The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition iTunes

[Jumpman]

The Extended Edition has been released on iTunes and shockingly, the appendices are apart of iTunes Extras. ALL OF THEM from the BD release. 16GB.

They've never done this before.

[Kingclothier]

Already have the bluray 3D UK version from April so will be getting this on itunes can't wait for extras

[minister_x]

Out of curiosity, to anyone who's bought this from the US, Canadian or Australian iTunes stores - which all share the same video file - are the Elvish bits subtitled via burnt-in text or player-generated text?

I know the extended versions of LotR on the US iTunes have burnt-in text for TT and RotK, but player-generated for FotR, and wondered whether this was the case for The Hobbit. The main reason I ask is I got the one from the UK store, and it annoyingly is a different file from the US/CA/AU stores, with loads of foreign subtitles, no CC, a 200MB higher file size and player-generated subtitles (that require manual selecting (!)). I'll be pretty pissed off if the US/CA/AU ones have (the much prettier) burnt-in subtitles...

The timecodes include ~0:52:55 and ~1:28:19 in...

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by minister_x

Out of curiosity, to anyone who's bought this from the US, Canadian or Australian iTunes stores - which all share the same video file - are the Elvish bits subtitled via burnt-in text or player-generated text?

I know the extended versions of LotR on the US iTunes have burnt-in text for TT and RotK, but player-generated for FotR, and wondered whether this was the case for The Hobbit. The main reason I ask is I got the one from the UK store, and it annoyingly is a different file from the US/CA/AU stores, with loads of foreign subtitles, no CC, a 200MB higher file size and player-generated subtitles (that require manual selecting (!)). I'll be pretty pissed off if the US/CA/AU ones have (the much prettier) burnt-in subtitles...

The timecodes include ~0:52:55 and ~1:28:19 in...

Player generated subtitles for the Elvish or Orc language.

[minister_x]

Thanks for the response Jumpman - that's a pity (I prefer burnt-in for stuff like this) but also good that the UK version isn't a worse option as I had feared! Thanks again for checking!

[minister_x]

Wow, well it looks like they've updated the film files: the UK iTunes one was previously listed as 7.1GB and is now 7.03GB... the US/CA/AU one was previously 6.88GB or so, but now is a massive 9.09GB (!) - over 2GB larger. I wonder if they re-encoded with a very high bitrate (like Titanic on the US/CA store) or put up the IMAX version?

[minister_x]

Yes, there are some - Titanic is one that springs to mind, as it's 1GB larger in the US store (distributor: Paramount) than over other non-US stores, like the UK and Australia (distributor: Fox). In the case of Titanic, I wondered if Paramount had put up the IMAX version but it's just a very high bitrate (over 6Mb/s). Another case that's not just a higher bitrate is Gladiator, where the US version (DreamWorks) is an infinitely superior transfer to the non-US versions (Universal) - which if you know about the blu-ray problems they had, makes a lot of sense... I agree, a database could be quite cool.

Back to The Hobbit, a difference of 2GB is quite a difference - I guess they've encoded at a similarly high bitrate like Titanic, or they've changed to the IMAX version, but in either case the UK version loses out again... Typical!

EDIT: Well that was short-lived! Now the US version is down to 6.46GB (!) - Warners can't make up their minds here!!

[minister_x]

Yes, you're almost certainly right - although I'm not sure whether they hold the source material themselves, or are just given the individual 480p/720p/1080p versions. I imagine they're well-prepared for any upgrades to HD / excuses to charge more for an even-higher resolution or higher bitrate version.

[Jumpman]

So, something interesting just happened. When I downloaded the Extended Cut last week, the Elvish subtitles were player generated by Apple.

Well, I had to redownload the whole thing today because of my computer and what do you know, the Elvish subtitles are burned in with the exact same font that's on the BD.

Wonder why the sudden change from a week ago.

[minister_x]

How strange! Thanks for the heads up though - the UK version has changed in file size so I went to stream it and it too now has burnt-in subtitles! (Redownloading now...)

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by minister_x

How strange! Thanks for the heads up though - the UK version has changed in file size so I went to stream it and it too now has burnt-in subtitles! (Redownloading now...)

