Doctor Who 60th Anniversary celebrations on BBC Radio and Sounds

The BBC has really been spoiling fans of Doctor Who for this year’s 60th Anniversary celebration. There is an enormous amount of TV content available at the Whoniverse page, including of course all the available classic shows (1963-1996), the “new Who” 2005 revival, spin off shows like the Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood, Class and various related documentaries.

However, there is also a wealth of audio Doctor Who related material, which is not as well signposted, and a little difficult to find as it is spread (seemingly randomly) around various parts of the BBCs sprawling website. So I have tried to collect link to most of this content below.

• Audio dramas
  • Audio dramas by Big Finish on Radio 4 Extra
    • Technophobia (10th Doctor)
    • Time Reaver (10th Doctor)
    • Death And The Queen (10th Doctor)
    • Infamy Of The Zaross (10th Doctor)
    • The Sword Of The Chevalier (10th Doctor)
    • Cold Vengeance (10th Doctor)
    • The Innocent (The War Doctor)
    • The Thousand Worlds (The War Doctor)
    • The Heart Of The Battle (The War Doctor)
    • Legion Of The Lost (The War Doctor)
    • A Thing Of Guile (The War Doctor)
    • The Neverwhen (The War Doctor)
    • The Shadow Vortex (The War Doctor)
    • The Eternity Cage (The War Doctor)
    • Eye Of Harmony (The War Doctor)
  • Additional audio adventures by Big Finish (available on BBC Sounds)
    • 1963: The Assassination Games (8th Doctor)
    • Ravagers: Sphere Of Freedom (9th Doctor)
    • Ravagers: Cataclysm (9th Doctor)
    • Ravagers: Food Fight (9th Doctor)
    • Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Fallen Angels (5th Doctor)
    • Classic Doctors, New Monsters:Judoon In Chains (6th Doctor)
    • Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Harvest Of The Sycorax (8th Doctor)
    • Classic Doctors, New Monsters: The Sontaran Ordeal (8th Doctor)
    • Mind Of The Hodiac (6th Doctor)
    • The Isos Network (2nd Doctor)
    • The Beginning: The First Flight (Susan Foreman)
    • The Beginning: Red Lighting
    • Out Of Time (4th and 10th Doctors)
  • The Missing Episodes. Three classic lost stories which no longer exist in visual form. The audio has been remastered and some descriptive narration added.
    • Marco Polo
    • The Daleks’ Masterplan
    • The Wheel In Space
    • There is also a one hour documentary about Doctor Who’s missing episodes.
    • (home page); List of all available episodes

• Documentaries
  • The Classic Years
  • The Modern Era
  • Radio 2 Celebrates Doctor Who at 60
  • Doctor Who: 60 Years Of Friends And Foes
  • Doctor Who: The Wilderness Years
  • Surviving Doctor Who – an A-Z (Toby Hadoke)
  • Desert Island Discs – various people related to Doctor Who eg. Billy Piper, David Tennant, Russell T Davies, Matt Smith
  • Various Doctor Who related radio programmes from Radio 4, mainly from around the 50th Anniversary.

• Music
  • Doctor Who @ 60 A Musical Celebration

The Story Of Doctor Who From The BBC Archives

There is also a lot of interesting behind the scenes material (mostly text, but supplemented with archive photos, documents, and video clips) in the BBC Archive, grouped into themes such as the genesis of Doctor Who, the Early Days, the TARDIS, Dalekmania, regeneration, the 2005 revival and so on. It gets updated fairly frequently so keep checking back.

Bonus non-BBC content

Radio Times has many articles covering modern Doctor Who 60th Anniversary celebrations, as well as a lot of archive material. A list of articles is here. However here are some direct links to particular highlights:

Doctor Who at 60: When the Time Lords assembled for Radio Times

Ever since 1972, Radio Times has been bringing together the stars of Doctor Who for special photoshoots.

My Life as a Doctor Who Fan: Part 1 – the 1960s to 1974

My Life as a Doctor Who Fan: Part 2 – 1974 to 1981

My Life as a Doctor Who Fan: Part 3 – 1982 to 1984

My Life as a Doctor Who Fan: Part 4 – 1985 to 1989

My Life as a Doctor Who Fan: Part 5 – 1990 to 2012

My Life as a Doctor Who Fan: Part 6 – 2013 to now

Scream Of The Shalka

This was a flash animated story which starred Richard E Grant as the (then) 9th Doctor (since declared non-canon when the TV series was revived in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston). When announced it was eagerly anticipated, but was to some extent gazumped by the announcement of the TV revival before the animated story was even released on the BBC Doctor Who website. Nevertheless it has its charm, but has not been included in the official BBC “Whoniverse” and although technically still available on archived BBC pages, is not viewable in modern browsers as they do not support flash animation. However it can be viewed on the Internet Archive here.

