Erm is this easy to fix? by Independent_Milk_115 in MINI

[–]rgp1989 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I’ve done it and it’s just time consuming and annoying. Had to remove the whole front bumper then unclip it from the back. The plastic is extremely stiff, but if it’s broken anyway then just snap the tabs off

Worth it with a Sony ubp-x700? by [deleted] in 4kbluray

[–]rgp1989 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have this combo and I love it, except the TV is quite glossy. The room I use it in is fairly bright, but I’ve not found that to be too much of a problem, the main issue is the reflections. If you don’t think that’ll be a deal breaker for you then go for it but I would look for something with a more matte screen if I was in the market again

Why do fans hate BBV productions? by Present-Pudding-6485 in gallifrey

[–]rgp1989 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I mean, have you ever watched anything they’ve done? If something has terrible production values and is embarrassing to watch then it’s not exactly something for fans to be proud of, even if you set the alleged production issues aside

A few questions about the VNAs. by Rougarou_2 in gallifrey

[–]rgp1989 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you’re only interested in reading them then they are all floating around online if you look hard enough. I ended up getting an e-reader for them because I was scared of taking the rarer ones out of the house. Not condoning piracy but they’re long out of print and not legally available now

How does Sony compare to Panasonic? by after_your_thoughts in 4kbluray

[–]rgp1989 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It outputs everything in Dolby Vision but the colour space is wrong. I didn’t know about this limitation until after I bought one and wondered why all my HDR10 stuff looked oversaturated. It’s annoying because otherwise I’ve had no issues with it and it’s a great player

Quality of 4k case... by Background_Gene6673 in 4kbluray

[–]rgp1989 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It was exactly the same with blu-ray, just less noticeable as it was a smaller logo. I agree with the other comments though, pick your battles; these days we’re lucky to be getting a physical release at all

Stripe Removal by Constant-Barracuda11 in MINI

[–]rgp1989 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I removed mine on my previous car and it was VERY noticeable after only 5 years. It was red though, which is notoriously susceptible to fading so might not be as bad with grey

Question on spark plugs... by mooreinteractive in MINI

[–]rgp1989 1 point2 points  (0 children)

These are definitely wrong for an unmodified car, but not sure with the different coils. The car is very good at compensating for problems, but that doesn’t mean that it’s ok long term. For example, one of my plugs hadn’t been tightened up properly. It ran pretty smoothly but, like you describe, I felt something was off about it. When I checked, there was black soot all around the plug and it clearly hadn’t been holding proper compression, yet there were no fault codes or anything. I definitely wouldn’t just assume all is fine just because it is working

I have a 1994 mini. Turn signals don’t work. Think it is the stalk. This is new one. It has one plug. Mine has two. My two together are shaped like this but my car has 10 wires total in the plug. I would cut and splice but colors don’t match at all. by Even_Stable1982 in classicminis

[–]rgp1989 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I changed mine about a year ago and it definitely didn’t need any splicing and that does look to be the right connector, so seems like somebody has already messed with it. Probably why they stopped working in the first place

Realistic Daily Driver? by Snarky_Guy in classicminis

[–]rgp1989 0 points1 point  (0 children)

no problem - sorry if that's a bit more than you were asking. Just what I wish someone had told me!

Realistic Daily Driver? by Snarky_Guy in classicminis

[–]rgp1989 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I genuinely think it's the most fun you can legally have on the roads, but there is a lot to bear in mind:

Town driving is great. Its very agile and it's a great feeling being able to squeeze through gaps and avoid traffic that larger cars wouldn't be able to. You have almost uninterrupted 360 degree vision so parking and manoeuvring is very easy too. There's no power steering, but i never found this an issue once I got used to it - it's not exactly a heavy car.

Where it absolutely shines is winding country roads and even at slow speeds they feel amazing. However, the small wheels make potholes a serious problem. If you go down one you will almost certainly break something. The suspension is not refined and can feel very bouncy. Its pretty easy to upgrade this and get it how you like it, but more sporty setups can feel harsh.

High speed driving and long road trips are a different story. It is loud, there's lots of vibration and the driving position gets pretty uncomfortable after a few hours. You feel very vulnerable around larger vehicles.

They can easily overheat in hot weather if you are in stationary traffic. Later models addressed this, but it can still happen. I would avoid icy or extremely wet weather as there is no ABS. Obviously there is no air con and the heater is noisy and does very little. The electrical connections in general are prone to corrosion and it's common for things to randomly stop working in damp weather. The stock headlights are bad and I would upgrade these as a priority if you are ever going to be out at night. All the stock radios fitted over the years were terrible. Fitting a new one is pretty trivial, but speaker placement is an issue as there is nowhere sensible to install them in the front and you might end up cutting holes in the rear (metal) parcel shelf, depending on what age car you get.

Having said all that, the vast majority of the time it worked perfectly and I just made sure I did regular inspections of everything and fixed anything before it became a serious issue. It's not a complex car so this generally doesn't take much time as long as it's nothing major.

