| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| toxicspurge |
Posted - 18 Feb 2008 : 21:28:15
Hey Russ,
Don't know if you're aware or not, but some guy has seeded a lot of LC Recons on Mininova over the last couple of days.
www.mininova.org/" target="_blank">http://netforbeginners.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=netforbeginners&cdn=compute&tm=61&gps=89_1330_1020_498&f=00&su=p284.8.150.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.mininova.org/
He's also claiming some of these are "DW Staff Approved" (see below)
"Doctor Who The Highlanders recon (17/12/66 to 07/01/67) [Loose Cannon (DivX)] DW Staff Approved"
www.mininova.org/" target="_blank">http://netforbeginners.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=netforbeginners&cdn=compute&tm=61&gps=89_1330_1020_498&f=00&su=p284.8.150.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.mininova.org/ |
| 29 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Frankymole |
Posted - 14 May 2008 : 18:56:58
quote:
Originally posted by Pip
And I agree it's still wrong to upload them (but IMO not as bad as things like the Elaphe recons)
I feel very virtuous. I have access to several torrent sites (which I only use for non-copyright material), as well as easy ability to transfer torrents (or VHS tapes) to DVD. But I have avoided the Elaphe attempts, and bought the BBC audio CDs without fail. I have also got the LC recons. Why? Not purely altruism, though I do want as wide an audience of fans as possible to enjoy the old stories (I bet RTD and David Tennant know exactly what happened in The Massacre..). It's because the extras, and the achievement of top quality are what really make these worthwhile. Some favourites - Mark Ayres's lovely, lovely interviews on the CDs (Anneke Wills on "Underwater Menace" is a particular favourite - she is so amazing!) and the spectacular interview coups achieved by LC (Donald Gee, Mark Eden, and Julian Glover being glorious examples; and Peter Purves and Sonia Markham, who gave me a very entertaining evening; they're wonderful!) - as well as the beautiful, painstaking works of art like the almost frame-by-frame construction "from the ground up" like "The Massacre".
Never mind Elaphe (whatever), 2¦Entertain and BBC Worldwide could look at some of these tapes and weep. This is the best appreciation any imaginative work could have. I'm awed!
If you have the LC videos, and the BBC soundtrack CDs, I fail to see what "extra" Elaphe offer. A lot less, in most cases. |
| toxicspurge |
Posted - 27 Feb 2008 : 21:19:55
Wonder where that came from. |
| tygerbug |
Posted - 27 Feb 2008 : 21:17:28
It is digital. It's been around for a while too.
I don't have the digital version of Underwater Menace, but I've downloaded a bit of it, examined it, and yep, it's the real thing, full DVD quality.
Avast, ye mateys! Arrrr! |
| toxicspurge |
Posted - 26 Feb 2008 : 11:15:12
I think it much more likely someone is "claiming" what they've seeding is digital and in reality, it's not. |
| dhandley |
Posted - 25 Feb 2008 : 22:38:41
quote:
Originally posted by Phredreeke
This suggests that you have a leak among your dubbers.
Well none of the dub sites were given digital copies - in fact I don't even have a digital master! The older recons were rendered on my PC and copied onto S-VHS tapes, these are the masters for the older recons. |
| Another Ian |
Posted - 23 Feb 2008 : 14:30:08
quote:
Originally posted by Russ
processed using 1990's programs (such as Corel Paint)
Oi! nothing wrong with Corel.
quote:
Originally posted by Phredreeke
This suggests that you have a leak among your dubbers.
Even I don't have a digital copy of Space Pirates, and I worked on it |
| toxicspurge |
Posted - 23 Feb 2008 : 13:15:51
quote:
Originally posted by Russ
For anyone thinking of actually getting a recon from a torrent site be aware of what you will actually get, recons (especially earlier ones) are photographed from the originals in the BBC archives on HALF 35mm film by DWM, printed up in DWM using 1990's printing equipment, scanned using 1990's scanners, processed using 1990's programs (such as Corel Paint) written to an avi and copied to VHS then often quite crudely converted to PAL from NTSC, you then have a second or third generation copy of that, thats the best you will have of something like Smugglers so the quality is far from hi-def as it is, then if you copy it to a DVD recorder you are compressing that from what would be a large avi file to an mpeg, most of the copies i have seen kicking about then compress that further into something like a 200mb divx file, now new stuff compressed through divx looks mushy, stuff the picture quality of recons is unwatchable, whilst newer recons tend to have better picture quality due to improved ways of tranferring material the quality of a download will still be much much worse and the ones i have seen are awful, there is a version of Galaxy 4 out there which ha had the captions (and therefore about 1/4 of the picture chopped off) and it is unintelligable. For anyone who has experienced recons this way, though it is a bit of a ball ache to do, you are far better off sending a couple of VHS tapes to a dubsite and seeing then in reasonable quality
So, much as it may be a pain in the neck, getting a VHS copy from a dubsite is
Hey Russ,
When I read this, what I saw was
<blah blah blah....the LC team do AMAZING MAGIC.....blah blah blah.....you get AMAZING RECONS!>
Please take it as a compliment! LOL! Tox! |
| toxicspurge |
Posted - 23 Feb 2008 : 12:32:39
Or else the source is just making it up. |
| Phredreeke |
Posted - 23 Feb 2008 : 11:17:12
In a way it's a bit of recognition of the quality of Loose Cannon's recons for the recons to be distributed as such and not just plain uncredited recons.