Loose Cannon reconstructions

As you probably know, a significant number of classic stories from the Hartnell and Troughton eras have unfortunately been lost as the tapes were wiped by the BBC in the days when no one ever thought anyone would want to rewatch old TV serials. However audio for all the stories still exists (often from fan recordings direct from their TVs) and in those days a lot of “telesnap” photos were also taken to at least record in some form what the show looked like as it was being filmed. Some fans have made “reconstructions” of these lost stories using the surviving audio, coupled with short video clips where available, telesnap photos, and some basic animation. Subtitles add some descriptive narration. Although somewhat crude, they can be enjoyable. See this YouTube channel to view them.

Hitch-hikers vs Aliens (the sequel you never knew you wanted)

I have been playing around with ChatGPT and asked it to create an alternative hitch-hikers story that merged into Aliens.

Here is the result…

Arthur Dent sat at the bar of the local pub, sipping his pint and staring out the window. He was lost in thought, wondering why his friend Ford Prefect had been acting so strangely lately.

Ford sat down next to him, and Arthur could see the urgency and fear in his eyes. “Arthur, we need to get out of here. Right now. The Vogons are coming, and they’re going to destroy the Earth to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.”

Arthur laughed. “Ford, you’ve been reading too much science fiction. Vogons? Hyperspace bypasses? You’re talking nonsense.”

Ford shook his head. “I’m serious, Arthur. This is real. I’m an alien, and I’ve been sent to Earth to warn you about the Vogons. They’re coming, and we need to get out of here before it’s too late.”

Arthur stared at Ford, unsure of what to believe. “Ford, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but this is ridiculous. Vogons and hyperspace bypasses? It’s all just a fairy tale. You need to calm down and stop talking nonsense.”

Ford sighed, realizing that Arthur wasn’t going to believe him. “Fine, Arthur. But when the Vogons arrive and destroy the Earth, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” With that, Ford stood up and walked out of the pub, leaving Arthur behind to ponder his words.

Despite Ford’s warnings, Arthur Dent refused to believe that the Earth was in danger. He continued to live his life as normal, going to work, hanging out at the pub, and ignoring Ford’s increasingly desperate attempts to get him to leave the planet.

But Ford was right. The Vogons arrived, and they were just as brutal and ruthless as he had warned. They began to systematically destroy the Earth, using their advanced technology to lay waste to entire cities and populations.

Arthur was horrified as he watched the destruction unfold. He realized too late that Ford had been telling the truth, and that he had made a terrible mistake in not listening to him.

As the Vogons continued their rampage, Arthur frantically searched for Ford, hoping that he could help him somehow. But it was too late. The Earth was doomed, and there was nothing anyone could do to save it.

In the end, the Earth was destroyed, and Arthur was left adrift in space, alone and scared, with only the memories of his home and the regret of not believing Ford to keep him company.

…

The salvage workers were surprised to find a lone hibernation capsule adrift in space, but they didn’t think much of it. They assumed it was just another piece of junk, left behind by some long-forgotten space mission.

But as they brought the capsule aboard their ship and began to open it, they realized that there was someone inside. It was a man, and he looked like he had been in hibernation for a very long time.

They quickly revived the man, and he opened his eyes, confused and disoriented. “Wh-where am I?” he stammered, looking around at the unfamiliar faces surrounding him.

One of the salvage workers spoke up. “You’re on our ship, buddy. We found you floating in space in that hibernation capsule. What’s your name?”

The man thought for a moment. “My name is Arthur Dent. I’m from Earth. Or, at least, I was. Is the Earth still there?”

The salvage workers exchanged a glance. “I’m sorry, Arthur. The Earth was destroyed by the Vogons a long time ago. You’ve been in hibernation for centuries.”

Arthur was stunned. “The Vogons? They really did it? They destroyed the Earth?” He shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around the situation. “I can’t believe it. I should have listened to Ford. He tried to warn me, but I didn’t believe him.”

The salvage workers looked at Arthur with a mixture of pity and amusement. “Ford? Who’s Ford?” one of them asked.

