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

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by deeman54

yep, but i could wait for him to die in ROTK, he wasn't even the King and was trying to bogaurd

It's Bogart and he was only doing it because his son had died and he had spent his entire life "ruling" Gondor. I imagine most of us would also have a problem letting go.

[mjbethancourt]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

It's Bogart and he was only doing it because his son had died and he had spent his entire life "ruling" Gondor. I imagine most of us would also have a problem letting go.

Denethor had his reasons, but he's still a dick.

I think the biggest stick Denethor had up his bum, is that he'd looked into the Palantir, and he already knew that no matter how the war turned out, he and his family would be among the things swept away with the passing of an age: the days of the Stewards were finished, and the-world-as he-knew-it was over. How he reacted to that information was not very noble. Just because you are not going to be a part of the future, does not justify an attitude of "let the world burn, what do I care? There's nothing left in it for me." I think he went quite a bit farther than just not being very gracious about accepting his own mortality.

[easyrider]

Here is a picture of the Australia releases in their individual cases. Now I can finally make my own judgement about their quality instead of reading about everyone else's thoughts

[Blu-rob77]

aaa just cases all got the same awsome movies!!!!!!

[Bronze-Dragonrider]

Ok, I just bought the set from Best Buy, and eagerly tested it out. I'm quite satisfied with the PQ - even though it's certainly not perfect it's a DAMN sight better than the DVDs.

However, I am extremely disappointed with the audio. The bass is pathetic. I watched the supertrailer first, and was very underwhelmed with the sound... but it was just the trailer, so I didn't worry. But when I tested out my favorite scenes - from each movie even - it just felt weak. Hardly any bass when the cave troll smashed through a wall, and the sucking vacuum sound as the green beacon shoots up out of Minas Morgul in ROTK was almost entirely absent. I put in the DVDs to see if there might be something wrong with my sound system... and then my ears were blasted with sound. Deep, rich bass and MUCH better surround effects than the Blu Ray.

Has anyone else had this problem? I've noticed that nearly all the reviewers rate the audio at 5/5, so is it possible that I just got a dud? I would really appreciate if anyone else could compare their DVD versions of the Morgul scene (as this was most noticeable to me) with the Blu Ray and see how they match up.

I've had to resort to syncing the DVD audio playing on my sound system with the Blu Ray video on my PS3 to make it bearable... it's ridiculous. I can't do that every time I want to watch the movie.

[mjbethancourt]

Originally Posted by Bronze-Dragonrider

Ok, I just bought the set from Best Buy, and eagerly tested it out. I'm quite satisfied with the PQ - even though it's certainly not perfect it's a DAMN sight better than the DVDs.

However, I am extremely disappointed with the audio. The bass is pathetic. I watched the supertrailer first, and was very underwhelmed with the sound... but it was just the trailer, so I didn't worry. But when I tested out my favorite scenes - from each movie even - it just felt weak. Hardly any bass when the cave troll smashed through a wall, and the sucking vacuum sound as the green beacon shoots up out of Minas Morgul in ROTK was almost entirely absent. I put in the DVDs to see if there might be something wrong with my sound system... and then my ears were blasted with sound. Deep, rich bass and MUCH better surround effects than the Blu Ray.

Has anyone else had this problem? I've noticed that nearly all the reviewers rate the audio at 5/5, so is it possible that I just got a dud? I would really appreciate if anyone else could compare their DVD versions of the Morgul scene (as this was most noticeable to me) with the Blu Ray and see how they match up.

I've had to resort to syncing the DVD audio playing on my sound system with the Blu Ray video on my PS3 to make it bearable... it's ridiculous. I can't do that every time I want to watch the movie.

I would suspect it is an issue with your settings. You are going from a dolby 5.1 mix to a lossless dts-hdma mix. On some receivers, if you don't have dts configured correctly, it will send no signal to your subwoofer, or cut low-frequency alltogether.
To test out this theory, try changing the audio in the LotR blu-ray pop-up menu to one of the non-hd options and see what happens. It should then sound just like your DVD. If that's the case, then you probably just need to properly set up dts in your receiver.

... or maybe the disc or player are just defaulting to the wrong sound mix, as WB titles often do.

