Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Theatrical Versions) - April 6, 2010

[jonmoz]

Well back to the topic i have just watched "Return of the king" and as people say this is the best transfer of all the three movies,the image is sharper,although not as much of an improvement as some will suggest,but as i have said before i do not find "The fellowship of the ring" is as bad as people say.

One thing i noticed when watching The return of the king,was the scenes at the end back in the Shire and Rivendel both had a softer feel to them than other scenes in the movie,this suggests to me that Jackson wanted certain scenes to appear softer and lend a fairytale feel to them.

Overall i have been very pleased with this set and have had a great time viewing them again,and they are a great improvement over my Dvd's

I am in no way saying these transfers can't be improved upon although how much is debatable,as i still feel a lot of issues raised are because of how they were filmed,and i think this is where a lot of consistency issues come in,as if you shoot a scene using a softer focus and certain filter,and then on another scene where you do not,then there will be a difference when you convert this to Blu-ray no matter what you do.And this would explain the differences in these scenes in The return of the king on the Blu-ray,all the movies have very good color reproduction and excellent balck levels.

It appears to me that many are judging this boxset by the high picture quality of other Blu-ray's,with no consideration to the source,even experienced reviewers,but these same reviewers do take the source into account in certain circumstances ie Blade runner this movie looks awsome for it's age but 5/5 from Blu-ray.com thats the same score as The dark knight,now as good as blade runner is it's no where near as good as this transfer,so reviewers do at times take the source into account,so why not on a fantasy film thats almost ten years old and shot in a certain way in some scenes and not in others.

No doubt these movies will be released again and again,thats the nature of Blu-ray and Dvd,as regards to the reviews there are good and bad,but why trust one and not the others,you can't have it both ways and say when the normal customers watch these discs they are not somehow qualified enough their opinion is not valid,and then when the expert reviewers make their judgements only take into account the poor ones that suit your own point of view.

I am glad however people are making their own minds up on these as i have,it will of course not change the opinions of this boxset's critics but will it realy matter to you if you like them,i think not !!

P/Q SCORES FOTR 3.5/5 TT 4.0/5 ROTK 4.5/5
AUDIO FOTR 5.0/5 TT 5.0/5 ROTK 5.0/5

I have marked Fellowship down in relation to the two other movies,as i feel this movie can only ever look so good,but time will tell.

[lDlisturb3d]

Originally Posted by jonmoz

P/Q SCORES FOTR 3.5/5 TT 4.0/5 ROTK 4.5/5
AUDIO FOTR 5.0/5 TT 5.0/5 ROTK 5.0/5

I agree 100% well kinda TT is a 4.5 on PQ but whatever

[Chordata]

Originally Posted by Stinky-Dinkins

Take your specific model, search AVS by thread title for it, find the official thread then search that thread for "overscan."

Should be easy enough to find how to turn off by enabling 1:1 if possible.

I'm pretty pleased with it, so no need to turn anything off.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[petmic10]

Originally Posted by Diesel

No biggie, I just saw them last week for the first time myself.


Most people outside of internet forums probably haven't either

Glad to know I wasn't the only one.

Originally Posted by jwoodwar

I have not seen them too. I never got to them. Im going to double dip on Lord of the Rings. But yeah Im not ashamed of not seeing the extended copys yet. But I want to!

I plan on seeing them sometime in the future, I'll be double dipping
too.

[petmic10]

Originally Posted by jonmoz

Well back to the topic i have just watched "Return of the king" and as people say this is the best transfer of all the three movies,the image is sharper,although not as much of an improvement as some will suggest,but as i have said before i do not find "The fellowship of the ring" is as bad as people say.

One thing i noticed when watching The return of the king,was the scenes at the end back in the Shire and Elfindale both had a softer feel to them than other scenes in the movie,this suggests to me that Jackson wanted certain scenes to appear softer and lend a fairytale feel to them.