Arthur sighed. “He was my friend. He was an alien, and he tried to get me to leave Earth with him before the Vogons arrived. But I thought he was just talking nonsense. I should have listened to him.”

One of the salvage workers chuckled. “Well, I guess that just goes to show that you should never underestimate the power of nonsense, huh? Anyway, we’re headed to a nearby space station. We can drop you off there, if you want. You’ll be able to find some work and a place to stay, at least until you figure out what you want to do next.”

Arthur nodded, grateful for the offer. “Thank you. That would be very kind. I don’t know what I would do without your help.”

As they continued on their journey, Arthur couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss and regret. He had survived the destruction of the Earth, but at what cost? He was alone, with no home and no one to turn to. He vowed to never make the same mistake again, and to always listen to those who tried to help him, even if their words seemed nonsensical at the time.

Arthur Dent sat in the medical facility, feeling lost and alone. He had been in hibernation for centuries, and the world he had known was long gone. He had no idea what had happened to Ford Prefect, or to anyone else he had known. He was completely on his own, with nothing but a cat named Jones for company.

As he sat in the medical facility, recovering from his long hibernation, a group of people entered the room. They were wearing space suits, and they looked serious and determined.

One of them spoke up. “Arthur Dent, we need your help. There’s been an incident on the planet LV-426. A group of colonists has gone missing, and we suspect that there may be an Alien on the planet. We need someone to go down there and investigate. Are you up for the challenge?”

Arthur stared at the group, confused. “LV-426? Alien? I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m from Earth, or at least I used to be. The Earth was destroyed by the Vogons. I’ve been in hibernation for centuries. I have no idea what’s going on.”

The group exchanged a glance. “Vogons? Earth? What are you talking about, Arthur? We don’t have time for this. We need someone to go down to LV-426 and deal with the Alien. Are you in, or not?”

Arthur shook his head, still confused. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. I’m not sure what you want from me. I don’t know anything about LV-426 or Aliens. I’m just a confused old man who’s been in hibernation for too long.”

One of the group members sighed. “Fine, Arthur. We’ll find someone else. But if you change your mind, let us know. We could use someone with your experience and knowledge. Good luck, Arthur.”

Arthur watched as the group left the room, still unsure of what was happening. He was overwhelmed and confused, and he didn’t know how to make sense of the strange world he had awoken to.

He looked down at Jones, who was curled up at his feet. “Well, Jones, it looks like we’re on our own again. I don’t know what’s happening, but I have a feeling it’s not going to be good. Let’s just try to stay out of trouble, okay?”

Jones meowed in response, and Arthur took that as a sign of agreement. He settled back in his bed, trying to make sense of the strange world he had awoken to, and hoping that he and Jones would be able to survive whatever challenges came their way.

I am who I am

So, after 6 years another post to this blog!

Really this is just to alert my many (zero) fans that I am now on Mastodon. My username there is @by_tor@mastodon.scot. Use this if you want to search for me there. Or use this direct link. I am still on twitter too but seem to be using it less since it’s all gone horribly wrong with Musk and his madness, including the recent reinstatement of the Orange One.

This also serves to “verify” me on there, to whatever extent verfication is valid. I suppose it verifies that the person posting on Mastodon under the above mentioned username is the same person who owns this blog, who is the same “by-tor” who posts on twitter as @by_tor. Not that it matters.

Tragedy at Belgian cycle race

pic.twitter.com/eRCAlzVdU8

— Wanty-ReUz-Technord (@WantyRT_U23) March 28, 2016

There was a tragic accident at the Belgian bike race Gent-Wevelgem yesterday, where young rider Antoine Demoitié of Team Wanty-Gobert (@TeamWantyGobert) died after apparently being hit by a motorcycle after a crash in the peloton. Cycling is a dangerous sport, maybe more so than casual observers realise. Not on the level of some like F1 perhaps, but more than most. Riders are travelling at 60kmph or more on hard mountain roads, with dangerous ditches or drops, or urban courses with hazards like street furniture or even dogs and people. The peloton consists of 30, 40 or more men or women riding hard and aggressively elbow to elbow. Accidents and crashes can and do happen, frequently.

Bruises and abrasions (road rash) are just accepted as par for the course and “part of the job”. Broken collarbones are fairly common, a classic cycling racing injury, but professional cyclists bounce back from these injuries… eventually.

