Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I already stated that large amounts of noise reduction (far inferior to today's) were used during the post process on LOTR.

I can’t comment on whether or not grain reduction was utilized during post production for FOTR…..because I don’t know, but yes ‘some’ was used during TTT and ROTR, which I mentioned for the record, over 2 years ago - https://forum.blu-ray.com/568395-post104.html

Again, people seem to forget that FOTR was a hybrid post (DI plus non-DI) which incurred a generational loss in sharpness because essentially you had at least one intermediary step involved in the post (a “dupe” negative) rather than working with a “digital” negative from the get-go like with TTT and ROTR.

Still, the difficult thing to reconcile in this whole discussion is that infamous HD broadcast vs. Blu-ray edition screenshot comparison (if in fact, as I have said before, it is technically accurate), with the HD mpeg-2 broadcast version *appearing” superior to the Blu-ray movie of FOTR. I don’t know if eric.exe has done it already, but if not, I would like to see more than just one screenshot of the dude with the beard in FOTR in a broadcast vs. Blu-ray comparison and see rather a series of several successive frames to try to illustrate the point he was making. I fear for the fans of the FOTR that the visual conclusion will be the same but I think that would be better and more fool-proof *science*in this particular case.

[garyrc]

[QUOTE=DenonCI;3086349] Furthermore, FOTR has never been razor-sharp in any form that I've seen (on DVD, HD cable, or in theater's), so it seems someone (or many someone's) have an ax to grind with either Blu-ray or Warner (or both).
QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Diesel

From all the reviews I've read, I'm quite surprised he used the word "fantastic"; I'd expect something like "quite good

Responding to DenonCI, welcoming some wordsmanship coaching from Diesel:

While I wouldn't say that FOTR was "razor sharp" in the theater, I would say that it was "quite sharp" at the late, lamented Coronet theater in San Francisco. They may have had the best, ever improving, projection optics and careful projection in the S.F. Bay area over the years, although the brightness declined over the decades, as happened in many theaters. As seen at the Coronet, some movies looked "razor sharp" and some were softer. FOTR had very high resolution, facial detail, etc., and its acutance was just about one or two JNDs below the top -- "quite," not "razor." Highest acutance for 35 mm at the Coronet might be Amadeus, and highest of all would be most of the 70 mm prints the Coronet had over the years, some of which had an "etched" look, but were still plausibly realistic

[dcowboy7]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Still, the difficult thing to reconcile in this whole discussion is that infamous HD broadcast vs. Blu-ray edition screenshot comparison (if in fact, as I have said before, it is technically accurate), with the HD mpeg-2 broadcast version *appearing” superior to the Blu-ray movie of FOTR.

All Directv channels are mpeg4 now so wouldn't it have been that & not mpeg2 ?

[Penton-Man]

^
It’s an mpeg-2 file with actually a lower bitrate than the Blu-ray (VC-1) file.
Check out eric.exe's specs on the *other* site.

The only upside is, I guess that makes all VC-1 haters feel happy.

[Mr_Bester]

Originally Posted by dcowboy7

All Directv channels are mpeg4 now so wouldn't it have been that & not mpeg2 ?

If it was "ripped" from a DirecTivo HD(hr250), it would have been 1440x1080. I had those on DVD(file size was 7.5-8 Gb).

[chris0]

Originally Posted by dcowboy7

All Directv channels are mpeg4 now so wouldn't it have been that & not mpeg2 ?

The images in eric.exe's posts are from Dish, not DirecTV. I believe Jeff is correct when he says there is still no way to pull the digital image from DirecTV onto a PC.

[NutsAboutPS3]

All I have to say is that if you take the images in this post:
http://forums.highdefdigest.com/1883036-post7.html
and load them into Photoshop, then it doesn't take that much messing about with noise reduction and sharpening filters to take the HDTV broadcast and make it look remarkably similar to the Blu-ray.

I knew exactly what processing to do as soon as I saw the images, because I've been there and done that with my own photos when trying to produce a saleable image from something that had too much noise in my original shot. It's very tough to do it well, even when you are spending hours on a single still photo. If you try to apply one set of settings to an entire movie, or even to one section of a movie, you're always going to get it working better for some frames than for others. It may or may not be noticeable when the movie is watched as normal in motion, depending on how isolated the problematic frames are.

