By @edent · Doctor Who dvd review · 3 comments · 350 words
A dark and shadowy figure is using laptops to terrorise a school and convert its pupils into mindless automata. Only one person can stop this dastardly scheme - Kate Winslet! Who, for some reason, plays a 15 year old. Because she is 15. Because this is 1991 and Russell T Davies has written one of […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Doctor Who dvd review · 2 comments · 850 words
A box set of late-era Tom Baker stories. And they're a bit of a mixed bunch. Full Circle First up, Full Circle - which introduces us to Adric. Ah, poor sweet Adric. He's an exercise in wish-fulfilment. Getting a nerdy, 17 year old, Who-geek to write a teenage nerd to appeal to other teenage nerds. […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Doctor Who dvd review · 1 comment · 400 words · read ~154 times.
This is the semi-mythical "lost" serial from Doctor Who. Written by Douglas Adams at the height of his powers, and cruelly lost to an industrial dispute. There have been many attempts to recreate the show - but this is the definitive edition0. All the missing sequences have been animated - with the original cast providing […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Doctor Who dvd review · 450 words
This is not one of the best Doctor Whos. But it is fascinating as a template for New-Who. A cold open on an alien planet! A celebrity comedian cameo! A feisty female companion! Wales! On paper, Delta contains all the ingredients for a great serial. What if all the weird people at your holiday camp […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Doctor Who dvd review · 1 comment · 500 words
This is such an unfairly maligned Doctor Who story. It is chock-full of brilliant high-concept Sci-Fi ideas. Even the spelling on the stencilled doors and windows rewards the careful viewer with little insights into the far future. This is heavily "inspired" by Fantastic Voyage - and I think that's great; Doctor Who has always ripped […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Doctor Who dvd review · 500 words
The Web Planet puts the first Doctor and his companions in the middle of a war between two alien races - the moth-like Menoptra and a hostile race of ant creatures known as Zarbi - for possession of the planet Vortis. With the help of a grub-esque people called the Optera, the Doctor discovers the […]
Continue reading →By @edent · audio dvd dvda linux opus ripping · 2 comments · 450 words · read ~2,383 times.
DVD-Audio (henceforce DVDA) is an unloved and mostly forgotten audio format. Nevertheless, there's a large back-catalogue of music which is still trapped on ancient discs encoded in the proprietary MLP format. A few years ago I wrote about how to extract the audio using the obsolete Windows program DVD-Audio Explorer. I wanted to be able […]
Continue reading →By @edent · audio dvd ripping · 1 comment · 800 words · read ~1,914 times.
These are mostly notes to myself. These all comply with the UK's new copyright laws. Check your local laws, kiddies! DVD-Audio (called DVD-A or DVDA) never really took off. It's hard to find the discs and compatible hardware. Nevertheless, I want to listen to these high-resolution audio tracks under Linux. In these examples, I'm using […]
Continue reading →By @edent · drm dvd linux ripping · 2 comments · 450 words · read ~13,727 times.
This is a quick tutorial to show you how to rip DVDs on a headless server. That is; one which only has command line access. The documentation for MakeMKV is available. It's a bit sparse. It also doesn't have many of the features of the GUI. For example, the GUI allows you to select which […]
Continue reading →By @edent · dvd swapping swishing · 4 comments · 350 words · read ~112 times.
Inspired by Vikki Chowney's Swishing Party.... The idea is simple. You bring along some of your old DVDs that you think other people will enjoy. You get a token for each DVD you bring. You look through all the DVDs everyone else has brought along. Swap your tokens for some awesome new films! We're still […]
Continue reading →