[joenostalgia23]

Originally Posted by Bronze-Dragonrider

Ok, I just bought the set from Best Buy, and eagerly tested it out. I'm quite satisfied with the PQ - even though it's certainly not perfect it's a DAMN sight better than the DVDs.

However, I am extremely disappointed with the audio. The bass is pathetic. I watched the supertrailer first, and was very underwhelmed with the sound... but it was just the trailer, so I didn't worry. But when I tested out my favorite scenes - from each movie even - it just felt weak. Hardly any bass when the cave troll smashed through a wall, and the sucking vacuum sound as the green beacon shoots up out of Minas Morgul in ROTK was almost entirely absent. I put in the DVDs to see if there might be something wrong with my sound system... and then my ears were blasted with sound. Deep, rich bass and MUCH better surround effects than the Blu Ray.

Has anyone else had this problem? I've noticed that nearly all the reviewers rate the audio at 5/5, so is it possible that I just got a dud? I would really appreciate if anyone else could compare their DVD versions of the Morgul scene (as this was most noticeable to me) with the Blu Ray and see how they match up.

I've had to resort to syncing the DVD audio playing on my sound system with the Blu Ray video on my PS3 to make it bearable... it's ridiculous. I can't do that every time I want to watch the movie.

Uh... turn up the volume?

EDIT: LOL person right directly above me understands this far better. I think you might be setting your PS3 to "Bitstream". Set it to "Linear PCM". I had noticed something similar when watching the Incredible Hulk. I usually set it to Linear PCM, but I set it to Bitstream experimentally and the DTS Core track is much weaker than the lossless track. If yours is already set to Linear PCM. Uh... turn up the volume?

[Bronze-Dragonrider]

Originally Posted by mjbethancourt

I would suspect it is an issue with your settings. You are going from a dolby 5.1 mix to a lossless dts-hdma mix. On some receivers, if you don't have dts configured correctly, it will send no signal to your subwoofer, or cut low-frequency alltogether.
To test out this theory, try changing the audio in the LotR blu-ray pop-up menu to one of the non-hd settings and see what happens. It should then sound just like your DVD. If that's the case, then you probably just need to properly set up dts in your receiver.

... or maybe the disc and player are just defaulting to the wrong sound mix, as WB titles often do.

I have audio from the PS3 going to the sound system through optical, not HDMI, I couldn't get the sound to work any other way. I have an HDMI splitter on the TV to receive both from the PS3 and the receiver, but it can't take both at the same time, so I had to use the optical so get around that. If this is what may be doing it (although I never really noticed a lack of bass on any other blu rays, however it might just be that I've watched LotR so many more times than any other movie I notice the differences very easily) can you advise me on how to improve the setup? I'd be extremely grateful

[Bronze-Dragonrider]

Originally Posted by joenostalgia23

Uh... turn up the volume?

EDIT: LOL person right directly above me understands this far better. I think you might be setting your PS3 to "Bitstream". Set it to "Linear PCM". I had noticed something similar when watching the Incredible Hulk. I usually set it to Linear PCM, but I set it to Bitstream experimentally and the DTS Core track is much weaker than the lossless track. If yours is already set to Linear PCM. Uh... turn up the volume?

Definitely not the volume. The DVD played much more powerfully with the volume at 18 with the sub on low than the blu ray did with volume at 25 with the bass on high. But I'll double check the bitstream issue just in case.

[wildphantom]

Originally Posted by Bronze-Dragonrider

I have audio from the PS3 going to the sound system through optical, not HDMI, I couldn't get the sound to work any other way. I have an HDMI splitter on the TV to receive both from the PS3 and the receiver, but it can't take both at the same time, so I had to use the optical so get around that. If this is what may be doing it (although I never really noticed a lack of bass on any other blu rays, however it might just be that I've watched LotR so many more times than any other movie I notice the differences very easily) can you advise me on how to improve the setup? I'd be extremely grateful

Yeah, you can't get lossless sound via an optical cable.
You'll need to be feeding your receiver the soundtrack via HDMI

[Bronze-Dragonrider]

Originally Posted by wildphantom

Yeah, you can't get lossless sound via an optical cable.
You'll need to be feeding your receiver the soundtrack via HDMI

No can do. All of my devices only have one HDMI port, so if I feed it from the PS3 to the receiver, I can't get any HDMI to the TV. Unless I'm being extremely dense and missing something major here...


