Red Dwarf Series 1 - 8 Boxset BD [Blu-ray] [2018]

Product Information

That's not all, though - if you have a DVD or Blu-ray drive with your computer that you can pop the disc into, be sure to do so to find a little surprise extra Easter egg!

The special is a Baby Cow production for UKTV, and first aired on Dave in April 2020, attracting 2.02 million viewers to make it the highest non-PSB broadcast of the week. The DVD and Blu-ray are released by BBC Studios. I’ve just heard about this Blu-ray release and want to say that I am both baffled and appalled that it’s been released in 720p! This has to be one of the most bewildering, idiotic moves I’ve ever heard.

On 15th February this year, it’ll be exactly 31 years to the day since Red Dwarf first blasted onto our screens. Everyone either has their own favourite series, or at least an opinion as to where exactly they think the show first jumped the shark (which, for the record, was likely around Series IV, even though you didn’t ask). Over an 11 year period, BBC Two brought us a total of eight seasons, until they suddenly decided that they didn’t want it anymore. While the show ultimately went on to find an afterlife in Silicon Heaven, courtesy of Dave, this new Blu-ray set brings us a full collection of the full run of BBC episodes in (upscaled) high-def for the first time. The only possible excuse I could imagine is that it was a space-saving measure – which doesn’t make any sense but would at least mean somebody was _trying_ to do their job and messed up as opposed to just not doing it in the first place. To upsale from 576i to 720p is making the image 25% bigger, needlessly destroying picture quality. WHY DO THIS? Half the detail in the original picture is now turned to mush, with 60% of the new image being a blurry hybrid of multiple lines. What kind of psychopath would choose to do this? And finally, there’s an Easter Eggs menu, compiling all the bits that happened to be hidden on the main episode discs originally, and avoiding doubling up on the ones on the extras discs that come with the set anyway. Ironically, the Marooned model shot, which was only ever included on a DVD because of the aforementioned BBFC rating thing, is included here, whereas if it had been left where it was the whole set would be one certificate lower. It’s a great little archive though, and it’s neat that the Bodysnatcher disc of this set has the same function as the Collection itself in relation to the main DVD range, rounding up every possible last scrap of extras, the ones would otherwise have fallen off.

That was never a possibility. Red Dwarf was filmed on standard-def videotape would _only_ contains 480p resolution. HD is 200% that size. You can only get true HD remasters out of shows shot on film, because it’s much higher quality and doesn’t have a hard pixel limit. With videotape like Red Dwarf was filmed on, the best you could ever do is upscale the standard def video to HD (which, again does not do anything to increase the resolution of the source picture), clean up the video and encode it in higher quality than a DVD. Which is exactly what this release was promising to do in the first place. So keep your eyes here on reddwarf.co.uk, and we'll bring you more news on this release - from content to pricing to cover art - as soon as we're able.

The Booklet

This is a great review – I still purhcased the Blu-ray knowing the issues – many years ago I brought my dvd collection to university and lost about half of the discs. This seemed like a solid way to have the full collection again. Plus it looks damn good on my shelf!

To try and draw a line under this so it doesn’t keep going round in circles, I thought the G&T review was very balanced and fair in this respect: so much so that I think it’s pretty much the last word on the set – until we hear news of a disc-replacement programme, anyway. As someone who had the DVDs already, I’d say the boxset was a waste of money. Box is crap, visual improvements are up for debate and what improvements there occasionally are are tempered by some downgrades in places, and a couple of added spelling mistakes and no charming animated menus. You need to be honest or you can’t be fair. It’s like when the XI release came out – had we not condemned the paucity of extras we wouldn’t have then been able to commend the XII release for rectifying it. And defending the 1-8 box against its own flaws does well-mastered SD Bluray releases (like the Doctor Who sets and something exciting coming in October that hasn’t been announced yet but I am creaming my jodphurs over) a huge disservice.The "uprezzing" work has been carried out at two production houses: MX1 and Silver Salt Restoration Ltd, both of which are based in North Acton, just a short distance away from the former BBC Costume Store and Rehearsal Rooms (where Red Dwarf was famously rehearsed in its early seasons) and the BBC Visual Effects model shop and model stages, where the majority of the models where constructed and filmed for the production of the series. Unexpectedly, I discovered when attempting to get screengrabs for this article that the original booklets from the Series I-VIII DVDs (but not The Bodysnatcher Collection) are included on their respective series disc as PDFs. This is a lovely little touch, which makes it all the more baffling that they’re not listed on the box, in the booklet or online. The Leaflet Although The Promised Land isn't technically another "series", we couldn't let the tradition of Dave-era Red Dwarf having specially-designed reverse covers that match the original Series I-VIII releases go uncontinued - so we're pleased to confirm that yes, you shelf-matchers will indeed be able to flip the cover (DVD only) to retain that classic mid-2000s BBC styling! The discs are split between Blu-ray (featuring the upscaled episodes and assorted extras) and DVDs (for the remaining extras, which don't need the capacity of a Blu-ray!), and they break down as follows:

The 1992 attempt at making an American version of Red Dwarf was a fascinating project, and in this documentary, produced for the Series V DVD, we learned more of the story than ever before. Featuring interviews with many of those involved, and clips that had never been seen in broadcast quality before, it's an essential chapter of Red Dwarf's international story. If you're one of the fans who rushed out to buy the Red Dwarf Series I-VIII Blu-ray set upon its release last month, you may have noticed something unusual upon playing certain episodes. This is not even as good as it gets as i consider pavtube video converter as an average tool at best but its fast.If one or two of you wish to try an upscale using the best encoder try Handbrake its results are very good but i does take forever and needs a little bit of a learning curve to master all of its settings,i would love to hear how others do there upscaling as iam 100% eager to learn more and try out other methods Also the more I think about it the more annoyed I am that I’ve paid for the exact same special features discs I did years ago, even down to the ancient BBC ident. I know they couldn’t afford to do it differently but I wonder if a Just the Shows release may have been a better choice? Don’t know. As many diehard fans will have the full run on DVD already, the big question is whether or not it’s worth splashing out for the episodes yet again. Well, it really depends on what just you want out of a Red Dwarf Blu-ray set (or ‘Blu Dwarf’, as some wags have christened it). A brand new set of special features? Well, you’ll be disappointed, then. Okay, how about the show being remastered for HD viewing? Well, that’s been done, but not quite as you’d expect it; however, we’ll come to that in a bit. All in all, it’s a bit of a mixed bag, and given how long it’s taken to get the show prepped for re-release, you’d perhaps expect a little bit more from it overall as a collection.A case of overpromising from GNP, they should’ve just released them on bluray for storage reasons, still DVD resolution but just fewer discs because they clearly didn’t have anything of sufficient quality to justify any sort of upres – a couple of 35mm model shots would’ve been enough. I don’t think they ever corrected the discs in the retail version. You *have* to send off for the right discs, which if memory serves, are just plain discs more or less, they don’t match the artwork or anything else of the box set.