Home › Forums › Ganymede & Titan Forum › Just what is the story of the two different versions of 'It's Cold Outside…?' Search for: This topic has 36 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 7 months ago by Pete Tranter’s Sister. Scroll to bottom Viewing 37 posts - 1 through 37 (of 37 total) Author Posts September 11, 2016 at 9:19 pm #215636 Mr-StabbyParticipant I hear no mention of it in any commentaries on the DVDs. But on some random episodes of Dwarf, like Backwards, there’s a different version of ‘It’s Cold Outside..’ It’s a slightly punchier version, and though i think it’s aged worse than the normal version, i actually prefer it. So what’s the dillyo? September 12, 2016 at 7:33 am #215639 Ben PaddonParticipant There was some brief discussion of this a few years ago, when I made mention on this very forum of the fact that there were at least two recordings of the main theme. My theory is that the closing theme was re-recorded at the same time as the new opening title theme was recorded, and that’s what got used for III and occasionally in IV and V. It’s very clearly a different recording – it’s mixed differently, the vocal take is different, and the tambourine (?) is more prominent in the second version, as it is in the new opening theme. So I reckon the first one was recorded in ’87 or ’88, and the second in ’89. September 12, 2016 at 7:44 am #215641 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant I hate people. September 12, 2016 at 7:47 am #215642 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant I hate people (but at least she’s having fun) September 12, 2016 at 11:25 am #215648 (deleted)Participant My theory is that it was re-recorded for stereo (Backwards being the first stereo episode), as I have never heard anything other than a mono mix of the 1987 recording (VII onwards has this version in mono with some extra stereo reverb). The series 1 & 2 music was mixed in stereo as the DVDs prove so it’s tempting to speculate about tapes going missing fairly early on. It’s definitely the same session as the electric guitar theme as the reverby tambourine and sax triplets appear on both. Not sure if it’s the same backing track (key change means probably not) but they’d probably edit together well. It’ll have been recorded in Studio One at Angel in the last session of Dwarf music using hired musicians until the 1996 orchestra session for VII where they did Kennedy’s death, Ace Rimmer and Camelot. On a similar tack there’s evidently no clean master of the original opening theme either. Not even one without the space atmos. I recently had a go at a proper virtual remix of the 87 theme in something closer to true stereo using frequency seperation which I might put online if I get chance. Got some nice space into the pipe organ and placed the cello away from the atmos FX. Quite pleased with it. September 12, 2016 at 12:21 pm #215656 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant Remastered has the opening bars of the I – II theme in true stereo before cutting to the rock theme but there’s no stereo full length I – II theme in the DVD extras, even Bodysnatcher. The Remastered I – II stereo theme isn’t a post-1988 re-record and it sounds exactly like the beginning of the mono full length recording we all know. Considering they pulled swathes of incidental music for Remastered and from there, the DVDs, all very clean, first-generation, stereo recordings at that, I’d wager that the mono I – II theme was used in Nanarchy and then once work got underway for the remasters, the team pulled the stereo I – II opening theme, took the first few bars for the Frankenstein I – III Remastered megamix and somehow, somewhere, misplaced both the original stereo tape and the digital transfer with the full length I – II theme in true, edge to edge, gorgeous stereo. It’s a bloody shame as I’ve wanted to hear it in stereo for years. I’ve even pulled the stereo versions of the rock theme and Fun, Fun, Fun into discrete left, right, centre surround and boy, you should hear the surprises hidden away. I’ll post them up soon. Darrell, I’m no good at frequency separation though, I’d love to hear the stereo conversion of the I – II theme. September 12, 2016 at 12:33 pm #215659 (deleted)Participant *Did* they have access to the clean stereo Goodall cues for Remastered though? My theory is that they didn’t. They only survive because of HG’s composer copies and he only digitised his archive in the early 2000s, around the time of the Dwarf DVDs (he mentioned in a letter to a friend of mine around that time that his personal archive was locked on unplayable-to-him analogue formats). Don’t forget