I wonder if the theatrical cut got the same change?

What's most frustrating is that iTunes still hasn't fixed the problem with the Fellowship EE. Doesn't have the burnt in subtitles like the EE's for Towers and King (they're player generated). But, it also doesn't even have the title "Fellowship of the Ring" at all. Completely gone. Been waiting and waiting for them to fix this and nothing yet.

[minister_x]

Originally Posted by Jumpman

I wonder if the theatrical cut got the same change?

What's most frustrating is that iTunes still hasn't fixed the problem with the Fellowship EE. Doesn't have the burnt in subtitles like the EE's for Towers and King (they're player generated). But, it also doesn't even have the title "Fellowship of the Ring" at all. Completely gone. Been waiting and waiting for them to fix this and nothing yet.

Did the theatrical one have player-generated subtitles then?

Yes that is annoying - based on user comments there was apparently something wrong with the file, then the replacement file didn't have any subtitles at all, and the new one is at least viewable with player-generated ones. I didn't realise the title "The Fellowship.." was missing though. That is annoying... maybe one day Warner/New Line will replace the files, but I'm not convinced.

Originally Posted by facepalmmonkey

Has Apple done a good job with the LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit? Or should I just invest in Blu-Rays?

Well Apple for their part have provided the files to me very well but Warner are the ones who made the iTunes files themselves.

As mentioned above, FotR is missing the subtitle "The Fellowship of the Ring" and has player-generated subtitles, whilst the blu-ray has (I believe) the original burnt-in ones. Other than that and the fact that the blu-rays will look much better due to less compression etc, the files are in pretty good shape. A pretty decently sharp transfer; I can provide screen caps for any scene if you have one in mind.

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by minister_x

Did the theatrical one have player-generated subtitles then?

Yes that is annoying - based on user comments there was apparently something wrong with the file, then the replacement file didn't have any subtitles at all, and the new one is at least viewable with player-generated ones. I didn't realise the title "The Fellowship.." was missing though. That is annoying... maybe one day Warner/New Line will replace the files, but I'm not convinced.



Well Apple for their part have provided the files to me very well but Warner are the ones who made the iTunes files themselves.

As mentioned above, FotR is missing the subtitle "The Fellowship of the Ring" and has player-generated subtitles, whilst the blu-ray has (I believe) the original burnt-in ones. Other than that and the fact that the blu-rays will look much better due to less compression etc, the files are in pretty good shape. A pretty decently sharp transfer; I can provide screen caps for any scene if you have one in mind.

The theatrical one had burnt in subtitles. That one is fine.

[minister_x]

I'll take a look - it helps that I have Fight Club and The Social Network too, so I can try and compare them based on your comments!

I'll also be interested to see how they look on my TV (a Sony Bravia), since it does blacks and dark scenes very well, so is quite kind to iTunes files.

[minister_x]

Well my computer monitor is now being too kind! I can see some more noticeable pixelation in darker scenes in Fight Club and The Social Network, but couldn't easily spot banding (and I know what you mean as I'm sure I've seen it before...). Here are a few quick screen cap comparisons with those I found at a screencapping website (screencapped.net). If there are any specific scenes or shots you can point me to (e.g. on screencapped.net) then I can try and find the iTunes equivalent - and hopefully give some idea of the difference! As you can see from the below, the iTunes mainly loses out on finer details.

FotR EE:
(blu) http://moabon.com/shots/fotr-blu.jpg
(iTunes) http://moabon.com/shots/fotr-itunes.png

TT EE:
(blu) http://moabon.com/shots/ttt-blu.jpg
(iTunes) http://moabon.com/shots/ttt-itunes.png

RotK EE:
(blu) http://moabon.com/shots/rotk-blu.jpg
(iTunes) http://moabon.com/shots/rotk-itunes.png

Hobbit AUJ EE:
(blu from theatrical) http://moabon.com/shots/auj-blu.jpg
(iTunes) http://moabon.com/shots/auj-itunes.png
(blu from theatrical w/subs) http://moabon.com/shots/auj-burntin-blu.jpg
(iTunes w/subs) http://moabon.com/shots/auj-burntin-itunes.png