>>>>>>these are 35 year old analogue videotapes, which were not recorded with diligent attention to light levels and picture balance, etc. The equipment was too crude and the time factors too stringent.
That's very true Stuart, the DS tapes were not taken very good care of over the years. But I am also getting the Doctor Who dvd's too. Wouldn't you say the quality of those tapes, (especially the 1960's/early 70's episodes) were on a par with DS?? The 1969 Jon Pertwee episode, "Spearhead from Space" that was issued on dvd by Warner Bros in America, was digitally remastered and looked incredible! I had absolutely no digital noise or artifacting when I played it on my 35 inch SONY WEGA. Of course we are talking about 4 episodes of DW, vs 10 episodes of DS on one disc. So as you say, cramming too many episodes on one disc can raise many problems. For the record, I also have the 1960's Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet sets from A&E. Those were beautiful crystal clear images on both dvd's. As I said before, if I don't play the DS DVD's on a high definition or SONY WEGA, then I don't get the digital noise problems. And picture wise, it's just perfect. Someday, all we may have are HD TV's, and the DS DVD's may not hold up quality wise on them.