Overall i have been very pleased with this set and have had a great time viewing them again,and they are a great improvement over my Dvd's

I am in no way saying these transfers can't be improved upon although how much is debatable,as i still feel a lot of issues raised are because of how they were filmed,and i think this is where a lot of consistency issues come in,as if you shoot a scene using a softer focus and certain filter,and then on another scene where you do not,then there will be a difference when you convert this to Blu-ray no matter what you do.And this would explain the differences in these scenes in The return of the king on the Blu-ray,all the movies have very good color reproduction and excellent balck levels.

It appears to me that many are judging this boxset by the high picture quality of other Blu-ray's,with no consideration to the source,even experienced reviewers,but these same reviewers do take the source into account in certain circumstances ie Blade runner this movie looks awsome for it's age but 5/5 from Blu-ray.com thats the same score as The dark knight,now as good as blade runner is it's no where near as good as this transfer,so reviewers do at times take the source into account,so why not on a fantasy film thats almost ten years old and shot in a certain way in some scenes and not in others.

No doubt these movies will be released again and again,thats the nature of Blu-ray and Dvd,as regards to the reviews there are good and bad,but why trust one and not the others,you can't have it both ways and say when the normal customers watch these discs they are not somehow qualified enough their opinion is not valid,and then when the expert reviewers make their judgements only take into account the poor ones that suit your own point of view.

I am glad however people are making their own minds up on these as i have,it will of course not change the opinions of this boxset's critics but will it realy matter to you if you like them,i think not !!

P/Q SCORES FOTR 3.5/5 TT 4.0/5 ROTK 4.5/5
AUDIO FOTR 5.0/5 TT 5.0/5 ROTK 5.0/5

I have marked Fellowship down in relation to the two other movies,as i feel this movie can only ever look so good,but time will tell.

Thanks for the review, I thought ROTK was the best of the three also.

[jonmoz]

Regarding the PQ scores it's a tough one as "The two towers" and "The return of the king" were both very good,for me the color and a little more sharpness edged it for me,but they are very close.

[Mrillmatic27]

Originally Posted by BasicGreatGuy

I can multitask. lol I am having a LOTR party next weekend. I am really digging the sound.

That'd be nice, except everyone i know thinks im a loser for liking LOTR, but who cares

[Blu-Benny]

what's up w/amazon's price going from $59.99 to $63.99 and back again???

[42041]

Originally Posted by jonmoz

It appears to me that many are judging this boxset by the high picture quality of other Blu-ray's,with no consideration to the source,even experienced reviewers,but these same reviewers do take the source into account in certain circumstances ie Blade runner this movie looks awsome for it's age but 5/5 from Blu-ray.com thats the same score as The dark knight,now as good as blade runner is it's no where near as good as this transfer,so reviewers do at times take the source into account,so why not on a fantasy film thats almost ten years old and shot in a certain way in some scenes and not in others.

The "source" is super35 film. Softening filters on the lens and lack of resolution are not easily confused, nor were they used for the whole movie. Therefore I feel justified in comparing this 2002 movie http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/8105/mr12bd.png
to this 2001 movie http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/2419/lotr16bd.png
Blade Runner is considerably more detailed than Fellowship, if memory serves

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by Blu-Benny

what's up w/amazon's price going from $59.99 to $63.99 and back again???

They probably PMed Target and Best Buy. I imagine that led to a surge in sales, which probably led to low stock of the movie, which probably led to them putting the price back up. Could just be a guess, though. I'm probably wrong.

[Chordata]

Originally Posted by Mrillmatic27

That'd be nice, except everyone i know thinks im a loser for liking LOTR, but who cares

LOL - surely you're kidding!

[gregmasciola]

Originally Posted by jwoodwar

People are just pissed because there is no Extended Editions!

They need to grow a pair and stop being an idiot and saying crap and rated it 1 star on Amazon.com

Just ignore all of the Amazon reviews. I'm waiting for the Extended Editions, but I find it very childish and immature for all of those people to give this release 1-star ratings just because it's not the Extended version. One of the reviewers on this site gave the release a bad review just because the disc art was the same as the DVD release.

[Lt. Aldo Raine]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Over scan is usually default as far as I know.