However, I double-checked the settings, and while Linear PCM is enabled on the PS3, I had never before thought to check it on the receiver, which was still on bitstream. But it's 3:30 AM and I can't make any noise, so I'll have to check the sound quality later after the wife wakes up Hopefully this is what did it, thanks in advance if it is!

[mjbethancourt]

Originally Posted by Bronze-Dragonrider

I have audio from the PS3 going to the sound system through optical, not HDMI, I couldn't get the sound to work any other way. I have an HDMI splitter on the TV to receive both from the PS3 and the receiver, but it can't take both at the same time, so I had to use the optical so get around that. If this is what may be doing it (although I never really noticed a lack of bass on any other blu rays, however it might just be that I've watched LotR so many more times than any other movie I notice the differences very easily) can you advise me on how to improve the setup? I'd be extremely grateful

As a matter of fact, when I was first piecing my HT together, I had to work with a similar setup for a while. I can tell you that you cannot get discrete multi-channel HD audio through an optical cable. This will cause a problem if you are trying to bitstream. If your audio is set to LPCM in the PS3, and audio output is correctly set to optical, then the PS3 will do the necessary decoding and send the correct sound signal. When I was dealing with that kind of setup, my TV could handle HD audio formats, so I went HDMI from PS3 straight to TV (for both video and sound), and then I used an optical cable to send the sound out from my TV to my receiver. The reason I did that, was that I had a receiver that didn't do HD audio formats, and had very limited HDMI passthrough, so I sent signal straight from the PS3 to the TV because the TV had newer tech. It limited my sound quality a little bit, but I suspect that you are also dealing with a configuration that has limitations in audio capabilities. No matter what, though, you should at the very least be able to get as good of sound from the BD as from the DVD, so something is wrong.

[jonmoz]

Bronze-Dragonrider.

The only answer is for you to run your Hdmi into your reciever from your Ps3,and then i assume your reciever has a Hdmi out,so connect that to your t.v,then you are feeding the audio into the reciecver for it to decode,and the picture to your t.v via the reciever.

This is the only way to get Dolby Tru hd,and Dts Master audio from a Ps3,if you use the optical you will only get the lossy Dolby and Dts sound formats.

If your reciever only has one Hdmi connection on it and its only an input i can't see how you could ever get a Ps3 to work with the lossless formats,you may need to buy a new reciever.Just remember there are a lot of older amps and recievers that have Hdmi inputs on them,but do not decode The lossless audio they just send the picture as Hdmi was around well before Blu-ray but even these had Hdmi outputs as they would not work otherwise.

Your reciever must have an output.

[mjbethancourt]

Yep,
Not to be rude, Dragonrider, but it would help if you listed the model numbers of your TV and receiver; I need more information before I can offer any more specific advice.

[lDlisturb3d]

Originally Posted by Bronze-Dragonrider

Ok, I just bought the set from Best Buy, and eagerly tested it out. I'm quite satisfied with the PQ - even though it's certainly not perfect it's a DAMN sight better than the DVDs.

However, I am extremely disappointed with the audio. The bass is pathetic. I watched the supertrailer first, and was very underwhelmed with the sound... but it was just the trailer, so I didn't worry. But when I tested out my favorite scenes - from each movie even - it just felt weak. Hardly any bass when the cave troll smashed through a wall, and the sucking vacuum sound as the green beacon shoots up out of Minas Morgul in ROTK was almost entirely absent. I put in the DVDs to see if there might be something wrong with my sound system... and then my ears were blasted with sound. Deep, rich bass and MUCH better surround effects than the Blu Ray.

Has anyone else had this problem? I've noticed that nearly all the reviewers rate the audio at 5/5, so is it possible that I just got a dud? I would really appreciate if anyone else could compare their DVD versions of the Morgul scene (as this was most noticeable to me) with the Blu Ray and see how they match up.

I've had to resort to syncing the DVD audio playing on my sound system with the Blu Ray video on my PS3 to make it bearable... it's ridiculous. I can't do that every time I want to watch the movie.