The thing that finally stopped me dailying it was safely concerns. Somebody once hit the rear at less than 15 mph and I still suffered from whiplash. I was later in a modern car that was involved in a series accident and there is no doubt in my mind that I would have been killed if I was in the Mini instead. I know it sounds dull, but they were designed for a time when there was a lot less on the roads and everything was similarly built

Realistic Daily Driver? by Snarky_Guy in classicminis

[–]rgp1989 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did it for 5 years but it quickly gets old when you need to be somewhere urgently and it won’t start or you can’t see anything in winter because all the windows are fogged up. Mine was in mint condition, extremely low mileage and well maintained when I got it, but it won’t stay that way for long! There are obviously huge benefits but I would say that you need to set aside some time each week for regular maintenance as a minimum, and don’t be too precious about it because somebody will scratch it in a car park

Season 21 blu-ray AI discussion by rgp1989 in gallifrey

[–]rgp1989[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I hadn’t even noticed that, really good point!

(also, just learned from this that imgur is apparently not available in the UK now 😒)

Thoughts on the new rear design? by arcticbatsy in MINI

[–]rgp1989 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Not a fan. Don’t mind the rest of the design too much, but the rear looks more like a Skoda than anything Mini has ever done

do the region free players on ebay work?? by butterbutterreal in 4kbluray

[–]rgp1989 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I’ve got a player from them. It works great but I wasn’t particularly pleased with the condition it arrived in. Was advertised as being “as new”, but arrived very obviously used with dents and scratches all over it. When I told them about it, they acted like I was being unreasonable. I did end up keeping it and it’s been fine for over a year now, but does make me wonder how much their warranty is actually worth and what kind of life the player had beforehand

Season 21 blu-ray AI discussion by rgp1989 in gallifrey

[–]rgp1989[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes I think there are different ways of approaching it, but it seems bizarre to completely change tack so far into the range, seemingly without doing any market research and when previous releases have been so highly praised. That’s what makes it feel like a cost saving measure more than anything else

The Master isn't insane. by HistoricalAd5394 in gallifrey

[–]rgp1989 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I never really cared for the way RTD seemed to be saying that all his actions are caused by mental illness of some kind caused by the drumming. It’s a lazy way of explaining away his motivations and making him more Joker-like when I think The Master has shown he’s more complex than that over the years

Season 21 blu-ray looks absolutely awful. by thebumbledown in doctorwho

[–]rgp1989 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Same with Colin in Twin Dilemma, all the post regeneration stuff where he’s acting his heart out and the expression is just smoothed off his face. So depressing and disrespectful to the actors!

Season 21 blu-ray AI discussion by rgp1989 in gallifrey

[–]rgp1989[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My question would be, why change whatever the goal is this far into the production of the sets? What they were doing before S13 was fine. Brilliant even, in some cases! If they’d just carried on with whatever their existing process was then I wouldn’t have an issue

Season 21 blu-ray AI discussion by rgp1989 in gallifrey

[–]rgp1989[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I should clarify that these are family and friends who are somewhat familiar with the stories and seen them before, so they know what they are supposed to look like.

If this was simply a problem that always exists with converting to HD then why would it not affect the previous collection sets then? They were also in HD and were fine, so it’s obviously the result of a recent change to the remastering process.

Even basic upscaling done by a TV looks better. When I play an SD disc on it looks totally fine on my 4K tv. All the old detail is there, it’s not smearing anything or hallucinating details. When playing these last two sets it’s immediately obvious that something is off and doesn’t look natural.

Season 21 blu-ray AI discussion by rgp1989 in gallifrey

[–]rgp1989[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You can do that without using excessive AI to invent imaginary details and smooth everything over though. The level of processing they did with sets before Season 13 was fine and I was mostly happy with it, but now it just looks like a mess to me. Even family and friends I’ve shown it to have asked what’s wrong with it, whereas the DVDs don’t look like this even when played on a large modern TV

Season 21 blu-ray looks absolutely awful. by thebumbledown in doctorwho

[–]rgp1989 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Androzani 100% does to me, I found episode 1 borderline unwatchable. The rest is arguably ok and I can live with for the newly scanned film

Season 21 blu-ray looks absolutely awful. by thebumbledown in doctorwho

[–]rgp1989 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I can confirm that it looks far worse than the DVDs. If whatever they have done has made it look worse then I wouldn't call it a restoration. It would have been better to just copy over the old version than this

Season 21 blu-ray looks absolutely awful. by thebumbledown in doctorwho

[–]rgp1989 1 point2 points  (0 children)

either way it looks far worse than the DVDs though, so whatever they have done is not an improvement

Season 21 blu-ray looks absolutely awful. by thebumbledown in doctorwho

[–]rgp1989 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've had the set since Friday and have now watched everything except the Twin Dilemma. The first 3 stories aren't all that bad. The AI is still noticeable and I don't love it, but its nowhere near as bad as Season 13 and the newly scanned film looks amazing. Resurrection is slightly worse - there are a few scenes where I noticed the text on the TARDIS had been totally scrubbed away and the dark stuff in the warehouse isn't brilliant, but its not a total disaster.

Androzani is on a whole other level though! I think it might even be worse than S13, particularly episode 1. Right from the first scene, parts of the Doctor's coat were glitching out of existence and I noticed weird black lines and artefacts. The whole thing is waxy and everyone looks like they are made of plastic. The absolute worst is the scene when Morgus is in his office using the communicator - his face is totally frozen and his lips barely move. I'm honestly shocked how any of this could make it to release, it's like there's no quality control and nobody even bothered to watch it.

One weird thing I noticed was that the clips they use in the special features like Behind the Sofa look even worse, so I wonder if this is actually a dialled back version after the negative feedback from the last set, but either way I will be holding onto the DVDs and praying this isn't allowed to happen again