Luckily more serious injuries are less common, but a death in the peloton is fortunately vanishingly rare. But it should never happen. To hear that it has occurred and that perhaps (and I accept I am speculating on little factual knowledge of events here) it was not the crash itself but impact with one of the many motorbikes that accompany the peloton, is distressing and part of a worrying trend fans of the sport have started to recognize over recent times. Often it seems we are hearing of riders being taken down after being clipped by motos.

We know motorcycles (and team and race official cars) are a necessary part of professional cycling. In fact the sport would not be able to exist in its modern form without it. No images, no TV, no commentary, no data, no interest, sport ceases to exist. But maybe things have got of of hand. Maybe there are too many, or they are not trained well enough, or not regulated enough, or not penalised enough when things go wrong.

Must tragic circumstances be the marker for change? Please @UCI_cycling @cpacycling your riders need you now! pic.twitter.com/nY3yNaS1Cg

— Michael Rogers (@mickrogers) March 28, 2016

(some examples of riders being brought down by cars/motos – credit @cyclinghubTV)

We mustn’t speculate about what exactly happened, but we must find out what exactly happened, and what, if anything, can be done in future to prevent similar accidents. In my line of work, like some others, when things go wrong they need to be fully investigated. The tool used is called Root Cause Analysis (RCA). This technique arose in the space and aviation industry where errors and faults have mission critical consequences, but has been widely applied since e.g. in healthcare. It’s a pain in the backside too carry out as well, as it involves a detailed and systematic look at all the events and the whole situation which led to the untoward event, seeking out the “root cause”, but perhaps more importantly looking at ALL the other potential contributory factors. Often it uncovers unpalatable factors for the people involved that have hitherto been consciously or unconsciously ignored. A series of recommendations are made where possible to design systems and change behaviour (in the case of human factors) to reduce chances of similar events being repeated. The aims of RCA are not to find blame for individuals but to find out what happened and why and prevent it happening again.

I’m not going to speculate here about what factors need to be looked at, but I implore Brian Cookson (@briancooksonUCI), President of the UCI (@UCI_cycling, the governing body of the sport) to announce such an inquiry and investigation. It’s easy for me to say, but I’ll say it it anyway: “something must be done”. #EnoughIsEnough

Rest in peace young Belgian professional cyclist Antoine Demoitié (1990-2016).

 

Non traditional Christmas Music

Yes I like carols and Bing Crosby singing White Christmas as much as the next guy. Not so keen on Band Aid, Slade, Wizzard and Cliff Richard, though. So are there any good seasonal but slightly off beat songs/albums out there? Over the past few years I have come across a few which I shall post here. I would be delighted to hear your suggestions. If you can do a Spotify playlist even better.

Jethro Tull – The Christmas Album

Thea Gilmore – Strange Communion

Aimee Mann – One More Drifter In The Snow

Jonathan Coulton & John Roderick – One Christmas At A Time

Low – Christmas

Queen – Thank God It’s Christmas (single)

Jonathan Coulton – Chiron Beta Prime (single)

Eels – Everything’s Gonna be Cool This Christmas

El Vez – Feliz Navidad

(check back as I will add more if I can think of any more…)

Classic Doctor Who on Horror Channels

Following the successful run of classic Doctor Who episodes shown around the time of the 50th Anniversary celebrations, Horror Channel has recently acquired the rights to show a new group of ‘classics’. They started in October and run on weekdays. Two episodes are shown each day and they are repeated morning, afternoon and evening, so there are plenty of chances to catch them.

Here is a list of the start dates of each serial. (Keep checking back as list will be updated).

28/10/2014   The Sontaran Experiment (2 episodes, 4th doctor)

29/10/2014   The Sunmakers (4 episodes, 4th doctor)

31/10/2014   The Ribos Operation (4 episodes, 4th doctor, Mary Tamm as Romana 1)

1/11/2014      The Three Doctors (omnibus) (Saturday)

4/11/2014     The Pirate Planet (4 episodes, 4th doctor, written by Douglas Adams)

6/11/2014     The Stones Of Blood (4 episodes, 4th doctor)

8/11/2014     Death To The Daleks (Saturday omnibus, 3rd doctor)

10/11/2014   The Androids Of Tara (4 episodes, 4th doctor)

12/11/2014   The Keeper Of Traken (4 episodes, 4th doctor)

14/11/2014   Logopolis (4 episodes, 4th doctor, regeneration episode!)