[TheLion]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

PJ is one of us, I think he knows what Blu can do Considering he knows every frame of all 3 intimately, I DO take his opinion on the matter as gospel

In my humble opinion this is more an usual marketing line in an interview than an objective assessment/review of sa(i)d release.

If you are going to take another mans opinion as gospel Kris Deering's is probably as good as any:

Quoted from his review of the trilogy (http://hometheatermag.com/moviereviews/032610rings/#):

"...Let’s face it, this is probably one of the biggest titles to hit the Blu-ray format yet. And in my opinion, every expense should have been spared to ensure that these presentations were the best this format had to offer. After watching the trilogy, sadly I cannot say that. The video presentations are a bit inconsistent. The first film isn’t on par with the second and third film in terms of detail and dimension. Instead it has a rather flat and processed look. Now these films never looked spectacular in theaters either, with overblown contrast and a murky color palette, but I was surprised at how much detail seemed to suffer with the first film. It still has an acceptable film-like look, but I hoped for better. The follow ups fair quite a bit better with obvious improvements in resolution and dimensionality. Some of the VFX shots still waver in overall quality, but fine object detail is considerably better..."

The most important statement in my opinion is:" And in my opinion, every expense should have been spared to ensure that these presentations were the best this format had to offer. " And it is very hard to not agree that Wb/NL failed in that regard.

The question is not does it subjectively look "acceptable" given its source material but is there potential to make it look better given the right efforts?

Until we get a much improved Blu-Ray release down the road look at eric's screenshot comparison with the HDTV capture to get a hint at the answer to that question.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by TheLion

In my humble opinion this is more an usual marketing line in an interview than an objective assessment/review of sa(i)d release.

I suspect there is another, more benign, factor at work here.

I have no reason to doubt the veracity of Jeff's scuttlebutt. However, if there's one thing we know about this business, it's that yesterday's gospel is often today's arcane footnote.

The release date for this set has already changed at least once and probably more. Was the now-rumored 3D re-release of the trilogy on the drawing boards when this video set first was? Probably not. There's a lot of money involved in these movies and that usually means a lot of forces tugging it in different directions, trying to have their own particular way with it, just as the context of Jeff's explanation first related. For me, it's not at all hard to imagine that Jeff's words would've, at one time, hit it square on the head, but that (just as typically)... things change.

That's my speculation.

[Blu-man08]

Originally Posted by TheLion

The most important statement in my opinion is:" And in my opinion, every expense should have been spared to ensure that these presentations were the best this format had to offer. " And it is very hard to not agree that Wb/NL failed in that regard.

Except that phrase is backwards and, in its current state, doesn't apply. I think we all know what he meant, but he actually said the opposite of what he meant to say. Taking this statement at face value, as it relates to his assertion that FOTR's transfer is less than it could have been, every expense was spared. If WB had spared no expense, perhaps we wouldn't be having this debate.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I need to know the specific HDTV source. Channel, country etc

Will you have the time, and desire, to check out the HD broadcasts this weekend for LOTR to see if you can see all this extra detail that's missing from the BRs?

[radagast]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Well, I’m probably the last person on earth to ever defend *screenshot science* but Ken Brown’s screenshots are not the problem in this particular case. The *problem* is the comparison HD broadcast vs. Blu-ray movie screenshot comparison of FOTR on AVS.

People like Ronnee Sass from WB should be made clear of that……crystal clear. And tell her as a wee little tike, I never, ever got over the personal mental trauma of the Colts leaving Baltimore in the middle of the night to go to Indianapolis.

I'm lost. What does the Colts moving here have to do with Ronnee Sass from WB?

