The Hobbit Trilogy 4K UHD Extended & Theatrical (2012-2014)

[vinvanveen]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

Aliens, T2, True Lies, the first Bourne film, The Wailing and some others are saying "Hold my beer."

Never seen those, and have no interest.


Given you lot's reaction, maybe there *is* something about my setup? The open daylight scenes in Bot5A look extremely bad. I play the scene where the people of Laketown first reach the shore after Laketown has been burned, about 15-20 minutes in. It's so ugly. Faces don't even look like face; they are a horrid even yellow without definition, in both versions of the movie, on both of my players. I've never seen anything like it.

Perhaps, if it's neither the disk nor either of my players, some setting on my TV has changed? Doesn't appear to be the case; I picked a random other movie with DV (Bridge on the River Kwai), and it looks just like it should.

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yeah I guess, but the sharpening on top of sharpening is so extreme on Five Armies' UHD it's tough to watch

Try the HDR->SDR conversion, it's amazing how much the perception of sharpness is changing with lower contrast and without Freeman's skin pores shining like the Northern Star!

As for the color grading I agree, even considering the pretty obvious tint and "dirty" whites, that An Unexpected Journey looks the best on the original Blu-ray. The Dolby Vision grade is beautifil, but there's too much desutaration (and I'm not talking about the flashabck filter), like in the night scenes, previously fabulously blue, now more gray and uneven.

The remastered Blu-rays of the Desolation and Armies are a good alternative for UHDs, though.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

Try the HDR->SDR conversion, it's amazing how much the perception of sharpness is changing with lower contrast and without Freeman's skin pores shining like the Northern Star!

As for the color grading I agree, even considering the pretty obvious tint and "dirty" whites, that An Unexpected Journey looks the best on the original Blu-ray. The Dolby Vision grade is beautifil, but there's too much desutaration (and I'm not talking about the flashabck filter), like in the night scenes, previously fabulously blue, now more gray and uneven.

The remastered Blu-rays of the Desolation and Armies are a good alternative for UHDs, though.

Tried it in SDR, the one good thing I'd watch it for is then gone. Also tried the remastered Blu and it's still ugly as sin.

[Captain Keen]

Originally Posted by vinvanveen

Never seen those, and have no interest.


Given you lot's reaction, maybe there *is* something about my setup? The open daylight scenes in Bot5A look extremely bad. I play the scene where the people of Laketown first reach the shore after Laketown has been burned, about 15-20 minutes in. It's so ugly. Faces don't even look like face; they are a horrid even yellow without definition, in both versions of the movie, on both of my players. I've never seen anything like it.

Perhaps, if it's neither the disk nor either of my players, some setting on my TV has changed? Doesn't appear to be the case; I picked a random other movie with DV (Bridge on the River Kwai), and it looks just like it should.

That’s a good point about Unexpected Journey.

Are remastered blu-rays even available in the US (or individual 4Ks anywhere?)

I actually should amend my opinion. While I find the first and last movies ‘unwatchable’ in 4K, Desolation of Smaug actually doesn’t look too bad. In fact, I prefer the regrading on all the Smaug sequences because the gold actually looks gold and not brown, and it’s more consistent with the other movies.

The scenes look much better with the new grading and HDR. And yeah it is kinda frustrating to me that I vastly prefer the 1080 versions of 2 of the 3 movies, but the 4K version for the middle entry. At least this trilogy isn’t as essential as the original trilogy.

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Tried it in SDR, the one good thing I'd watch it for is then gone. Also tried the remastered Blu and it's still ugly as sin.

My tolerance for sharpening must be much higher than yours, both the original and remastered BDs of Armies look fine to me.

[1924]

Ten years since the last one came
Out already? Crazy

[Mierzwiak]

Currently I'm watching the extras from the extended edition of The Battle of the Five Armies and at one point they sayid 25% of the shots are fully CG and 96% of the shots have visual effects; people who claim they went back to the original RAW camera files to create the 4K versions are out of their mind.

[Bernardo A.]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

Currently I'm watching the extras from the extended edition of The Battle of the Five Armies and at one point they sayid 25% of the shots are fully CG and 96% of the shots have visual effects; people who claim they went back to the original RAW camera files to create the 4K versions are out of their mind.

If they had any sense they'd do filmouts and then scan back to digital in order to make it look more filmic and less like... digital television.

[samuelkhan999]

What the best way of getting the remastered BDs of the Hobbit trilogy? Thanks

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by samuelkhan999

What the best way of getting the remastered BDs of the Hobbit trilogy? Thanks

https://www.amazon.it/HOBBIT-TRILOGI.../dp/B0BTHY91VZ

It's usually €14,99.

[samuelkhan999]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

https://www.amazon.it/HOBBIT-TRILOGI.../dp/B0BTHY91VZ

Its usually €14,99.

Thanks. I was looking at the the Hobbit 4k trilogy in Japan as the Middle-earth ultimate 4k collection costs a kidney at the black market.

[Alister_M]

Originally Posted by Bernardo A.

If they had any sense they'd do filmouts and then scan back to digital in order to make it look more filmic and less like... digital television.

It looked like digital television in the cinema, especially at 48fps, so in that sense the UHDs are an accurate representation of that. Which is more than can be said for LOTR

[MifuneFan]

Walmart has The Hobbit 3-Film Steelbook Collection, imported from the UK, but shipped and sold by WM, for just $61.66. This is a super low price for this set, and much lower than what it sells for direct from the UK.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Hobbi...0&from=/search

[sfmarine]

Thanks, Mifune. It was posted on Reddit a few times over the past few weeks but I am always too late. Glad to finally snag one.

[TKAdvancer]

Back to the over-sharpened look of the 4K. The only solution for me is to set the LUMA (High Frequency) and LUMA (Middle Frequency) sharpness controls to -5 in the Panasonic UB 820 player menu.

This only works in HDR10, but it still produces a really good image on my Panasonic OLED LZ1500 TV.
It's not perfect, but the disgusting overly sharp look is significantly reduced.

Over the last few days, I've compared the normal BDs, remastered BDs, 3D BDs and 4K BDs with each other, and next time I'll probably put the original BD releases in the player. I prefer them that way.