15/11/2014   The Masque Of Mandragora (Saturday omnibus, repeat)

18/11/2014   Kinda (4 episodes, 5th doctor)

20/11/2014   Frontios (4 episodes, 5th doctor)

22/11/2014   The Robots Of Death (Saturday omnibus)

24/11/2014   The Two Doctors (6 episodes, Troughton & Colin Baker)

27/11/2014   The Greatest Show In The Galaxy (7th doctor)

29/11/2014   The Horror of Fang Rock (Saturday omnibus, repeat)

1/12/14         Silver Nemesis (7th doctor)

3/12/14         An Unearthly Child (1st doctor, repeat)

6/12/14         The Brain Of Morbius (Sat omnibus, 4th doctor, repeat)

10/12/14       The Mind Robber (2nd doctor, repeat)

13/12/14       The Caves of Androzani (Saturday omnibus)

15/12/14       The Seeds of Death (2nd doctor, repeat)

18/12/14       The Silurians (3rd doctor)

20/12/14       Attack of the Cybermen (Saturday omnibus, 6th doctor, repeat)

23/12/14       Inferno (3rd doctor, repeat)

27/12/14       Remembrance of the Daleks (Saturday omnibus, 7th doctor, repeat)

29/12/14       Terror of the Autons (3rd doctor, repeat)

31/12/14        The Daemons (3rd doctor, repeat)

2/1/15             The Sea Devils (3rd doctor, repeat)

3/1/15             The Sun Makers (Saturday omnibus, 4th doctor, repeat)

7/1/15             Carnival of Monsters (3rd doctor, repeat)

9/1/15             The Three Doctors (repeat)

(to be updated….)

Loss of auto-rotate

This is the first in a series of quick posts on my experiences with the Asus Transformer T100. This will include tips etc. and this first case gives a solution for the problem of when the auto rotate feature seems to have disappeared.

Normally when you open the charm bar and select settings (bottom icon) you then have a “screen” icon which has a brightness slider and a rotation lock control at the top. Well today the rotate control mysteriously disappeared. If this happens try the following:

Open Device Manager, then InvenSense Sensor Collection. Under the properties tab, disable then re-enable this driver. For me this seemed to cure the problem.

PVRs, file transfers, large hard disk drives and odd filesystems…

OK this is a somewhat minority interest post, but it might help someone who is trying to do the same tasks as I was, or experiences some or all of the same difficulties.

First some keywords for the search engines: PVR, ext2, ext3, linux, FAT16, FAT32, FAT16/32

OK first up: what was I trying to do:

• transfer files from my PVR (personal video recorder, a Humax Foxsat HDR) to my Windows 7 PC, for the purposes of archiving, and converting to compressed MP4 files using Handbrake, for playing on my tablet (a 1st generation Google Nexus 7)

Problems:

• Some files are too large to be transferred. Previously I was using a portable external drive of about 30GB size, which in actual fact was a repurposed iRiver MP3 player (iHP140) which I had long ago installed some 3rd party firmware (Rockbox) to extend its functionality, and subsequently stopped using when I got a smartphone that doubled as a portable music player.
• 
• This device could be mounted as a USB drive, and I believe it was formatted in FAT 16 or FAT32. This has a filesize limit of 4GB and some of the uncompressed video files (for exampla a movie longer than about 2 1/2 hours) would exceed this limit.
• The iRiver was getting a bit flaky and I suspect, recahing the end of its reliable natural life. Sometimes it would not be recognized, or files would randomly disappear, then reappear when it was powered down, rested, and remounted.

Initial solution seemed simple. External hard disks these days are larger, cheaper (and one hopes) more reliable. PC World had a good deal on Western Digital 1TB “My Passport” small external drives for £60. I snapped one up.

First problem encountered. The Western Digital HDD was formatted in NTFS. This was not recognized by my Humax PVR. Since there is no chance to alter the Humax, my options were limited. It recognizes either FAT 16/32, or linux EXT3. So if I was to continue my plan I would have to reformat the WD HDD to one of these. But which?

FAT 16/32 has the advantage of very wide compatibilty. Windows of all flavours would read it, and so would the Humax. But it is somewhat ill suited to the large size of modern HDDs. On Windows you can format a drive in FAT32 but with some severe limitations. The first is that maximum volume size if a meagre 32GB. Not very useful if your drive capacity is 1TB! Yyou can use one of many 3rd party partition manager programs to format a FAT32 drive with a larger volume size than this, but then you also come across other potential problems: cluster size, file allocation table size and performance. Now I don’t pretend to really understand the intricacies of this sort of stuff but some more info on this is here.