that for Remastered they were effectively doing a new dub from scratch, largely to make a music-and-effects iso for foreign buyers. The ‘making a sellable M&E track’ element is the single biggest reason they did it in the first place. What little survives in Remastered is either explainable away as existing on VT insert tapes or it occuring in scenes with no dialogue where the original dub would suffice for international purposes (“on the pull” in Kryten, Tongue Tied, Androids, Ballad Of High Noon, etc). In fact, if this guess is correct it may shed new light on the assumption that replacing most of the score with library music was an artistic decision. I need to inspect the Remastered opening. It’s possible it’s faked… if it’s not, well we know when and where the master tape went missing. Autumn 1997, up Ed Bye’s arse. I HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS ALL TOO MUCH September 12, 2016 at 1:22 pm #215660 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant On a glance, I couldn’t even begin to fathom an answer. It would require sitting down with Remastered on headphones and noting which cues come in that were also used in the originals, if they’re in mono or stereo and whether they’re edited or extended out from the originals which would give additional clues as to whether they’re straight dubs from the ’88 – ’89 masters or from a VT tape or some other element they managed to dredge up while hunting for isolated dialogue and FX. If it’s true that Howard didn’t digitise his collection until after Remastered, then I’d hate to think the Remastered team didn’t contact him for the tapes or didn’t even think of going to him for some bizarre reason. I’d say that the new music cues were not overly influenced by not having the original elements. Remastered was visually such a difference from the original broadcasts that it would’ve made sense at the time to update the music, put in more rock, scale back the more twee cues and do an overhaul, for good or bad. I haven’t heard the Remastered stereo I – II theme for a good while but I do remember it sounding stereo from the point of being recorded and not faked in any way with reverb. Stereo I – II opening theme, we hardly knew ye. Even The Beatles junked the stereo masters for She Loves You and Love Me Do so everybody’s a fuck up! September 12, 2016 at 2:01 pm #215664 (deleted)Participant For what it’s worth, I have been researching RD music purely for my own pleasure of late. If whatever document ultimately comes out as a by-product of my sheddishness is in any way readable or useful you’re all welcome to it. Principally, I’d like to create a proper cue sheet for every episode, cross-referenced to the DVD extras for convenience. At the moment it’s just something I bum about with late at night instead of going to bed at a humane time, but it’d be nice, wouldn’t it? September 12, 2016 at 2:07 pm #215665 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant You are a member of the Ganymede.tv forum, documents like that are read for pleasure around here. Get it posted up, it’d be great to see. September 12, 2016 at 5:20 pm #215672 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant As promised, the opening rock and main ending themes broken down into their centre and side channels. Forgive the compression Soundcloud has employed, these went in as FLAC. Please listen to these with headphones, the side channels really burst open when exhibited on their own and the instrumentation is first class, as you would expect from Howard Goodall. The Themes – Stereo Extractions September 12, 2016 at 7:18 pm #215673 siParticipant I like the intro side channels. A really interesting listen. And a great detail is the gradual reveal of the Remastered ship across the screen as the tracks play. September 12, 2016 at 11:16 pm #215674 Kris CarterParticipant This is awesome! September 13, 2016 at 10:34 am #215684 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant They were taken from the Series VIII DVD extras. There’s a tad more definition in the Series X blu-ray audio, so V2 is juuuuuust around the corner, and I’m going to put them up on Dropbox or some other site so you can all achieve MAXIMUM LOSSLESS CLARITY. September 13, 2016 at 4:17 pm #215700 Lilly QueenParticipant Thought about this too much? No, you haven’t thought about it nearly enough! This is wonderful! But I wish I hadn’t just put up a bunch of fan edits of the title sequences. I could have used this. Bugger. September 13, 2016 at 5:15 pm #215703 (deleted)Participant Need to find somewhere I can put it. Can’t use my Soundcloud as I use it to facilitate the odd laughably rare