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

[Grand Bob]

Originally Posted by Fors*

At least I know I can sit back and really enjoy the AQ to these movies, despite the soft PQ in FOTR...although TTT and ROTK do look better from the screenshots and screencaps IMO.

I agree. Audio will definitely be better, and it sounds that at least TTT and RoTK should substantially look better. At least that is something to go on. FoTR sounds like a big visual disappointment, but once the production team sees the movie, I hope they generate enough momentum to get it remastered. In either case, now that the cat is out of the bag, I can't imagine that Warner would screw up the EE's.

[Fors*]

Originally Posted by Grand Bob

I agree. Audio will definitely be better, and it sounds that at least TTT and RoTK should substantially look better. At least that is something to go on. FoTR sounds like a big visual disappointment, but once the production team sees the movie, I hope they generate enough momentum to get it remastered. In either case, now that the cat is out of the bag, I can't imagine that Warner would screw up the EE's.

Yes, FOTR seems to sadly disappoint in the PQ, but that is not a surprise to most who have read this thread. I did see that the Blu-ray.com review states it is DTS-HD MA 5.1 and not 6.1. That seems to confirm the other review I read where they said the 6th channel was not a discrete one....I can't say I am happy about that, but I can easily get over it, since we were originally getting Dolby TrueHD to begin with.

[Grand Bob]

Originally Posted by Fors*

Yes, FOTR seems to sadly disappoint in the PQ, but that is not a surprise to most who have read this thread. I did see that the Blu-ray.com review states it is DTS-HD MA 5.1 and not 6.1. That seems to confirm the other review I read where they said the 6th channel was not a discrete one....I can't say I am happy about that, but I can easily get over it, since we were originally getting Dolby TrueHD to begin with.

It appears the sound should satisfy. Now the only thing left is to await delivery of the set. I was able to get the $50 deal from WB, but these next two weeks will seem like months, especially after thinking they were going to be released last year. But, on the bright side, at least LoTR fans are getting SOMETHING on BD, even if it isn't the best effort by the company. How long will we have to wait for Star Wars to be released? I'm sure Lucas isn't all that concerned, but we have finite life-spans, and it has been 33 years since the original was released.

[Bullseye]

Does WB/NL not watch these before they release them? After reading the review I couldn't have been more disapponted. I was going to buy this but I'll be skipping this now. This is not how to advertise how good BD is WB your people should be ashamed of themselves for this monstrosity.

[Mike2060]

Originally Posted by KubrickFan

Uhmm, the movie Contact? Hell was raised on AVS because they were full of DNR, apparently, and looked worse than the broadcast (where have I heard that before? ). Contact turned out to look fine.



Okay, then it's DNR. At least the reviewers have actually seen the disc, instead of overly relying on screenshots (which a lot in this thread seem to do). If it's as bad as Ken says in his review, one begs the question to why there were 5 different masters made before Jackson was satisfied. Maybe he watched it on a small monitor?
And of course there's the question of whether all of this is remotely visible on the average television with the average seating distance. But that's just something everyone has to decide for himself.

Did the person who said Contact looked fine sit like 1.5 screen width from their display? Or did they sit 3 screen widths away? You kind of got to that in the second paragraph. I've looked at the screen caps of Contact on this site and they don't look great but they certainly wouldn't look awful 2 screen widths away from the display.

[P@t_Mtl]

I am not truly surprise by the review.

My brother as the DVD set of the extended cut (he is a huge Tolkien fan) and even those are not amazing on picture quality. There are very low compare to other DVD. Even the upscaling in my Sony player is not that amazing I find, again compared with other DVD movies. He's not too heartbroken at this time, he never plan on buying this set, he just want's the EE. I do suppose this release could be a lesson learn for pre-orders don't order stuff too early cause you might be dissapointed when you receive it.

The new releases of movies I am interested in (Wolfman, Shelock Holmes...) it's a given. I do not own them on DVD and it does make sense to just go for the Blu-ray. I am getting more and more careful with catalogue releases. In the early days, they use to be stunning but I think studios are getting a bit lazy and just throw stuff on Blu-ray and think "the people will buy it anyway". I wait a bit now for these catalogue releases before jumping on them.

[kdo]

So, based on the picture quality of these releases, does anyone feel that they will go out of their way to make these look 'better' when they release the 'Extended Editions'?

[Mahatma]

Pretty surprised about the PQ in FOTR by the reviewer.Thought they were shot with the same filmstock,so can't see any reason why the other two movies should look better than the first other than bad craftsmanship...