Anyway, I read enough to decide that maybe formatting to FAT16 or FAT32 was not likely to be the best use of my new 1TB drive, so I decided to investigate formatting in EXT3. Now what is EXT3? I knew that it was one of the commonly used filesystems in many Linux systems, but apart from that I was ignorant. I soon discovered that Windows doesn’t read this filesystem natively, and this was going to be a major problem in my original task of transferring files from the PVR to the Windows PC.

However a quick search revealed that there were a number of ways to allow Windows to access, at least on a read-only basis, EXT filesystems.  The EXT2fsd project seemed to be one of the one that came up most frequently in searches. However I was made a bit wary by the fact that it doesn’t seemed to have been updated since 2011, and also many webpages mentioned its risk of data corruption and other teething troubles. It sounded like a possible solution, but not perhaps ideal.

Finally I settled on another solution that sounded a little more stable and also seemed to allow writing a Windows system to a EXT3 system – Paragon Software EXTfs for Windows.

I downloaded this and installed it easily on my Windows PC. I then downloaded a ISO CD ROM image of a linux partition manager software called GParted. This worked very well and I was able to boot to Linux and using Gparted, formatted the Western Digital HDD to EXT3. I thought it might take a very long time on account of the large size of the drive, but actually it only took 11 minutes. Then I mounted it using the Paragon EXTfs software and it was recognized straight away. It appeared in Windows Explorer just like any other drive.

This is easy! I did a quick test file transfer of a small file from Windows to WD without problems. Next up I deleted all the files to start from a blank slate and connected the WD to my Humax. Recognized! Success! I straight away transferred one of the files that had been too large for my old iRiver. No problems there. Connected back up to the Windows PC and transferred said file to the laptop. All my problems are solved. (Or so I thought).

The Sting In The Tail

I was about to have some annual leave, and one of my ideas was to catch up on some TV that I had been missing recently. I transferred a large amount of video and audio files to the WD drive. I checked them on the Windows PC using the Paragon extfs driver. Then I relocated to where I was spending my leave (where there is another Windows PC and a different PVR, this time a Humax Freeview FOX-T2 HDR – note this is different model from the PVR I have at home which is a Freesat one.)

First thing I wanted to do was watch one of the files I had transported on the WD HDD, but on my Nexus tablet. I installed Paragon extfs on the PC in my new location and transferred the file there. Then I transferred to my Nexus without problems.

Now came my big mistake. I discovered that the 2nd Humax PVR (the Freeview one) had a recording that I wanted to keep. I thought I could simply connect the newly EXT3 formatted external drive to it, copy the file onto it, then onto the Windows PC to shrink using Handbrake, then onto my Nexus or just keep on the external drive until I got back home in a week. After all I wasn’t pushed for space on this 1TB drive.

However, when I connected it to the Freeview PVR and browsed to the drive, I was a bit surprised to find it appeared “empty” instead of the dozen or so files that I had just looked at a few minutes before. I thought it was a bit odd, but continued to copy the file from the Freeview PVR onto the WD HDD.

When I connected it to the Windows PC and viewed it using Paragon extfs I was alarmed to see that now all those files that I thought were safely stored on the external drive, were GONE! In their place was the newly transferred file from the Freeview PVR, and a small collection of files that I had previously transferred from my other PVR a couple of days ago, but subsequently erased (or so I thought).

It soon dawned on me that somehow, by connecting the external EXT3 formatted drive to the second PVR I had caused the old files to reappear and newer ones to “disappear”. Don’t ask me the technicalities of what had happened. Some linux guru might be able to explain. However I suspected that they might still be accessible and recoverable…. somehow. I had only written one time to the drive (the transfer from the second PVR), so I thought there was a fair chance most of the data would sti8ll be intact.

I searched for file recovery/undelete software. This needed to work on EXT partitions, but run from Windows, so this narrowed it down a bit. To cut a long story short, I tried a few. DiskInternals have a piece of software called Linux Reader which I thought might fit the bill. However after installation it seemed to take an exceedingly long time to read the drives. Eventually I gave up and searched again. Next I tried EaseUS Data recovery Wizard. This actually did work in that it did eventually (after a good many hours in the background) read and index all the files on the WD external drive, including all the ones that had “disappeared” and which I wanted to recover. BUT, when I tried to recover them I found to my dismay that the free trial version only allowed you to view and search but to actually recover the files you had to buy the “pro” version for $80.

