Internet

The Internet is often used by many to download music, movies and TV series encoded from 'hardcopy' material (VHS Video, CD/DVD) into a digital media (.avi, .mp3 etc). Shows recorded directly from TV are becoming more common, and it's in this way the future existance of popular series will be preserved, rather than reliance on 'industry' library and archiving facilities.

Complete seasons of Doctor Who were either mistakenly destroyed or 'misplaced' by 20th Century BBC archivers, but thanks to the efforts of efficionados worldwide there's a lot of downloadable material available via the internet. Many downloads my appear poor in professional quality, having been reproduced from individual scenes taken from burned or otherwise distorted Magnetic Tapes or even 8mm film, but without these dedicated efforts it's safe to say much of the 'Whoniverse' wouild be lost to us forever.

Software such as Bittorrent or uTorrent is required to access this material. These applications allow you to communicate with a 'seeder' (a remote user who is making the material available via a .torrent server) and obtain the file directly from his computer.

The legalities of this kind of file sharing differ from Country to Country, and it's advisable to fully acquaint yourself with the regulations which apply in your part of the world before downloading any material.