Reason: Format.
Channel Overview[]
Connor is the owner of ThomasHDClassics, an American YouTube channel which featured content of restored HD Thomas & Friends episodes and movies from the aforementioned franchise. The channel had both the UK and US dubs in the claimed "highest quality on YouTube." The videos were in high definition quality (1080p) and featured episodes from Season 1 to Season 12 of the model era of Thomas and Friends. He also uploaded the Sing-Along videos, and US Narration of Ringo Starr and early narrations of Michael Angelis. Some videos were blocked in Australia, Germany and New Zealand due to copyright restrictions. During its run, the Channel amassed 38,000+ subscribers and 25,000,000+ views. The channel was one of the most popular places to watch the show.
(2017) ThomasHDClassics's beginning[]
In early June of 2017, the channel officially opened to the public with the complete first season of Thomas and Friends in both US and UK dubs. The popularity gained by the channel was very slow at first but as the seasons were uploaded more and more people became aware of its existence. The channel had uploaded the first 7 seasons of the show and Connor announced that would be the end of the uploads. In late 2018, many were commenting on the "oversaturation" of the footage, and how it had a depleting affect on the overall quality of the uploads. Connor took into consideration all of the criticisms and thought about coming out of retirement to rework the episodes to the best that they could be.
(2019) ThomasHDClassics Redux[]
In the Spring of 2019, Connor announced on the ThomasHDClassics YouTube and Twitter pages that he would be reworking the episodes to properly color-correct the episodes and to use a new upscaling method which would preserve a lot more detail in the picture and overall look a lot better than what he did in 2017. He titled this next wave of ThomasHDClassics uploads as "The Redux." The seasons then began to roll out in June of 2019, two years after his initial uploads. Throughout the summer he uploaded seasons 1 - 7 in both dubs in record time. He even included US narrations with Ringo Starr and the early narrations of Michael Angelis for seasons 3 and 4. He then continued to upscale and upload the series, going through the sing-along songs and many thought he would be finished at this point. Connor then announced that he would be going on to upscale seasons 8-12. He uploaded season 8 in the Fall and did 9 and 10 during the Winter. He wrapped up the channel's second campaign in the Spring of 2020, surprising many users with a fully color-corrected season 11. Many users were very impressed by the color-correction and were highly anticipating the season's release. He then finished the season uploads with season 12. The channel didn't stop there, in partnership with "10Leigh10's Tweet/Watch along" series, he uploaded "The Great Discovery" fully color corrected and "Calling All Engines" Both of these watch-throughs were highly anticipated and got a great reception from the fandom. Many were overjoyed by the amount of effort Connor put in towards the quality and consistency with all of the episodes on the channel which solidified his spot as one of the big users in the fandom today.
(2021) Termination[]
On April 27, 2021, a few of the videos on the ThomasHDClassics channel were taken down due to copyright claims from Moonbug Mattel, the name Mattel uses to claim videos they own the rights to. The videos which were taken down included Thomas and Gordon (Restored - UK) as well as a few of the complete series videos. The channel then was hit with 2 copyright strikes. Connor then announced on his community page that the strikes would be removed by July and that he planned on re-uploading the videos then. On May 6th however, the channel received a third copyright strike, which resulted in the account being terminated. The video that caused the strike is currently unknown. 2 days after the termination, Connor's main Channel, KnapfordProductions was terminated due to being associated under the same email account. A tragic loss for the user.
(2022) New Beginnings[]
On December 25th, 2021, Connor revealed his new Youtube channel on Twitter under the same name, ThomasHDClassics. He announced that the channel will start coming out with the episodes sometime in 2022, along with the archive.org page for a backup. The link for the new channel can be found here.
Trivia[]
- By the time of their 3rd re-uploading, ThomasHDClassics will have uploaded the classic series of Thomas and Friends 3 times (The most by any user).
- During July and August of 2021, the channel was claimed to have been owned by a user by the name of "TheBluePuffball". The user was later found to be originally joking about the claim, along with a later claim that Connor was supposedly making profits from his channel. With these and then harassing and stalking the user, "TheBluePuffball" was canceled by the fandom. TheBluePuffball had re-uploaded and stolen the videos from ThomasHDClassics several times after Connor repetitively asked him not to. The user behind "TheBluePuffball" has been caught going behind Connor's back and stalking the ThomasHDClassics Twitter page for any updates regarding the channel's future. The user has since apologized for his actions.
- The quality of the ThomasHDClassics uploads (1080p) are better than the main Thomas & Friends YouTube Channels (480p).
- Connor is a fan of the Green Bay Packers.