As a fan of the (20th Century) version of "Doctor Who", I've always fancied collecting all the LaserDiscs of it that were released (not all that many, just 8).

LDDB dutifully lists the five UK PAL releases. Strictly speaking I have to quibble with the note on "The Brain of Morbius" - "This is not the original 4 part version as shown on BBC1 but a heavily edited compilation version which was heavily censored to get it a low certificate rating." - it's true it's a heavily edited compilation, but probably just to keep production costs on the videotape release down. This was released before certification was mandatory in the UK.

Also it lists the two US releases, but also this (NSFW) one: Dr. Who (1993) [A0341] ...which isn't quite what I was expecting! I think that's probably what we fans would call "not canon".

What's missing from LDDB is the one that's also missing from my little collection - the Hong Kong release (rental only?) of the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie, starring Paul McGann.

http://www.timelash.com/tardis/display.php?678
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/doctor-mega-paul-mcgann-laser-disc-465784906

I should add this myself but as I don't own it, I don't have a decent cover scan nor do I know the reference number. If anyone does know the reference, it might make my search for it easier..?

I don’t think Doctor Who (1993) is “non-cannon” I think it’s simply not Doctor Who. Coincidence, with no relationship implied. I could be wrong about that, but that’s what I always thought. In 1993 Who was at its absolute bottom of popularity and back then in HK you could probably get away with releasing a movie called “Star Wars” without any meaningful legal action.

I have one Who LD, the NTSC version of Day of the Daleks. I don’t really associate LD with Who since so few eps were release. VHS and DVD are where Who on home video was really good. I buy those cheap from used book stores when I see them, particularly the VHS since they are only a dollar or two and Who rarely loses anything even on VHS since the original tapes sucked anyway.

I wonder if Dr. Who in King Gong vs Mecha Kong had a grandchild and they are in Dr. Who (1993) [A0341]

It to be confused with Doctor Ho, who leads Dynaman.

so is that really a US disc? it shows English as subs in picture and the cover doesn't look like an appropriate US p0rn0 LD

I just noticed its Japanese and not Chinese, I don’t know why I assumed Hong Kong.

It was likely VHS only in Japan so if it had any fans the super hardcore would really want this disc...whatever it is.

I'm not sure the original tapes sucked the Pertwee era, from which "Day of the Daleks" hails, is a bit of a mixed bag in terms of the surviving master tapes, but "Day" itself survives on the original BBC 2" tape masters from the high quality 'tube' studio cameras used at the time - so get the (Region 2, 576/50i) DVD and it looks fantastic - and even the PAL LD looks good.

Of course, "Day" (and Doctor Who in general) will never look as good when viewed as an NTSC (480/60i) standards conversion - down-rezzing the picture and mucking about with the frame rate is never a good idea - and the NTSC "Day" LD is pretty poor picture wise.

Out of interest, everything from the Tom Baker years onwards exists on its original video masters, and the BBC has started releasing selected seasons on BD, 1080/50i in the UK, and 1080/60i in the US. Obviously the masters are PAL so there's no great detail improvements over the DVDs, but I understand the compression is less noticeable.

Well for what it's worth, VHS resolution does hide the hokey special effects a lot of the time. Like the fact that the main villain in the old Hartnell era story Web Planet looks like a huge pile of shredded paper. When I originally watched that story, it was on dailymotion in what was obviously a very low resolution analogue source which hid many of the story's budgetary shortcomings and actually worked in it's favour in a way, but when I got the DVD they were incredibly obvious. Still can't fault it for lacking ambition though.

Laserdisc wise, I think more stories got released in PAL but then you've got that whole problem of some of them being analog and some of them being digital, and only the later higher end players could play both.

I know this is an old thread, but I happened to see it, and as an original die hard Who fan since the late 70's when it came to America on PBS, I thought i'd throw my comments in. The only LD I have is The Five Doctors, which is really nice aside from a few very slight edits. The picture quality beats any DVD digitized remaster (especially the modern era redo with the "new effects", which I hate) or original VHS, and it looks exactly as I remember seeing it on TV in the 80's.

Have been curious about "Day Of The Daleks" (the only other US LD I believe), but every time I came across one, it was way too pricey. It wasn't one of the best stories of the Pertwee era, but cause i'm a fan would love to own it on LD just to have it.

Over the years I have seen NA releases of classic Who and I can tell you the quality is poor. The source is higher resolution.
A lot of NA versions the colours don't seem exactly right sometimes and there's a more blurry look generally speaking.

Admittedly I have never watched a classic Who NTSC LD, but before BD releases I'm not aware of any NA versions that looked just as good as PAL. Having more frames means nothing in this case.
I guess the 1996 movie may possibly have equivalent quality VHS/DVD NA versions (or better perhaps) because it was filmed in NA, but I have never considered that movie classic Who myself.

Of course if you want to view these stories the way you saw them broadcast in NA then I guess NTSC LD may possibly be the closest thing to what you remember. But imo you should seriously consider watching classic Who PAL versions. It might look better than what you remember but that was the way it was intended to be viewed, not NTSC.