Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition 6/28/11 | Individual releases 8/28/12

[Jimmy Smith]

Originally Posted by Mahatma

I think I would like each movie on TWO discs since they are running between 3-4 hours.Same for Lawrence of Arabia.Two discs for the movie with extras for better PQ&AQ.1 extra BD for xtras would suffice for me.If alot,just put it on SD for all I care,but others are probably more interested in xtras than me.

Gone with the Wind is nearly 4 hours and it fit comferatably at under 45 gigabytes and LOOKED GREAT

King Kong is 200 minutes long and fit comfertably under 37 gigabytes and is one of the best looking and sounding Blu-Rays ever released

Troy delievered a quality high def presentation at a bitrate little higher then a superbit DVD.

It frustrates me that people are want to waste Blu-Rays storage capacity

The extended editions must be on a single disc. Blu-Ray won the format war for long movies like Lord of the Rings.

[GoBlu08]

I have the theatricals and will bite for the extended editions as well.

[sfmarine]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith

Gone with the Wind is nearly 4 hours and it fit comferatably at under 45 gigabytes and LOOKED GREAT

King Kong is 200 minutes long and fit comfertably under 37 gigabytes and is one of the best looking and sounding Blu-Rays ever released

Troy delievered a quality high def presentation at a bitrate little higher then a superbit DVD.

It frustrates me that people are want to waste Blu-Rays storage capacity

The extended editions must be on a single disc. Blu-Ray won the format war for long movies like Lord of the Rings.

I agree..I'm not thrilled with them splitting up the disks. There's no excuse for that. Even Godfather 2 wasn't split up like the DVD releases were.

[Rambaldi47]

I agree that the Extended Editions should be on one disc. It's so annoying to have to switch discs halfway through the movie.

[Mahatma]

Haven't seen Gone with the wind nor King Kong on BD,but what is the big deal of switching disc after two hours in the chair?Maybe it'll be good for you getting some excercise Seriously,I find that what one person finds to be a perfect PQ quality,might leave something to be desired to another.Just to give an example with me as the subject:I find the transfer of Bladerunner to be less than perfect.It is slightly soft with details I saw in the theaters missing.I have seen it in the theaters of the final cut,and to me it could look better.Almost everyone here slagged me off for that comment.Psycho which received 4/5 in PQ department here-if I remember correctly-looks spectacularly to me.I would give it 5/5 in the PQ department easily.Mind,I do not doubt that GWTW or KK looks spectacular,but it is simple mathematics:More space,less compression.

To be fair:I have stated that I found The untouchables to be a marvel.Have since looked back on it,and it does have some very significant DNR problems,so one might take that into consideration when reading this.But I still find it looking good.

[spidy]

I have my $23 set of the TE unopened and I may just not open them and sell them later to purchase the EEs which is what I've really wanted. I don't need the ultimate box set just give me the EEs of the movie on blu in their finest quality.

[greg_achen]

Frankly, if they feel that putting the movies on one disc each will hurt the picture quality in any way, by all means put them on two discs.

The delay is more than worth the wait for the best audio/video quality, especially for a title such as Lord of the Rings.

[Jimmy Smith]

Originally Posted by greg_achen

Frankly, if they feel that putting the movies on one disc each will hurt the picture quality in any way, by all means put them on two discs.

The delay is more than worth the wait for the best audio/video quality, especially for a title such as Lord of the Rings.

But again why do people assume that it will hurt quality when so many discs have been compressed at low bitrates so easily while looking so great.

One is the Lord of the Rings movies have a 2.35 aspect ratio and thus require 25% lower bitrate then if they were full 16:9 movies. Transfers like Blade Runner, Watchmen, I Am Legend all look fantastic with an average bitrate in the upper teens. At a bitrate of 20 megabits per second a BD-50 can fit 5.6 hours of play time well longer then Return of the King Extended edition. Return of the King Extended Edition can be encoded with a bitrate higher then many reference quality Blu-Rays and still fit on one BD-50

There is no more frustrating fallicy among home theater enthusists then the false ridiculous belief that everything must have a high a bitrate or quality will suffer. In reality if a compression artist can compare alike frames, filter out unessesary data, and other tricks the bitrate can be lowered substaintially without any loss of quality or detail. How well it can be compressed varies from movie to movie depending on things like amount of film grain, aspect ratio, level of detail in the shot, and amont of motion in the movie. Some movies require higher bitrates then others but not every movie will benefit from Blu-Rays maximum bitrate.