Dude there has to be something wrong with your setup man. The AQ on these three films are CRAZY. I never heard anything this dynamic before.

[Bronze-Dragonrider]

Originally Posted by mjbethancourt

As a matter of fact, when I was first piecing my HT together, I had to work with a similar setup for a while. I can tell you that you cannot get discrete multi-channel HD audio through an optical cable. This will cause a problem if you are trying to bitstream. If your audio is set to LPCM in the PS3, and audio output is correctly set to optical, then the PS3 will do the necessary decoding and send the correct sound signal. When I was dealing with that kind of setup, my TV could handle HD audio formats, so I went HDMI from PS3 straight to TV (for both video and sound), and then I used an optical cable to send the sound out from my TV to my receiver. The reason I did that, was that I had a receiver that didn't do HD audio formats, and had very limited HDMI passthrough, so I sent signal straight from the PS3 to the TV because the TV had newer tech. It limited my sound quality a little bit, but I suspect that you are also dealing with a configuration that has limitations in audio capabilities. No matter what, though, you should at the very least be able to get as good of sound from the BD as from the DVD, so something is wrong.

After trying that suggestion, I found that my TV does not have an optical output, so that won't work

Originally Posted by jonmoz

Bronze-Dragonrider.

The only answer is for you to run your Hdmi into your reciever from your Ps3,and then i assume your reciever has a Hdmi out,so connect that to your t.v,then you are feeding the audio into the reciecver for it to decode,and the picture to your t.v via the reciever.

This is the only way to get Dolby Tru hd,and Dts Master audio from a Ps3,if you use the optical you will only get the lossy Dolby and Dts sound formats.

If your reciever only has one Hdmi connection on it and its only an input i can't see how you could ever get a Ps3 to work with the lossless formats,you may need to buy a new reciever.Just remember there are a lot of older amps and recievers that have Hdmi inputs on them,but do not decode The lossless audio they just send the picture as Hdmi was around well before Blu-ray but even these had Hdmi outputs as they would not work otherwise.

Your reciever must have an output.

Nope, my receiver has only a single HDMI port (extremely stupid). My receiver is fairly new though, only just got it last year and I couldn't find any in my price range with more than one port.

The first thing I ever tried was connecting the HDMI to the TV, and component from the PS3 to the receiver. But for some reason that resulted in sound only coming out of the left speaker. I tried running the HDMI to the receiver with a splitter, and running the other HDMI to the TV, but like I said, it only works one at a time for some reason, and doesn't relay the picture to the TV. The only thing that would get it to work is the optical, so far.

Originally Posted by mjbethancourt

Yep,
Not to be rude, Dragonrider, but it would help if you listed the model numbers of your TV and receiver; I need more information before I can offer any more specific advice.

God, not rude at all! I'm just thankful that there's someone patient enough to work through it with me, thank you.

The TV model: Olevia 532-B12
Receiver: Panasonic SA-PT660

[joenostalgia23]

Originally Posted by Bronze-Dragonrider

No can do. All of my devices only have one HDMI port, so if I feed it from the PS3 to the receiver, I can't get any HDMI to the TV. Unless I'm being extremely dense and missing something major here...


However, I double-checked the settings, and while Linear PCM is enabled on the PS3, I had never before thought to check it on the receiver, which was still on bitstream. But it's 3:30 AM and I can't make any noise, so I'll have to check the sound quality later after the wife wakes up Hopefully this is what did it, thanks in advance if it is!

Bronze-Dragonrider, if your AV Receiver has HDMI inputs, it probably has an HDMI output. If your AV Receiver only has Optical, then I guess if you want Full-HD sound you will need to buy a new receiver.
If it does have HDMI, plug your PS3 into one of the INPUTs. Then have another HDMI cable plug from the HDMI OUTPUT into your HDTV's HDMI INPUT. Set up and calibrate your PS3 for HD sound(remember, if you are using HDMI set it to Linear PCM, if you are using OPTICAl set it to Bitstream)Then you will have Full HD Surround Sound and Lord of the Rings will sound absolutely amazing. Also, all your Blu-ray movies will probably sound much better.