Do you see "black bars" on 1.85 movies? If not, you have over scan.

i have a sony kds 55a2020, its a 1080p set, but DLP, amazing picture tho, but i dont see black bars when watching 1.85 movies, and cannot find any options to change this?

how much picture am i losing with this default overscan?

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by iceman_mw21

i have a sony kds 55a2020, its a 1080p set, but DLP, amazing picture tho, but i dont see black bars when watching 1.85 movies, and cannot find any options to change this?

how much picture am i losing with this default overscan?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=1589


Apparently you would have to go into the service menu for that set.

[Avond]

Originally Posted by BasicGreatGuy

It was $59.95 last night and earlier this morning. I email customer service about the 4 dollar difference and was basically told I am out of luck. I am going to try calling.

I just called them on my set too, and I had to be a little...shall we say "firm" on what the pre-order guarantee actually guarantees, but they refunded the $4 to me.

[Grand Bob]

I have just finished watching one of the sections deemed the "worst" by the reviewers, the beginning of the movie up until Bilbo leaves the Shire after his party.

Initial impression: Packaging - adequate but substandard for three of the crown jewels of New Line and Warner that have made a comfortable living for so many of their employees.

PQ (distance/source: 14' from 70" XBR2):

Having seen the movies 10 times each in the theater, more times than I can count on DVD, and several times on HD broadcast, I can say without reservation that this is the best I have ever seen this section of the movie. I would not have even noticed the DNR and EE that have been the concern of so many posts these past few weeks. The colors are incredible and parts that appear soft appear that way intentionally. The "uneveness" that some people refer to seems to be a result of effects, such as when Bilbo walks completely around Gandalf in his house after the party. So far it is superb; I felt I could almost reach into the TV and grab Bilbo's red vest. I still haven't got to the part that has the line at the edge, but if this is indeed the worst, I would say cast any doubts you have aside.

SQ: Easily the best I have ever heard for this section, crystal clear and definitive. The sound quality is worth the purchase price alone.

Back to the film.

[Lt. Aldo Raine]

Originally Posted by Diesel

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=1589


Apparently you would have to go into the service menu for that set.

thank you, i will look into doing that

[Stinky-Dinkins]

Originally Posted by iceman_mw21

i have a sony kds 55a2020, its a 1080p set, but DLP, amazing picture tho, but i dont see black bars when watching 1.85 movies, and cannot find any options to change this?

how much picture am i losing with this default overscan?

Only a tiny amount. Is that one of the RP SXRD units? For those types of displays they are intentionally designed for overscan in mind, I think a tiny amount of the pixels are hidden behind the bezel or something (I think the visible pixels are something like upper 1800's X upper 1030's.) This is why those sets only allow you to change it in the service menu rather than the built in picture menu as other types of sets can do.

On those units there are the full amount of 1920 X 1080 pixels on the LCOS chip but when the image is projected in 1:1 a tiny handful of those corresponding on-screen pixels are not visible, purposefully. So really, it is mapping in 1:1 but you can't see a tiny amount of the outer extent because that's how the set was designed. I think if you changed the overscan settings for your type of set in the service menu you'd actually be telling it to project an image of slightly less than 1920 X 1080, so although you'd actually see the very tiny amount of image you can't see now you'd lose the true 1:1 image it is already projecting.


I think that’s how those sets work, so I’d not recommend changing it.

[petmic10]

Here is a pic from FOTR of Gandalf in the Mines of Moria.

I used a cheap point and shoot digital camera - manual mode - no tripod.
Sorry for the moire' effect, that is my camera causing it.



I just wanted to show the detail in some shots.

You can see the pores in his skin while other facial shots can look
waxy in other scenes.

[superbu]

Originally Posted by Grand Bob

And that lackluster speech he gave in front of the Black Gate of Mordor was somewhat less than motivational:
"I see the same fear in your eyes that would have taken the heart of me."
Ooookay.

Part of the problem with this is that the scene is broken up into several parts by editing back and forth between him and Frodo/Sam. Several years ago, I edited together (on VHS!) the whole section from the Mouth of Sauraon until the end of Aragorn's speech, without cutting back to the hobbits, and it actually is much more impactful, has much more of a build, than it does the way it's edited in the film.