occurrence of someone paying me to do music for them and it might look weird if I randomly start pirating Red Dwarf music on it. September 13, 2016 at 5:26 pm #215704 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant Billie, what you needing? I got surround, I got stereo, I got mono, hell I could even do you quadrophonic, quintaphonic, veryphonic, motherphonic. And public service announcement, if you want Taiwan Tony cleanly dubbed out, it can be done with the blu-ray surround audio. I’d have a go but I find him fucking hilarious! September 13, 2016 at 9:13 pm #215707 Taiwan TonyParticipant September 14, 2016 at 1:02 am #215709 Lilly QueenParticipant Already dealt with Taiwan Tony, no dubbing required. Just snip him out. Uh, the character mind you. Not the one above me. And I’m not sure if you’re serious Pete Tranter’s Sister, but I really hope you are. Darrell, how about Dropbox? Also, we still haven’t gotten any closer to figuring out why the new version of the end titles was only used sporadically. When it appears in V and VI, that just feels really weird to me. You’d think they’d have decided what version they were using by then. September 14, 2016 at 1:15 pm #215897 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant Audio oddities don’t end with the original run. The Series X blu-ray audio is inconsistent from episode to episode in how it uses the surround space. Sometimes the opening theme is mixed in with FX such as Blue Midget pulling away in the opening titles, sometimes the FX are in the centre channel with the main theme clean. Sometimes dialogue comes entirely out of the centre channel, sometimes it diverts to front left – right leaving the audience diverting to the rear channels. The rear channels are almost always silent bar audience reaction and the odd cue or sound effect and it’s kinda jarring that a good, solid stereo mix wasn’t included on the blu-ray. September 17, 2016 at 2:49 pm #215993 (deleted)Participant Okay, I’ve had a listen to the Remastered opening/closing. You’re right, it’s real, but it’s even more curious than that! The opening: definitely legit. Hissy as hell and deafened by new space atmos but it’s legit alright. And never heard from since… The closing: stereo as well…! Admittedly most of the colour is in the percussion and it’s dominated by an L-R split of the double-tracked tambourine (maybe a lot of bouncing was involved which would explain the mono-ish feel to elements of it, or maybe he was going for mono Spector authenticity), but it’s a true stereo mix nevertheless. Why did series VIII onwards go back to using series VII’s ‘original with a bit of stereo reverb on it’? Did they genuinely forget? They’re still not using it now! And so much for my theory about the 1989 re-recording being for stereo reasons – it must have just been for continuity with the new opening. (I’ve also realised I’m wrong about that too – series IV was the first stereo series. Note to self – check things properly before spouting off theories). None of the 18 Remastered episodes have a clean intro to the end credits due to the extra layer of laughter sweetening and dubbed-on scuzz (Confidence & Paranoia originally did, but now doesn’t, for example, because that’s where I used to get it from for teenaged off-mic audio cassette compilations!), so it would be a long job to try and edit up a proper extraction, though I enjoy a challenge. That explosion over the last chord isn’t going anywhere though, sadly. Been through Remastered looking for other clues to prove or disprove my mad theories… for a start, the transition cues are all in mono (with only a choice of what appears clean in episodes, this would be why the variety of transitions was massively diminished). Others, like Lister telling Frankenstein his plan in The End, or Lister getting ready in Kryten, just revert to the original TX mix completely. There’s even instances such as the one into McIntyre’s funeral where the cue has been edited to just the bit that can be rescued ‘clean’ from the original (and then pushed to the left a bit to fake something approaching a soundscape). There are also half a dozen cues that *are* in stereo, so maybe it was just a time/budget/being arsed issue going through the tapes making a cue list, and they focused on the tiny handful of ones they were after? This would prove the part of my theory about it not being an artistic decision to replace the music, it just being easier to use catalogued-by-mood library music than locate stereo versions of each of the originals on the unsorted quarter-inch tapes (although it’s worth cross-referencing that against Ed Bye’s production music fetish