What may be a bit more alarming is this:
quote:
THIS IS FROM THE DIGITAL SOURCE ITSELF NO AVI CONVERSION NO IDEA HOW IT GOT ON THE INTERNET but theres only one way it could have but am not saying, I downloaded this in 2006 I only wish there was more and you can really tell the difference between VHS rip and this. as far as i remember this version has had episode 3 replaced from the lost in time DVD but am not 100%
This suggests that you have a leak among your dubbers. |
| Russ |
Posted - 23 Feb 2008 : 11:07:24
For anyone thinking of actually getting a recon from a torrent site be aware of what you will actually get, recons (especially earlier ones) are photographed from the originals in the BBC archives on HALF 35mm film by DWM, printed up in DWM using 1990's printing equipment, scanned using 1990's scanners, processed using 1990's programs (such as Corel Paint) written to an avi and copied to VHS then often quite crudely converted to PAL from NTSC, you then have a second or third generation copy of that, thats the best you will have of something like Smugglers so the quality is far from hi-def as it is, then if you copy it to a DVD recorder you are compressing that from what would be a large avi file to an mpeg, most of the copies i have seen kicking about then compress that further into something like a 200mb divx file, now new stuff compressed through divx looks mushy, stuff the picture quality of recons is unwatchable, whilst newer recons tend to have better picture quality due to improved ways of tranferring material the quality of a download will still be much much worse and the ones i have seen are awful, there is a version of Galaxy 4 out there which ha had the captions (and therefore about 1/4 of the picture chopped off) and it is unintelligable. For anyone who has experienced recons this way, though it is a bit of a ball ache to do, you are far better off sending a couple of VHS tapes to a dubsite and seeing then in reasonable quality
So, much as it may be a pain in the neck, getting a VHS copy from a dubsite is |
| toxicspurge |
Posted - 22 Feb 2008 : 11:02:11
Will do Russ. |
| Another Ian |
Posted - 21 Feb 2008 : 18:14:30
I noticed today Galaxy 4's recon is up on Youtube |
| Russ |
Posted - 21 Feb 2008 : 14:49:54
quote:
Originally posted by toxicspurge
So do you want to be notified of this when it pops up or is there really not much point?
By all means, we can always have a word but it depends on the co operation of the torrent tracker, but for torrents its certainly a pain
Thanks tox |
| toxicspurge |
Posted - 21 Feb 2008 : 14:00:54
So do you want to be notified of this when it pops up or is there really not much point? |
| Russ |
Posted - 21 Feb 2008 : 13:00:53
The problem is really the definition of "the BBC", whilst i'm sure most people who are into Doctor Who in the BBC are aware of recons (the RT for example) and seem to tolerate this as its not an attempt to profit from BBC copyright and is offering something the BBC is not prepared/able to the BBC is a monolith of an operation and there will be people out there whose job it is to protect the copyright.
As has been pointed out you can get just about every Doctor Who release on torrent sites from the latest DVD backwards and there seems to be little the BBc can do, if they shut a site down, like happened to Demonoid recently, other sites just pop up (such as the pirate bay) however some torrent sites do respect (to an extent) copyright and do only distribute stuff that isn't commercially available
The problem is if the BBC copyright department/brand manager chances on the torrent site and sees "LC Recons" he may wonder what that is and look into it further. Now i'm aware of a site which was hosting novelisations of the modern TV series (Rose, End of the World and a couple of others IIRC correctly) and the guy was contacted by Edward Russell (BBC Doctor Who brand manager) and told to remove them or (potentially) face legal action, however the same guy hosts a load of fan made VHS covers at the same place, but recieved no warning about these, now it may be that Mr Russell didn't notice these, but it seems unlikely, what seems more likely is that some things the BBC will allow as "fan interaction" some they won't. Will they allow recons? Who knows, which is why we try to keep the copyright infringement down as low as possible (including VHS distribution). The inclusion of them on mininova makes them more visible to anyone investigating
However, as has been said, there is not too much we can do in this case other than politely ask, sadly people who distribute them in this way are simply reducing the possibilty of future recons being distributed cos i have no intention of being sued by the beeb, and i'm sure the other guys feel the same, Its a shame people who get the things for free can't respect the wishes of the makers |
| toxicspurge |
Posted - 21 Feb 2008 : 11:18:51
True, but the more visibility LC's recons get (i.e. torrents), the harder it is for the BBC to turn a blind eye to them. |
| tardis-matrix |
Posted - 21 Feb 2008 : 09:01:03
Loose Cannon cannot be held responsible for any torrents that hit the internet no more than 2|e can be for DVD ISO's of official releases being uploaded to torrents/newsgroups. Loose Cannon cannot monitor the people who request the copies on VHS. We all know BBC are aware of Loose Cannon especially when the Restoration Team members even talk about them. They know that Loose Cannon do NOT supply digital copies. |
| Pip |
Posted - 20 Feb 2008 : 21:11:01
quote:
Originally posted by Tim L
Realistically though, what can LC do about this, beyond pleading with the tracker admins? They're in a pretty weak position, having no official clout whatsoever.
