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

[emgesp]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Did you really just put Star Wars and no complaining in the same sentence Squid?



Ummm, no they didn't just turn out an 8 year old master.

They remastered at least 5 times before it was approved.

They did not do a new 2-4k remaster of all three films for the Blu-ray. They took the original HD masters they have had for years and tweaked it. Just like Gladiator.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

I am not talking about the Jar Jar versions.

Yuck... I hate even typing that word.

Mesa Jar Jar Binks. Mesa your humble servant. Back on topic, I love Sean Astin as Samwise Gamgee. Honestly I never cared for him in the novels but in the movies he became easy to relate to and care about.

Originally Posted by emgesp

They did not do a new 2-4k remaster of all three films. They took the original HD masters they have had for years and tweaked it.

How do you know? Were you there when they did it?

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

I am not talking about the Jar Jar versions.

Yuck... I hate even typing that word.

Well that eliminates some of the complaining.

But then you still have the ones that will complain about the blu-rays being the Special Editions instead of the originals


Then you have to add in the people who inevitably complain about EVERYTHING

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Well that eliminates some of the complaining.

But then you still have the ones that will complain about the blu-rays being the Special Editions instead of the originals


Then you have to add in the people who inevitably complain about EVERYTHING

Unless we actually get the originals.

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Unless we actually get the originals.

The internet would explode.




Anyyyway

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Unless we actually get the originals.

That's about as likely as Sauron rising from the dead to claim the One Ring and taking control of Middle Earth.

[mrpink134]

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Wolverine1980

Mesa Jar Jar Binks. Mesa your humble servant. Back on topic, I love Sean Astin as Samwise Gamgee. Honestly I never cared for him in the novels but in the movies he became easy to relate to and care about.

How do you know? Were you there when they did it?

[emgesp]

Originally Posted by Wolverine1980

Mesa Jar Jar Binks. Mesa your humble servant. Back on topic, I love Sean Astin as Samwise Gamgee. Honestly I never cared for him in the novels but in the movies he became easy to relate to and care about.

How do you know? Were you there when they did it?

It's quite obvious. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1237167

The Blu-ray comes from the same master that was used for the HDTV broadcast, but with added DNR, color boost and a different encode.

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by emgesp

It's quite obvious. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1237167

It's the same Master that was used for the HDTV broadcast, but with added DNR.

Oh?

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Got it direct from a reliable source in a position to know at the time it was happening last year. Believe me, LOTR has been remastered.....a lot in the last 5 years, due to..ummm. differing opinions. The final Blu-ray compression has been vetted by PJ, and that's good enough for me. LOTR looks messy period, always has, and Super35 certainly didn't help anything. Had they shot the movies in 70mm this wouldn't be a problem, if they can haul IMAX up Everest, they could have made it work

Even if they archived the VFX files, they are likely useless now. Renderers are tempermental beasts, and even running on a slightly different computer can send them haywire.

[Ken Brown]

Just wanted to briefly chime in. 'FotR' is, and has always been, a softer film. A fact I hope I effectively alluded to when I mentioned Jackson's shooting techniques in my video analysis. However, I feel confident that I was able to separate Jackson's intentions from technical issues with the release. It's a fine line, but DNR-smeared textures look quite different than soft textures. Moreover, while the DNR is getting a lot of attention in this forum, it's only a small part of the reason I gave the transfer a lower score. Watch the bright skies when the Fellowship first hits the snowy mountains - you'll see flickering, wavering, a dash of compression artifacts, and what not. Watch the Council of Elrond. Note the wide shots of the assembly (a bit of color bleeding and EE around Elrond, fluctuating textures in the leaves of the trees, smeary details) and the closeups of the newly formed fellowship (again, not soft, just... digitized and unsightly - some posters actually thought I had posted an upscaled shot from the DVD). Hop back to the opening Shire scenes. Notice the slight jitteriness in the image? The way the titles shift? The wavering, flickering, and inconsistencies that beset Frodo's face, sometimes in the same static shot?

Again though, that doesn't mean all is lost. Entire sequences look great, just naturally soft like many have mentioned. The Mines, the landing and third-act battle, the visit to Lothlorien -- these scenes look pretty good. They still have a few problems here and there (again technical, not source-based), but it isn't as bad as some of the film's more iconic moments.