around this time and his taking against Goodall’s work on VII – it’s real chicken-and-egg territory here). Actual Goodall cues that both survive into Remastered and appear in true stereo: – Opening and closing themes – Holly’s recap music from Future Echoes to Me2 – the space walk from Confidence & Paranoia – Holly’s recap music from Kryten to Queeg – NOTHING ELSE Everything else is either sliced off the original broadcast mixes or thrown in a bin. That means the space walk is literally the only actual incidental that they replaced properly. In 18 episodes. So there we have it – another unfortunate symptom of the chronic lack of planning that went into the whole enterprise. Making tracking sheets for less than an hour of transferred-over music tapes and cross-referencing those against less than nine hours of television in order to make a cue list is a couple of days’ work for one person max (less still with proper time and labour management), and would have saved all if not more than the time used going through library CDs in the redub. But then they managed to commission a model ship that wouldn’t fit in a studio, so, y’know. September 18, 2016 at 8:00 pm #216065 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant Fans – Restore the episodes back to their potential, repair any really bad effects and audio glitches but don’t change the fundamentals of the show and through it all, bring about a fresh, new, positive perspective to this classic series. Doug & Ed – THE NIPS NEED A NEW DUB TRACK, QUICK, FUCK UP EVERY SHOT AND SCENE IN EVERY FUCKING EPISODE AND STOP AT SERIES III BECAUSE FUCK YOU ALL, THAT’S WHY. I will be properly commenting on your beautifully researched and written post soon, Darrell, I promise you. September 19, 2016 at 7:20 am #216075 Ben PaddonParticipant Actually, stopping at Series III was probably the smartest thing they could’ve done. The plan was to do I-III, then move on to IV-VI, but considering the critical reaction they opted to stop there. Which, y’know. Smart. September 19, 2016 at 10:26 am #216079 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant There’s sod all they could’ve did with IV, V & VI regardless. The model work was spot-on, the effects were really starting to come of age and fitted the medium well, the cameras gave a clean, clear picture in contrast to the BBC Manchester days and overall, the three series pushed the PAL 576i format further on than virtually any show that had come before. Any Remastered work would’ve been change for changes sake. Not that I’m saying I, II & III needed an overhaul but you can see how re-grading those 18 episodes really uncovered some life and vitality in the picture that was obscured before. I can’t even imagine how they would’ve chopped up VI. The effects and model work are splendid and to imagine a digital Starbug crashing into digital lava, even 2004-05 lava is an affront. Oh, and Streets Of Laredo would’ve been changed to some pokey looking PS1 era 3D walkaround. Fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that. That’s what bugs me about Remastered. If you undertook it now, you could go right back to the rushes, pull out the relevant scenes, clean them up, grade them, scale them to HD, re-composite effects digitally, trim blue-screen fringing, all that. Loads of work but you’d end up with a really beautiful picture and there’d be no need to edit jokes down, change lines for international audiences and whack on completely different picture and sound effects because there’s a real push now towards preservation and restoration rather than revisionism like the Star Wars Special Editions. But, I do wonder how IV, V & VI would’ve turned out in a morbidly curious way. Just imagine Back To Reality. It would’ve had all sorts of ker-aaaazzzzzzzyyyy pixelation and posterisation effects and whacky loading screens slathered all over it. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT, BECAUSE I’LL FUCKING DO IT. I’LL REMASTER IV, V & VI, JUST TO SEE YOUR WEEPING FACES. September 19, 2016 at 10:38 am #216080 Pete Part ThreeParticipant I’m still amazed that they didn’t replace Hattie with Norman for III. A rare piece of restraint in the project. September 19, 2016 at 11:00 am #216081 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant September 19, 2016 at 11:22 am #216082 Lilly QueenParticipant There is actually a lot you can do with the music and model shots of series V and VI. A lot of unused material which I think is pretty good. As well as some deleted scenes. And don’t forget there are some absolute turkey composite effects, like the worm hole in Rimmerworld. September 19, 2016 at 12:31 pm #216083 