Finally, I tried a free piece of software from RTT (R-Tools Technology, @RTT-inc on Twitter) called R-Linux. This looked like it was going to take an unrealistic time to scan my 1TB drive (the “time remaining” indicator went up to 5 days!) but it actually completed the scan in about an hour. After that I was successfully able to recover (and transfer intact to a Windows folder) most of the files I had lost. A few were incomplete, probably as a result of some disk writing on the second PVR but I was able to get most of what I wanted and it didn’t take too long.

So, the moral of the story is that ext3 formatted drives still don’t play perfectly with Windows systems, but probably using Paragon’s extfs for Windows software is your best bet. Be careful and you should be OK. Don’t mix and match the systems you connect the drive to any more than you have too, and back up frequently (always a good idea in any computer related activity). Finally if you get into a pickle, RTT’s R-Linux is a saviour.

DIY Celebration of Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary

Why “D.I.Y” (Do-it-yourself, for those not in the know)? Well, despite this being the biggest year in the show’s history, for fans here in the UK at least, there seems to have been a rather underwhelming push by the BBC to highlight and celebrate one of it’s biggest successes.

We are less than 2 months away from the actual anniversary date of 23rd November, and what have we had so far on BBC TV? An (admittedly interesting) radio show about the beginnings of the series (The Reunion, Radio 4), a Doctor Who Proms (clip, another clip), an announcement show for the new twelfth doctor, and a couple of very brief idents, or “stings“. Not even a proper trailer yet for the anniversary episode. A schedule of events has been released but I would have liked much more throughout the year on BBC TV.

I would have liked to see many more classic episodes getting an airing throughout the year (as has occurred in other territories). The BBC is sitting on a goldmine of classic Doctor Who adventures dating back to 1963 and we are seeing none of it!

There are a number of other events/products that are properly celebrating the full heritage of Doctor Who (going right back to the start; this is a 50 year anniversary after all, not a celebration of just the last decade). I am presenting here a guide as to how you can celebrate the show in the manner that it deserves.

–o0o–

1. Hunt down and watch some classic episodes.

Which ones? Well that is a whole debate! The old ones from the “classic” era might be difficult for some people who only know Who from it’s 2005 revival.  The actors will all be unfamiliar, and the slower pace and lower production values from decades gone by might be a bit off-putting. But there are some great moments, and of course a lot of history. Try my guide at this post. It contains links to several other sources and suggestions of which classics to seek out.

Where to find them? Well, either buy them on DVD, or visit one of the many “unofficial” online sources. Try Dailymotion. Search for users “greendude33“, “matrixarchive“, “WHOat50“, “f630475257“. Alternatively if you are in the States I believe Netflix has some Classic Who .

First episode of “Genesis of the Daleks” at Daily Motion:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xw4r98_gotd-01_shortfilms

(Lost episodes) – There are many episodes of Doctor Who that unfortunately no longer exist as video recordings. However they can be experienced in other ways, and should not be discounted if you really want to get a feel of the history of the show. See my separate blog post for further details.

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2.  Listen to The Reunion

A BBC radio show bringing together some of the creators and actors of the very first Doctor Who story, “An Unearthly Child”. (Non-UK users, if you cannot access, use a proxy service like Tunnelbear)

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3. Check out The Guardian (UK newspaper) series of features on 50 Years of Doctor Who.

50 Years of Doctor Who

Best episodes of all time

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 4. The Doctors Revisited. 

BBC America commisioned a series of 30 minutes documentaries, one for each doctor, starting from William Hartnell, and have been broadcasting them monthly since the beginning of the year, each accompanied by a showing of a classic serial featuring that doctor. A little lightweight but with a few nices nuggets of information and clips nonetheless, they are worth watching. You can see a list of which stories were shown for each Doctor here.

But, how can you see them? Well in another massive FAIL by the BBC, they are not being shown in the UK on BBC TV, but only on a pay TV satellite channel! So, again, internet to the rescue.  Try this playlist at DailyMotion from user Tardis_Central. You should be able to find the other episodes by a quick search.  They can also be found in the usual torrent places. Currently I am working through these with the accompanying stories.

Trailer for Doctors Revisited (Second Doctor)

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5. BFI Doctor Who 50th Anniversary events.

The British Film Institute has, throughout the year, been hosting a series of special screenings of serials from each era of Doctor Who. They have of course been incredibly popular, and nigh on impossible to get tickets for. At each show there has been a panel Q&A session with many guest stars, ranging from actors (including doctors, companions, and guests) and writers, directors and other notable related people. Luckily the BFI has recorded these sessions and you can view them at the BFI YouTube channel. The most recent of these events was held last night (4th October) and focussed on the eighth doctor Paul McGann. Paul himself was a guest, along with Daphne Ashbrook (who played the companion in the TV Movie), writer and script editor Andrew Cartmel, and Nicholas Briggs provider of many alien voices in the current revived series.