If DNR were the only factor, I would have probably given the transfer a 3.5. But there are so many other issues, that it pulls it down. Is any one issue debilitating? Not in my opinion. But as they begin to stack on top of one another, relatively minor as each one may arguably be, they take a collective toll. More importantly, at the end of the day, I could just be wrong. There is no right or wrong answer like so many seem to think. This isn't an exact science, and not everyone will share the same impressions of a subjective experience.

Anyway, the reason opinions of the discs are varying so widely is because everyone's impressions are so dependent upon their home theater setup and their sensitivity to certain issues. Someone with a 40" TV, especially one teeming with optional bells and whistles like sharpening and contrast-boosting features, will wonder what the heck I'm complaining about. Likewise, someone who doesn't mind mild-to-moderate DNR, or doesn't notice the occasional instability of the image, or who simply doesn't pick up on some of the more minor issues will be quite pleased with the results. I was disappointed, but even if I didn't have a screener, I would buy a copy in a heartbeat. It's much better than the DVDs.

Instead of arguing about who's right and who's wrong, those who are sensitive to DNR should be educating readers about what they lose when DNR is applied or what a picture suffers when an issue is present. Screenshot comparisons and a friendly explanation go a long way. I still remember when I first moved from the Full Screen camp to the Wide Screen camp in high school. It was all because a friendly Suncoast employee showed me a screenshot comparison when I was buying the Star Wars Trilogy. The paper clearly showed what I was losing on the right and left sides of the image, and I never looked back. Instead of fuming, let's educate each other on why certain things spoil our viewing experience.

A studio like Warner, or any studio for that matter, does not want to put out a lousy product. Like any good business, they want to give the market what it demands. If the market demands less grain, artificially sharpened pictures, etc... that's what it will get. The more people who understand what's wrong with a transfer like the one afforded to 'FotR,' the more that viewpoint will become the prevailing viewpoint. It's simple economics, simple supply and demand. If you continue to calmly convert the masses rather than bickering about it all, you'll see positive change, just like we did when Full Screen releases ruled the land

[Batman1980]

Well I'm off to work now to discuss Lord of the Rings with people who won't talk about the controversial blu-ray transfers. Numenor's blessings on you all and I hope Sauron doesn't come back.

[Damage Inc.]

Vetted by pyjama?...

Anyway, the difference is probably they INSISTED on shooting Everest in IMAX.
I mean, the one time they're going such a big and probably dangerous trip...
And Jackson just stuck with a more regular film for his films. :P
Don't think there would be some Uruk-Hai-warriors or something threatening him to make it stellar.

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by Ken Brown

Just wanted to briefly chime in. 'FotR' is, and has always been, a softer film. A fact I hope I effectively alluded to when I mentioned Jackson's shooting techniques in my video analysis. However, I feel confident that I was able to separate Jackson's intentions from technical issues with the release. It's a fine line, but DNR-smeared textures look quite different than soft textures. Moreover, while the DNR is getting a lot of attention in this forum, it's only a small part of the reason I gave the transfer a lower score. Watch the bright skies when the Fellowship first hits the snowy mountains - you'll see flickering, wavering, a dash of compression artifacts, and what not. Watch the Council of Elrond. Note the wide shots of the assembly (a bit of color bleeding and EE around Elrond, fluctuating textures in the leaves of the trees, smeary details) and the closeups of the newly formed fellowship (again, not soft, just... digitized and unsightly - some posters actually thought I had posted an upscaled shot from the DVD). Hop back to the opening Shire scenes. Notice the slight jitteriness in the image? The way the titles shift? The wavering, flickering, and inconsistencies that beset Frodo's face, sometimes in the same static shot?

Again though, that doesn't mean all is lost. Entire sequences look great, just naturally soft like many have mentioned. The Mines, the landing and third-act battle, the visit to Lothlorien -- these scenes look pretty good. They still have a few problems here and there (again technical, not source-based), but it isn't as bad as some of the film's more iconic moments.