International DebrisParticipant I’m personally glad they did Remastered, as it allowed me to buy the stories on VHS in the late ’90s, get used to them, and then be rewarded with a shedload of new jokes when I bought the DVDs a few years later. I was absolutely amazed at how many jokes had been edited out. Mind you, I’m still disappointed that the original ending of Stasis Leak isn’t as long as the remastered one. The extra few seconds of chaos really help the punchline, I think. Probably the only improvement (other than the Skutter in The End, obviously). September 19, 2016 at 12:52 pm #216084 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant I’m disappointed nu-Gordon didn’t get his 15 minutes. September 19, 2016 at 8:31 pm #216093 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant A draft of the Series I & II theme utilising the stereo element from the Remastered opening and mono from the original run along with some reverb to give it a fuller sound. Naylorphonic It scrubs up not bad. September 19, 2016 at 9:36 pm #216111 Ben PaddonParticipant That’s what bugs me about Remastered. If you undertook it now, you could go right back to the rushes, pull out the relevant scenes, clean them up, grade them, scale them to HD, re-composite effects digitally, trim blue-screen fringing, all that. Well, you can upscale it to HD, but we’re talking about a show that was shot on video. It’s not necessarily going to look great. September 19, 2016 at 10:08 pm #216112 JawscvmcdiaParticipant I believe in the early days of Red Dwarf when it was shot and edited using 1″ videotape, every time an edit was made there would be a drop in picture quality, a phenomenon known as generation loss. Eventually this would result in a picture that was evidently less in quality than what had begun at first. Whilst using first generation copies would be better than using a multi-generation copy, any improvement in quality would be negligible at best. As Ben Paddon has highlighted, the show was recorded on ancient BBC TV cameras dating back to the late-60s and then recorded on a video format dating back to the mid-70s. Any improvement in quality would be small at best. September 19, 2016 at 10:10 pm #216113 JawscvmcdiaParticipant I believe in the early days of Red Dwarf when it was shot and edited using 1″ videotape, every time an edit was made there would be a drop in picture quality, a phenomenon known as generation loss. Eventually this would result in a picture that was evidently less in quality than what had begun at first. Whilst using first generation copies would be better than using a multi-generation copy, any improvement in quality would be negligible at best. As Ben Paddon has highlighted, the show was filmed on ancient BBC TV cameras dating back to the late-60s and then recorded on a video format dating back to the mid-70s. Any improvement in quality would be small at best. September 19, 2016 at 10:20 pm #216114 (deleted)Participant To be fair they’ve remastered Doctor Whos of the same vintage using exactly that technique and it’s worked very nicely. In an alternate fantasy universe, instead of Remastered they continued the “Xtended” branding and for the 10th anniversary did a couple of exciting compilations of newly re-edited ‘director’s cut’ episodes with Kryten links and pre-DVD bonus footage. All while keeping the original 12 volumes in print. In that universe everybody was happy, bar some overworked Japanese dubbing mixers. September 20, 2016 at 12:35 am #216116 Ben PaddonParticipant To be fair they’ve remastered Doctor Whos of the same vintage using exactly that technique and it’s worked very nicely. Not in HD, they haven’t. The only classic Doctor Who story to get the high-def treatment is “Spearhead From Space”, and that’s only because it was shot entirely on film due to industrial action going on at the time. September 20, 2016 at 1:37 am #216117 Lilly QueenParticipant I think Darrell’s hit the nail on the head here. If it hadn’t felt like Remastered was a replacement and there’d been no question that the originals would remain the definitive versions, perhaps people would have been a lot less angry. This sort of thing should always be just a fun alternate messing around with stuff kind of experiment. September 20, 2016 at 10:40 am #216118 Pete Tranter’s SisterParticipant It’s not just about generational loss from editing down during wipes, transitions, effects and so on. Pulling standard definition tape into a high definition realm allows to utilise every scrap of information in the picture and take advantage of modern codecs, grading and video / audio enhancement. Let me find my posts from a while