the Naval Intelligence Division during ...
story back to their original
colour Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...
form, as the originals had been lost. The results of this were so successful that the
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co-funded the Team to restore three more complete stories. Since then, the Team has expanded and has contributed to many ''Doctor Who'' projects for both
BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...
and
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. These include many of the final ''Doctor Who'' VHS releases and all of the "classic series" DVD releases to date.


Restoration

During the original colour restorations, the team were keen to present the episodes as close to the original broadcast master tapes as possible, as explained by senior Restoration Team content producer Steve Roberts:
One thing which the team had to constantly be wary of was the temptation to not just restore, but to also improve on the original ... This would not be in the spirit of restoration, and the viewer would not be seeing a fair representation of the story as it originally was.
In 1997, whilst working on the VHS release of ''
The War Machines ''The War Machines'' is the ninth and final serial of the third season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in 4 weekly parts from 25 June to 16 July 1966. The serial is set in 1960s London ...
'', the approach of straight restoration, that of returning the episodes to their original state, competed with the desire to improve upon what was originally broadcast. Sound engineer
Mark Ayres Mark Ayres is an electronic musician, composer and audio engineer. Ayres studied music and electronics at Keele University. He also worked as a sound engineer at TV-am between 1982 and 1987. As a television composer, he became known for providi ...
explained the difficulties:
There are some difficult decisions as to how far I should take my work. Because the original video has been transferred to film, I've tried to remove anything which was added during the process of optical copying – in other words taking it back to its condition on original transmission.Molesworth, Richard. "1966 And All That", ''Doctor Who Magazine'', 2 July 1997, 253 p.10
''The War Machines'' featured a couple of instances of sound effects being faded in at the wrong points during the original studio recordings. Ayres:
It would be very easy to 'grab' a sound effect, and put it back where it's supposed to be. I haven't done it, because it was wrongly done at the time, and that's the way it should stay. All I've tried to do is correct technical defects which have occurred later with the film, I haven't corrected things which were done wrongly on the original tapes. Except in two places.
Ayres edited two instances of the original sound engineer on the serial fading the audio up and down quickly and creating uneven sound levels. Since work on the ''Doctor Who'' DVD releases began, the frequency of these edits and revisions has increased. The earliest releases had the colour graded to appear more consistent. Later releases have had their opening and closing credits remade to match the originals using modern software and electronic fonts, untidy transitional frames have often been removed resulting in a fractionally shorter running time, miscued sound effects are routinely adjusted and visual effects considered substandard are adjusted. The colour grading is often noticeably different from the broadcast originals. For example, when recreating effects for the serial ''
The Pirate Planet ''The Pirate Planet'' is the second serial of the Doctor Who (season 16), 16th season in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC One, BBC1 from 30 September to 21 October ...
'', the Team explained that "in the remade version, we took the liberty of allowing the wrench to be blasted back towards the camera at this point to help 'sell' the effect better."


Members

One member,
Mark Ayres Mark Ayres is an electronic musician, composer and audio engineer. Ayres studied music and electronics at Keele University. He also worked as a sound engineer at TV-am between 1982 and 1987. As a television composer, he became known for providi ...
, has done much of the
audio restoration Audio restoration is the process of removing imperfections (such as hiss, impulse noise, crackle, wow and flutter, background noise, and mains hum) from sound recordings. Audio restoration can be performed directly on the recording medium (f ...
work for the final VHS releases, as well as many of the DVD releases, and all of the "Missing Soundtrack" CD releases since 1999. Other known team members, past and present, include: * James Russell * Ralph Montagu * Steve Roberts (VidFIRE) * Paul Vanezis, video restoration * Richard Molesworth * Peter Finklestone (designer of
VidFIRE VidFIRE (an abbreviation of "video field interpolation restoration effect") is a technology intended to restore the video-like motion of footage originally shot with television cameras that have been converted to formats with telerecording as thei ...
) * Peter Crocker, Director of SVS Resources * Steve Broster * Richard Bignell * John Kelly *
Ed Stradling Ed Stradling (born 1972 in Cardiff, Wales), is a TV producer/director, who is best known for producing documentaries accompanying the BBC DVD range in the 2000s. Documentaries Stradling produced over 40 documentaries and shorts on DVD releas ...
* Jonathan Wood, video restoration * Steven Bagley * Jenny Day (Quad tape and Film transfer)


See also

* ''Doctor Who'' missing episodes * List of ''Doctor Who'' serials * List of ''Doctor Who'' DVD releases * List of ''Doctor Who'' Blu-ray releases * ''Doctor Who'' DVD Files''


References


External links


Official Restoration Team website (archived)
{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Doctor Who'' Restoration Team
Restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration * Restoration ecology ...
Television preservation