Tom Baker talking at the Fourth Doctor BFI Q&A Event:

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6. Big Finish

Big Finish is a company that has been producing original audio adventures related to Doctor Who for many years, and was instrumental in keeping interest in the show alive in the years when it was off our TV screens. Personally I have not really listened to many of these, but the special that has been commissioned for the 50th Anniversary has piqued my interest. “The Light At The End” is a lavish production starring Doctors 4-8 (all original actors: Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann as well as classic companions Louise Jameson (Leela), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa).

Check out the trailer here.

And here is a nice advert detailing the various formats in which the story is being released.

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7. IDW Comics series – Prisoners Of Time

For those who like their graphic novels, have a look at IDW’s serial Prisoners Of Time. Again this is a currently running series, featuring all the doctors and many companions, and scheduled to finish in the Anniversary month of November. The series is available as physical media and also digitally at ComiXology.

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8. Anniversary books. 

Puffin, in conjunction with the BBC are publishing a series of short eBooks each featuring one of the doctors. They are written by well known authors, and each is announced at the start of the month. A list of the books and authors is here. Each of the announcements of a addition to the series is accompanied by a YouTube video of the author giving some insights into their book and why they decided to do it. Example of Richelle Mead talking about her sixth Doctor book here.

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9. Fan blogs

Finally, I would like to give a shout out to a couple of fan blogs that I have enjoyed.

First is the Confused Companion. This is a blog by an American Doctor Who fan who chronicles her marathon odyssey from the very first episode of the William Hartnell era, right through to the present day. Although a fan of the genre, she had never seen any Who before starting this and it is fascinating, and fun to see her reaction to these stories for the first time. Her perspective is unusual (if not unique) in being completely new to Who, but watching stories originally made in the 60s from a 21st century perspective, and also in a very compressed time frame. I have enjoyed reliving many classics of my youth vicariously through her blog.

Another different take on the task of watching all the Doctor Who from the beginning is the Doctor Who Mind Robber blog. This is written by an Australian fan who obviously is a big fan with an extensive experience of the show. But as she rewatches from the start she gives some interesting comment on how the show related to fashions and events of the time in which it was made. Here is the first post which explains her plans. Also you get some great Doctor Who news and factoids!

So, although we have the official BBC 50th Anniversary epsiode on the 23rd of November to look forward to, as well Mark Gatiss’s dramatisation of the story behind the series back in the 1960s, there are a lot of other ways to make your own Doctor Who celebration. I hope you enjoy it!

Using the Eurosport Player

Here are some brief experiences using the Eurosport Player service, which I am trying so I can follow the Giro d’Italia bike race.

• I am using a Windows 7 laptop and Chrome browser, and using the service from UK
• i have a fairly decent broadband connection (about 20Mbps)
• You can subscribe to the service either on a month by month (cancel anytime) for £4.99, or a yearly subscription (£2.99)
• There is a separate Android (and iOS) service, I believe it is a separate subscription
• The Android app gets the worst ever reviews on the Google Play store. In fact, now I can’t even download that app even if I wanted too, as it has mysteriously become “unavailable” for my devices, or my location. (It wasn’t like that a few days ago)
• The streaming quality is not bad, about standard def, but definitely not HD. I had a pretty constant connection while watching for a couple of hours. Only the very occasion short pause or buffering.
• It looked reasonably good when fed into a 40″ LCD TV using standard VGA cables.
• The video quality is better than those types of streams or videos you see on youtube or other “unofficial” sources.
• There does NOT appear to be any “catch-up” or on-demand facility to watch videos for Giro after they have been broadcast.
• Eurosport are showing all the stages of the Giro live on one of their two channels, and there is a highlights show about 10:30pm each evening which lasts about 60-90 minutes.
• Since the Giro occurs during the day, I can’t watch the live broadcasts except weekends, although there is a lot of good action on the weekends including the main time trial and the climax in a couple of weekends from now. So will be reliant on the highlights shows (and their timing since no catchup) during weekdays.
• the support from Eurosport regarding this service is pretty poor. Their twitter account hasn’t been active since about 2 years ago. The comments on the Google Play store about the Android app suggest attempts to contact Eurosport for service issues fall on deaf ears.