[42041]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith

Transfers like Blade Runner, Watchmen, I Am Legend all look fantastic with an average bitrate in the upper teens.

None of those are shining examples of flawless video compression, to my eye.
Even the current LOTR discs suffer badly from compression artifacting. Other studios might pull off a 4-hour film on one disc, but WB's compressionists are sloppy.

[greg_achen]

Some movies require higher bitrates then others but not every movie will benefit from Blu-Rays maximum bitrate.

So you are saying that The Lord of the Rings films are movies that wouldn't benefit? Just out of curiosity, what movie actually would benefit then?

[NYorker]

Originally Posted by Sirjump

Read The Silmarillion next. It's a tough one at first, but some chapters in there are just incredible, like the story of Beren and Luthien.

Started reading The Silmarillion a while ago. That was one loooooooooooong bore! read about 100 pages + until I gave it up. That is to say, fell asleep on it for the umpteenth time...

[Jimmy Smith]

Originally Posted by greg_achen

So you are saying that The Lord of the Rings films are movies that wouldn't benefit? Just out of curiosity, what movie actually would benefit then?

Well a full 16:9 movie for one thing. Lord of the Rings has an aspect ratio of 2.35. Blu-Ray is a native 16:9 format. All other aspect ratios are either letterbox or pillarboxed in a 16:9 frame. Therefore a 2.35 movie is only using 75% of the frame and thus requires a 25% lower bitrate. That means that a 2.35 movie with a bitrate of 30 mps would be equivalent to a full 16:9 movie going up to 40. Lord of the Rings Extended Editions should average in the lower 20s and peak in the upper 20s and thus would fit on a single BD-50. If the Lord of the Rings were full 16:9 movies I might think using two discs was nessesary for just Return of the King however since thats not the case I see no need to spread over two discs.

[fgomike]

Great, and I just picked up the theatrical release the day before they announced this.

[erikilla]

Originally Posted by fgomike

Great, and I just picked up the theatrical release the day before they announced this.

Haha, why? Come on, we all knew this was coming, the same happened in the early 2000s, when the movies were released on DVD.

[fgomike]

Originally Posted by erikilla

Haha, why? Come on, we all knew this was coming, the same happened in the early 2000s, when the movies were released on DVD.

Yeah, but I didn't expect it until 2012 at least. I have the EE's on DVD, so I'm good. Just the timing pissed me off. Won't be the first time I double dip, won't be the last. Just forego the kid's college education.

[Gardenofstone10]

Originally Posted by GeneD5

I am unfortunately with you. I've always loved the extended cuts...they really do add a lot to the movies.

They really do, like the Harry Potters that add a few minutes, nothing worth rebuying. But these movies, they add SO much, I can't wait to rewatch them!

[NYorker]

I know there's a mega-box somewhere down the line, but if the EE comes out with great PQ & AQ, I'll get it...

[HD Goofnut]

Never bought the theatrical versions and I don't plan to. If and when the EE versions are released I'll pay no more than $70 for them. My 12 disc DVD set was $70 several years ago when it was released and I don't plan to go over that. It will certainly be nice to watch each film without having to put in disc 2.

[mredman]

The movies should be on 1 disc. There is enough room on a blu ray disc. We have seen examples of that. I don't get the people that want them split. It is freaking annoying to get up and change the disc

[RYJAPE21]

Originally Posted by mredman

The movies should be on 1 disc. There is enough room on a blu ray disc. We have seen examples of that. I don't get the people that want them split. It is freaking annoying to get up and change the disc

Agreed. I was looking forward to not having to switch discs on the BD; I'm hoping they can just put each film on one disc.