• It's rather nice.
• Colin never liked the old one. As the way he plays the Doctor has developed, so, we feel, should the costume.
• The old costume just wouldn't work online - it was just too complex. The process of animation we use works best with images that are simple (i.e. without too many colours or intricate patterns) - this is important for keeping the file size small and the image quality high, and also allows us more flexibility in the use of the image (e.g. mirroring).

The Doctor changes his clothes. It's as simple as that. It's ridiculous to imagine that a man travels for centuries through time and space in the same outfit day after day. Sometimes he changes his clothes to suit his mood.

We suspect that Evelyn nagged him so much about his old coat that he gave in and adopted a more reserved look for her - one that, even though he's reluctant to admit it, suited them both. Later he changed back into his old coat as a childish act of rebellion, just because it annoyed Mel.

Why do you use RealPlayer? My computer doesn't like it... surely Quicktime or MP3 would be much better?

We're sorry if you've had problems with Real Time being broadcast in RealPlayer. There are two main reasons why we use RealMedia:

• Availability.
  BBCi uses RealMedia because it believes that this is the most widely distributed format for streamed media content over the internet. We are also looking at supporting other formats in the future.
• Lee Sullivan's animations.
  There's been a lot of appreciation for Lee Sullivan's cool illustrations. These were animated using an animation language called SMIL (pronounced "smile"). This is built into Real Player, but is differently supported by other media formats (and definitely isn't part of MP3!).

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Can I download Real Time to my computer to watch whenever I want?

Sorry, but no. Again, there are two reasons.

The copyright situation for broadcasting drama online means that the drama must only be made available in a streamed format. This means that the series is broadcast to the user, but they don't get to keep a copy of it on their machine.

Only with such a format could we get talent such as Colin Baker and Lee and Herring to agree to the online broadcast. If they discover that their work was being pirated and made available as downloads, they won't work with us again.

Yes, of course it is theoretically possible to make a copy of the Real Time webcast - but not without quite a bit of effort, in much the same way as it is possible to set up a video to record a computer game.

It is this 'bit of effort' part that makes the difference from a rights point of view - it makes the webcast experience similar to a TV one, and therefore easily understood by agents, actors and writers. If Real Time was available in a download-and-keep format, no agent would agree to it.

Secondly, since our websites are judged by the numbers of visits and hits they score every week, it is not in our interest to make content available in a download-and-keep format. We'll get less traffic, which means the site will be less popular, which means we'll get less budget next year, which means the site won't be as good.

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How do I make it play the pictures bigger?

Surprisingly easily. Click the "Launch in own window" link at the bottom of a clip.

This will fire up a Real Player window, which will load the clip. Go to the "View" menu, and select the "Zoom" option.

The images play back fairly well at "Double Size", and are even just about passable at "Full Screen" - if you sit back from your screen. This is more of a drain on your processor, though - you may find some of the fades and pans are extremely toasty. If you've got a really fast internet connection - broadband, or a LAN, try the broadband option. It will play at 640 pixels wide, and will look fantastic if you play it back in full screen mode.

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It doesn't work - I'm just getting error messages!

Again, we're sorry if you're having problems. There is help available from each page or more help available here.

It is most likely that you are experiencing net congestion. Please keep trying, or come back at a quiet time of day - usually early morning before America is awake.

Please also note that there is a sound only version, which may work better on slower connections. There are also text links to the individual files from the episode pages - they say 'Launch in a Separate Window'. If your browser doesn't support embedded media, this may work for you.

If your connection is really, really slow, try the 'low' version. The quality isn't great, but it should work OK.

If you are accessing Real Time from behind a firewall (e.g. from your computer at work) you may need to speak to your technical support people to find the correct transport and proxy settings for RealPlayer.

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The pictures aren't in synch with the soundtrack.

This can occasionally happen if your internet connection isn't stable. Whilst RealPlayer makes every effort to keep the picture and the soundtrack in synch, at busy times, or over slow connections, the two can fall out of time if there's a long "buffering" delay.

If this happens, either try again later, or chose the "sound only" option.

We've caught it happening occasionally on connections of less than 10kbps, and it's a little annoying.