ago regarding the rumoured Series I – V blu-rays heading to Japan. — You can de-interlace the video and present those 50 interlaced fields as 50 full, progressive frames. Upscale to 720 or 1080p and de-noise when and where necessary. Trim out the black bars on all 4 sides to utilise the entire viewing area. Colour correct and bring back some detail lost in the darkness and glare to a reasonable extent. You can be sure that blu-ray compression doesn’t get in the way of the image onscreen as sometimes seen in DVDs with heavy compression to fit all of the episodes onto one disc. — I meant in a more obtuse sense, for example, going back to the studio rushes and re-editing from there. It’ll ensure there are zero drops in tape generation as shots, fades and effects would now be composited digitally and as a result, the final master of each episode will be as clean and clear as one can hope for when utilising SD video. Of course, upon thinking about it, even that is dodgy as there’s a very low chance of those analogue-era effects and so on being accessible again, let alone being able to reconstruct an accurate soundtrack. — The irony, speaking from my own perspective, is that there really is so much you can do with knackered masters. A friend of mine has a bundle of 1″ C-type reels with various music promos on them and boy, once you put the work in, you can really make something wonderful out of it all on blu-ray and from there, high-bitrate online video. Blu-ray has the resolution, frame-rate, audio and colour capabilities to allow standard definition footage to, in a way, make the most of itself. SD video at that point is not encumbered by an SD format to be played over. It doesn’t have to deal with interlacing, compression codecs that are 20 years old and relatively low capacity discs to contain itself on. Blu-ray and conversion to what is an HD format allows for much, much more freedom and ability. The remasters, when you look at them from a purely visual point of view, were a valiant effort up to a point. They were stripping back the murkiness of the original colour scheme, boosting it all up and trying to bring some life into the first two series. But, like any idea that’s ran with, they ran and ran and they lost focus of what was there and good and great to begin with. They tore away alternating fields to half the effective frame-rate from 50 fps to 25 fps, bringing it more into line with film at 24 fps. They added a very strange, early-era digital grain filter to try and knock some of the video look out of it all but it just doesn’t work and it especially doesn’t work with digital encoding, it smears and just looks like shit. In addition, the picture ratio has been cropped to 14:9 to nod and wink at widescreen presentation and it introduces us to the land of cropped heads and eerily too close close-ups. I swore I wasn’t going to go off on another whinge about the remasters but alas. Anyway, the remasters showed what could be done with the series from a visual standpoint. The colour grading is admittedly great, flawed but a real change for the better and I love how it looks at times. There’s life to the first two series, deep blues and reds and greens, the skin-tones aren’t overly saturated and fundamentally, it also shows how much you can extract and utilise from SD analogue video, no matter the source. There is always a way to make the best of what is there. It’s been nearly 20 years since the remasters appeared and 15 since Red Dwarf made its debut on DVD. In the right hands, with the right love, care and attention, the first six series of Red Dwarf could fucking shine on blu-ray. Go back to the original masters, transfer them in as best as can be achieved and don’t treat them just as an upscale to satisfy the requirements for blu-ray, but treat them as a precious find, the source from which you can create vibrant and colourful new masters which will take pride of place not just on blu-ray, but online and on the telly. But they won’t, so fuck it. On a related note, if anyone has a copy of pretty much any episode or episodes from the first six series which haven’t been derived from either the DVD or a consumer recording source (VHS, Betamax etc…) I would be QUITE interested in obtaining that for purposes of what would essentially be a fan restoration. — So there’s a lot you can do with the broadcast tape, and there’s a shit load you can do with the original rushes, the first generation tapes. Author Posts Viewing 37 posts - 1 through 37 (of 37 total) Scroll to top • Scroll to Recent Forum Posts You must be logged in to reply to this topic. 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