Indeed, and if they do then the tracker admin could easily say that there are no recons on their website (since they just hold the torrent files). Sadly, if various copyright enforcement agencies have no effect against places like The Pirate Bay (as TPB are quite proud to admit), then there's precious little LC can do rather than appeal to their better nature. |
| Tim L |
Posted - 20 Feb 2008 : 19:57:33
Realistically though, what can LC do about this, beyond pleading with the tracker admins? They're in a pretty weak position, having no official clout whatsoever. |
| toxicspurge |
Posted - 20 Feb 2008 : 17:55:20
I'll readily admit I've been guilty of downloading stuff in the past.
The problem, though, in this case, is if we allow LC Recons to be downloaded, we run the risk of LC being shutdown by the BBC. I don't know how realistic this is, but the LC consider it a serious risk, so that's good enough for me. |
| tardis-matrix |
Posted - 20 Feb 2008 : 17:48:56
toxicspurge Ive seen you posting requests for Doctor Who avi's on the demonoid forum (namely Monster of Peladon)before it went down, so are you saying its fine to pirate official BBC stuff but not to pirate pirated stuff. . . hmmm bit of a double standard there |
| evans-t |
Posted - 20 Feb 2008 : 17:27:34
quote:
Originally posted by Pip
Yes, but "DW Staff Approved" doesn't mean that some big-wig in the Doctor Who world has approved it - it means the member of staff at The Box who administers the Doctor Who torrents has approved it.
Seen as I used to be part of the box (I left because I hated it) and it's all a big coqwinidence. The head of the site is the person who approved everything, and his initals just happened to be DW. |
| toxicspurge |
Posted - 20 Feb 2008 : 11:58:03
I'm pretty sure the LC crew has a different viewpoint. |
| darnall42 |
Posted - 20 Feb 2008 : 11:48:38
lets face it,torrents are'nt going to stop,big finish and 2|e cant stop it so i cant see bbc clamping down too much so long as they are vhs rips and not digital dvd quality |
| toxicspurge |
Posted - 18 Feb 2008 : 22:23:18
Somehow, I don't think the BBC would quite see it that way...
If you want 'em, get 'em fast. I'm hoping Russ puts the kibosh on them as soon as he reads this. |
| Pip |
Posted - 18 Feb 2008 : 22:20:55
Yes, but "DW Staff Approved" doesn't mean that some big-wig in the Doctor Who world has approved it - it means the member of staff at The Box who administers the Doctor Who torrents has approved it.
And I agree it's still wrong to upload them (but IMO not as bad as things like the Elaphe recons), but at the same time isn't this thread advertising where to get hold of said recons?  |
| toxicspurge |
Posted - 18 Feb 2008 : 22:15:00
But it says "DW Staff Approved". Doesn't "DW" mean "Doctor Who"?
Regardless, the LC staff take a very dim view of their stuff being distibuted on torrent sites. |
| Pip |
Posted - 18 Feb 2008 : 22:10:04
You're completely misreading the whole 'staff approved' part of the thread!
What's happened is that on The Box (a different private tracker), someone has uploaded the recons, and whoever monitors the Who torrents there has given permission to upload it there (in the past they've been a bit picky about what can go up). It appears in recent days The Box has shared their database with Mininova, and so Mininova is listing the torrents on The Box (as they do with many other trackers). |
| magneticfields |
Posted - 18 Feb 2008 : 22:06:26
I feel the uploading of LC Recons onto torrent sites is nothing short of an insult to those who have spent many hours engaged in bringing us a fab substitute for the lost episodes. Recon torrents will attract the attention of the BBC and will probably kill the community. |