[radagast]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Still, the difficult thing to reconcile in this whole discussion is that infamous HD broadcast vs. Blu-ray edition screenshot comparison (if in fact, as I have said before, it is technically accurate), with the HD mpeg-2 broadcast version *appearing” superior to the Blu-ray movie of FOTR. I don’t know if eric.exe has done it already, but if not, I would like to see more than just one screenshot of the dude with the beard in FOTR in a broadcast vs. Blu-ray comparison and see rather a series of several successive frames to try to illustrate the point he was making. I fear for the fans of the FOTR that the visual conclusion will be the same but I think that would be better and more fool-proof *science*in this particular case.

Are you able to watch the LOTR HD broadcasts on TBS this weekend to see this for yourself?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by TheLion

In my humble opinion this is more an usual marketing line in an interview than an objective assessment/review of sa(i)d release.

If you are going to take another mans opinion as gospel Kris Deering's is probably as good as any:

Quoted from his review of the trilogy (http://hometheatermag.com/moviereviews/032610rings/#):

TheLion is back.

Lion, this wooden hanger was a gift received following my stay at the superb hotel in your neck of the world…………
https://forum.blu-ray.com/2995450-post12606.html

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by radagast

I'm lost. What does the Colts moving here have to do with Ronnee Sass from WB?

She’s from Baltimore.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by radagast

Are you able to watch the LOTR HD broadcasts on TBS this weekend to see this for yourself?

No, I will be involved in other things and no space left that I am willing to give up on the DVRs in my home, esp. since the Champions League is heating up and it’s not uncommon for them to go beyond 2 hr. into overtime or penalty kicks or whatever.

If they show FOTR on TV and this is the same source that the notorious screenshots were captured from, I would love to hear comments from (non-screenshot scientists) who are able to synch the HD broadcast to the Blu-ray movie the best they can and watch them side by side.

It would be an interesting experiment and so far the most definitive test to see if the overall quality of the HDTV version is superior to the Blu-ray movie, rather than just a few selected frames. If indeed so, then I think some content provider got caught with their pants down. For those with large screens or better yet, front projection set-ups, also look for evidence of halos on the HDTV version, which should be ruled out to make the playing field level.

[Jeff Kleist]

The release date for this set has already changed at least once and probably more. Was the now-rumored 3D re-release of the trilogy on the drawing boards when this video set first was? Probably not. There's a lot of money involved in these movies and that usually means a lot of forces tugging it in different directions, trying to have their own particular way with it, just as the context of Jeff's explanation first related. For me, it's not at all hard to imagine that Jeff's words would've, at one time, hit it square on the head, but that (just as typically)... things change.

Discs were completed months ago. The only thing that changed was the TrueHD/DTS swapout. Factors unrelated to any production issues prevented their release last fall, confirmed.

Will you have the time, and desire, to check out the HD broadcasts this weekend for LOTR to see if you can see all this extra detail that's missing from the BRs?

No cable. Like I said, there's no discernable detail on those HDTV broadcasts that I can see (albeit on a netbook monitor). I do see noise which often masquerades as grain.

I don't know if it was Ronnie's idea to pull them, given the usual way of these things it probably came from even higher

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Discs were completed months ago. The only thing that changed was the TrueHD/DTS swapout. Factors unrelated to any production issues prevented their release last fall, confirmed.

Hmm... So, Jeff, at this point are you thinking it's more likely that you were misinformed from the beginning than that the plans had changed since you first heard those rumblings?

[Jeff Kleist]

Hmm... So, Jeff, at this point are you thinking it's more likely that you were misinformed from the beginning than that the plans had changed since you first heard those rumblings?

About what? That they ran a new master? No.

| know exactly why they didn't come out last fall. All I can say is that it had nothing to do with technical issues and everything to do with the marketing end. I have literally been following the production of these discs fro YEARS I don't have them because 1 copy per outlet and |Bill got it, and if I'm dropping my own cash it's EEs only for me

I also accept that there are a pile of people out there who will continue to howl they've been wronged no matter how much evidence is placed before them. I'm sure next up is accusations of DNR on Avatar for the humans (iiiiits in there, likely to help with the 3D illusion and make the 3D animation more seamless, and to help hide Sigourney Weaver's natural aging )

[DenonCI]

Jeff,

I've heard that the Trilogy spent some time at Lowry. I got this information second hand, so I'm curious if you've heard the same?

Best,