Anyway, the reason opinions of the discs are varying so widely is because everyone's impressions are so dependent upon their home theater setup and their sensitivity to certain issues. Someone with a 40" TV, especially one teeming with optional bells and whistles like sharpening and contrast-boosting features, will wonder what the heck I'm complaining about. Likewise, someone who doesn't mind mild-to-moderate DNR, or doesn't notice the occasional instability of the image, or who simply doesn't pick up on some of the more minor issues will be quite pleased with the results. I was disappointed, but even if I didn't have a screener, I would buy a copy in a heartbeat. It's much better than the DVDs.

If DNR were the only factor, I would have probably given the transfer a 3.5. But there are so many other issues, that it pulls it down. Is any one issue a deal-breaker? Not in my opinion. But as they begin to stack on top of one another, relatively minor as each one may arguably be, they take a collective toll. More importantly, at the end of the day, I could just be wrong. There is no right or wrong answer like so many seem to think. This isn't an exact science, and not everyone will share the same impressions of a subjective experience.

Instead of arguing about who's right and who's wrong, those who are sensitive to DNR should be educating readers about what they lose when DNR is applied or what a picture suffers when an issue is present. Screenshot comparisons and a friendly explanation go a long way. I still remember when I first moved from the Full Screen camp to the Wide Screen camp in high school. It was all because a friendly Suncoast employee showed me a screenshot comparison when I was buying the Star Wars Trilogy. The paper clearly showed what I was losing on the right and left sides of the image, and I never looked back. Instead of fuming, let's educate each other on why certain things spoil our viewing experience.

A studio like Warner, or any studio for that matter, does not want to put out a lousy product. Like any good business, they want to give the market what it demands. If the market demands less grain, artificially sharpened pictures, etc... that's what it will get. The more people who understand what's wrong with a transfer like the one afforded to 'FotR,' the more that viewpoint will become the prevailing viewpoint. It's simple economics, simple supply and demand. Let's calmly convert the masses rather than bickering about it all

Lucky me, I have a 40" tv



Thanks for continually stopping in to clarify things and give some perspective to the conversation at hand Ken.

[P@t_Mtl]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Lucky me, I have a 40" tv

We're in the same boat Dielse

[emgesp]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Oh?

Just because something is remastered doesn't always mean they rescan the camera negatives and do a totally new master from that.

There has not been a new telecine process for any of the Lord of the Rings movies for this release. Now, they might have a better HD master waiting for the eventual EE Blu-ray release, but who knows.

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

We're in the same boat Dielse

Originally Posted by emgesp

Just because something is remastered doesn't always mean they rescan the camera negatives and do a totally new master from that.

There has not been a new telecine process for any of the Lord of the Rings movies in any kind of remastering for the Blu-ray.

I didn't say they rescanned it (which we don't know for sure if they did because Jeff didn't specify).

I said that they didn't simply just throw out an 8 year old master like your original post claimed.

[Cobra33]

is there anything on the bluray DVD itself that says ANY info about the EE's coming out??? i heard there would be.

[mredman]

Originally Posted by emgesp

Blade Runner was given great treatment. This is a movie that flopped at the box-office, but the Blu-ray is one of the best out there.

Now you have LOTR that made 3 billion dollars, but was just sloppily put together for the Blu-ray release.

Doesn't make sense to me.

How do you even know it was sloppy done. maybe FOTR can't look better because it was always shot soft. It seems to me you expected Transformers PQ. That i could have told you a year ago that it would never be such a transfer

Here is a review that says it looks very good:
"Overall definition remained very good, however. Jagged edges and moiré effects created no concerns, and I also detected no signs of edge enhancement. Source flaws remained absent and never cropped up in this clean transfer"

Taken from the review of FOTR from DVDTOWN

[adamhopelies]

Originally Posted by Todd Smith

Thanks for the info

The type of issues being discussed become MUCH more obvious on a bigger screen and closer seating distance in all due respect. You may still not be bothered by them since tolerance for these type of issues varies from user to user, but IMO evaluating PQ on a 22" TV from more than 2 screen widths away is not a great test at all. Again, I mean no disrespect, just stating the facts.

Just checked the set on our main living room setup. Once again, Fellowship looked fine, and the other two looked great. They are leagues ahead of the DVD's (I checked). We have a 48" LG plasma and PS3 in the living room for the record. Again, I'm not as hardcore as most when it comes to the specifics, but I didn't have any major problems with this set.

On a related note, I'm surprised by just how well Gollum and Treebeard have aged! Gollum still looks fantastic.