BTW if you are using a Slimline PS3, you can set it to Bitstream if your receiver supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA.

[joenostalgia23]

Wow. I must type too slow lol.

Well, looking at your receiver and seeing that your solutions do not work I guess you have two options:
1. Buy a new AV Receiver with multiple HDMI.
2. For now, plug your PS3 into your AV Receiver with Optical cable. Set your PS3 for sending audio signals through Bitstream.

EDIT: 3. Plug your PS3 into your receiver with HDMI. Buy the component cables for the PS3(must be the ones that Sony make for the PS3, regular Component won't work) and plug them into your TV. You should then be able to receive 1080p and lossless audio.

[jonmoz]

After looking at your reciever it's a Dvd home theatre system,and will not support the new lossless sound formats,the system is intended to run the Dvd connected to the system through the 5.1 speakers.

There are connections on the reciever/Dvd player and an Hdmi but this is an output so can only be connected to a t.v one way,connecting the Ps3's Hdmi output to this will do nothing.

All you can do is connect the Ps3 to the t.v on its own or using your splitter to connect the Dvd player/reciever as well,and then connect the optical output from the Ps3 to the Dvd player/reciever as 5.1 Dolby digital or Dts is the best sound available on this system.

I would however as the Ps3 is a good Dvd upscaler,get rid of your switcher and connect your Ps3 direct to your T.v and use this for Blu-rays and Dvd's.

Go into the Ps3's audio settings and select optical then check the Dolby digital and Dts 5.1 boxes.

As for the sound levels there should be no difference between the two,it could be however panasonic have boosted the output of the connected Dvd player,but i can't see why.

[Bronze-Dragonrider]

Originally Posted by joenostalgia23

Bronze-Dragonrider, if your AV Receiver has HDMI inputs, it probably has an HDMI output. If your AV Receiver only has Optical, then I guess if you want Full-HD sound you will need to buy a new receiver.
If it does have HDMI, plug your PS3 into one of the INPUTs. Then have another HDMI cable plug from the HDMI OUTPUT into your HDTV's HDMI INPUT. Set up and calibrate your PS3 for HD sound(remember, if you are using HDMI set it to Linear PCM, if you are using OPTICAl set it to Bitstream)Then you will have Full HD Surround Sound and Lord of the Rings will sound absolutely amazing. Also, all your Blu-ray movies will probably sound much better.

BTW if you are using a Slimline PS3, you can set it to Bitstream if your receiver supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA.

Oh! I didn't know there had to be that distinction. Thanks for the tip!

Originally Posted by joenostalgia23

Wow. I must type too slow lol.

Well, looking at your receiver and seeing that your solutions do not work I guess you have two options:
1. Buy a new AV Receiver with multiple HDMI.
2. For now, plug your PS3 into your AV Receiver with Optical cable. Set your PS3 for sending audio signals through Bitstream.

EDIT: 3. Plug your PS3 into your receiver with HDMI. Buy the component cables for the PS3(must be the ones that Sony make for the PS3, regular Component won't work) and plug them into your TV. You should then be able to receive 1080p and lossless audio.

Lossless audio, but at the expense of High Definition video Is it even possible to watch blu rays without an HDMI connection? Gah... just can't win both ways.

Originally Posted by jonmoz

After looking at your reciever it's a Dvd home theatre system,and will not support the new lossless sound formats,the system is intended to run the Dvd connected to the system through the 5.1 speakers.

There are connections on the reciever/Dvd player and an Hdmi but this is an output so can only be connected to a t.v one way,connecting the Ps3's Hdmi output to this will do nothing.

All you can do is connect the Ps3 to the t.v on its own or using your splitter to connect the Dvd player/reciever as well,and then connect the optical output from the Ps3 to the Dvd player/reciever as 5.1 Dolby digital is the best sound available.

I would however as the Ps3 is a good Dvd upscaler,get rid of your switcher and connect your Ps3 direct to your T.v and use this for Blu-rays and Dvd's.

As for the sound levels there should be no difference between the two,it could be however panasonic have boosted the output of the connected Dvd player,but i can't see why.

Good grief, I never thought it would be such a hassle to find a sound system that covers all the bases.