Was planning on getting FOTR only,so maybe wait for the extended editions.Maybe they give it a better trasnfer then...

[Irrob]

I'm cancelling my pre-order. At 64 dollars, that's too much given what we now know.

[Tempest]

Originally Posted by kdo

So, based on the picture quality of these releases, does anyone feel that they will go out of their way to make these look 'better' when they release the 'Extended Editions'?

Nope.. I don't.. This is *G%^T$#U& Warner Brothers we are talking about.. They seem to always go CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP on everything.. they could care less.

[mrpink134]

Well thats one. I was waiting one Brown and Potts review to determine on buying this. If Potts slams it I'm not getting it. I'll buy Toy Story 1 and 2

[Kryptonic]

A 2.5 for FOTR? Please. Gladiator received a 3 and that's hands down probably the worst transfer on the format along with Near Dark. The screens I've seen of FOTR don't look as good as TTT or ROTK, but they certainly look fine, at least a 3.5 or 4 out of five. Given the way FOTR was processed in post, the look of the film on the Blu-Ray seems fine. I'm sticking with my pre-order, especially since I'm using a $25 gift card anyway.

[flyfree432]

Thank you blu-ray.com. I was thinking about ordering them even though I said I wasn't. Now it is a definite no-go. I'm not paying $60 for a slight mediocre video upgrade just to end up with only theatrical version. I'm happy with the DVD's until they sort this mess out. The blu-ray would have to be less than $30 for me to buy it.

[cosomotion]

I was going to eventually pick up both regular and extended.
But with these kind of issues I'll wait and hope they don't use the same transfer on the extended editions.

[jalabar]

Good honest review. Thanks Ken. Hope this gets more people to wait for the EE's.

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by Kryptonic

A 2.5 for FOTR? Please. Gladiator received a 3 and that's hands down probably the worst transfer on the format along with Near Dark. The screens I've seen of FOTR don't look as good as TTT or ROTK, but they certainly look fine, at least a 3.5 or 4 out of five. Given the way FOTR was processed in post, the look of the film on the Blu-Ray seems fine. I'm sticking with my pre-order, especially since I'm using a $25 gift card anyway.

I was expecting FotR to get probably a 3/5 based on the screen caps I saw.

TTT I was expecting a 4.0 and RotK I was expecting a 4.5


I was .5 off each one



I'm glad the audio is 5.0

[Fors*]

Originally Posted by Diesel

I was expecting FotR to get probably a 3/5 based on the screen caps I saw.

TTT I was expecting a 4.0 and RotK I was expecting a 4.5


I was .5 off each one



I'm glad the audio is 5.0

Speaking of the audio, it says it is 5.1 DTS-HD MA ES Matrix.....what is ES Matrix??? Does this mean the soundtrack was some how already matrixed into a 6th or 7th channel on the soundtrack? I can't remember ever seeing that before?

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by Fors*

Speaking of the audio, it says it is 5.1 DTS-HD MA ES Matrix.....what is ES Matrix??? Does this mean the soundtrack was some how already matrixed into a 6th or 7th channel on the soundtrack? I can't remember ever seeing that before?

Its 5 discrete channels (plus the .1 for the sub of course) plus a 6th matrixed center surround channel.


I think, I'm just going off of what I've read

[Fors*]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Its 5 discrete channels (plus the .1 for the sub of course) plus a 6th matrixed center surround channel.


I think, I'm just going off of what I've read

Thanks Diesel, another member provided this link for me....

http://www.timefordvd.com/ref/dts-ES.shtml

Looks like I was close......but why bother with something like this since our own AVR's can do matrixing? Does this make for better imaging across the surround speakers?

[kurtlingle]

Ken Brown,

Thanks for the great review, and giving us detail on each movie.

Now to buy or not to buy.... I think it's been 2 years since I watch the EE of all 3. I cannot watch the DVD's ever again (such bad PQ/AQ).

I think I'll buy these and ebay them in a few months. I cannot go without LOTR's for yet another 2 years.

It's a shame that FOTR is a 2.5. I'm hoping Ken was to hard on it and it's a 3. I guess we could compare all movies with 2.5 reviewed here and see if it's really that bad.

Maybe I'll just listen to the movies. With my new sub (PA-120) hearing LOTR's will be for the first time. I can't wait to hear the ring drop at the council of Elrond.

Ok, I must have these