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

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by Ken Brown

Seeing the

[Show spoiler]color literally fade from his face

always gets me.

Is Ken looking forward to the Hobbit films? Personally, I think Middle Earth was a little lighter and happier and easy-going back then, when Sauron wasn't drawing forces to him and the Ring wasn't calling the Nazgul.

[Ken Brown]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Is Ken looking forward to the Hobbit films? Personally, I think Middle Earth was a little lighter and happier and easy-going back then, when Sauron wasn't drawing forces to him and the Ring wasn't calling the Nazgul.

I don't think Guillermo del Toro makes happy films

I am looking forward to them though!

[gregmasciola]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Sean Bean, I wish he had been cast in a different role so we could've had his excellence in all 3 films.

I would have loved more of Sean Bean, but I couldn't picture anyone else playing Boromir. Sean delivers those lines perfectly.

"It is a baron wasteland. Riddled with fire and ash. And the very air you breathe, is a poisonous fume. Not with a thousand men could you do this. It is folly."

"You carry the fate of us all, little one. If this is indeed the will of the council, then Gondor will see it done."

[Show spoiler]Boromir's death and Frodo leaving in ROTK

are the two moments that make my eyes get a little watery when I watch these movies.

[jonmoz]

raygendreau it realy doesn't matter weather it's the reciever or the players fault to which decodes the Dts es 6.1 matrix's audio signal or not as in the end of the day it's still only a 5.1 signal.

I doubt PeterTHX has any animosity towards Dts but they are very ambiguous when it comes to their description of the matrix es track by listing it as 6.1 when it's not,i feel they do this so their es matrix track has a percieved technical advantage over the similar Dolby digital 5.1 ex which it has not,at least not in terms of actual sound channels.

You can't blame Reciever manufactures for not supporting an audio codec when all they are in effect doing is replicating what their recievers processing can do already.

As for people stating a reciever is crippled with the Dts essentials decoder,if being crippled means you only get Dts 6.1 when it is truly 6.1 i would rather have my reciever crippled as they call it.

[jonmoz]

raygendreau all this talk of bitrates has got me thinking,so much so that i have put the Lotr disc into my Ps3 and as you say on the bitstream it's bitrate is fixed to 5.1 at 1.5 Mbps,but when you change the Ps3's output to Lpcm it's 6.1 at a varible 3-6 Mbps.

I then took the disc and put it into my Pioneer Bdp-09fd,i usualy have the onscreen display turned off for a more cinematic feel but i turned it on for this comparison,i also use my players twin Hdmi outputs one for picture one for an improved audio,or so Pioneer tell me.

On Playing the disc the Pioneers display shows Dts Master audio 5.1 at a varible bitrate of between 3-6 Mbps.

On my Onkyo it will play any Hd source Dts or dolby via bitstream at the full resolution,but only if the connected Blu-ray player sends the full resolution audio codec to it,for example if i connect the Ps3 via Hdmi on it's bitstream setting all i will get is 1.5 Mbps,but if i alter the settings to Lpcm i will get the full bitrate audio regardless of the number of audio channels.

It's true certain early Blu-ray players only sent the Dts core 1.5 mbps from their Hdmi but this is not the case anymore,just as early Blu-ray players would only give you the Hd audio formats if they decoded them and then sent them to the recievers 5.1 or 7.1 inputs.

A recievers Hdmi can't decide to limit the bitrate coming into if it,as long as the reciever supports decoding of the full audio codecs it will play at full resolution as long as the source is the full audio codec,it may or not depending on its decoder convert the Dts 6.1 es matrix to 5.1 but that will not alter the bitrate.

[El_Burro]

interesting just check
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/...d-conversions/

blabla 3d and so on but at the end:

The theatrical cut of the “Lord of the Rings” Trilogy was just released on Blu-ray, and dedicated fans are purposefully giving the set one-star reviews on Amazon and other online marketplaces because they want the extended version on Blu-ray. How you do you navigate fans like that?

I agree with the fans. I was heavily involved in the DVD process when the films were being released through New Line, but now that Warner Brothers has taken control over the releasing of the films, they just tell me what they’re doing and don’t involve me in the process. [With New Line,] the one thing we never did with the fans was make them feel cheated. Back in the original release, we always put extra material in, extra documentaries — a lot of added value. I so totally understand why the fans would be upset; I don’t disagree with them.

[radagast]

Okay. I do not want to re-start an argument here. So I have a question. Did anyone here buy LoTR on Blu from Canada? There it is being distributed by Alliance, which is Universal. If so, are you happy with the quality of the discs? Do they play okay in your BR player? If someone has already mentioned this (I'm not talking about the argument about Alliance) I apologize, because I missed it in the deluge of posts in this thread.

[Grand Bob]

Originally Posted by El_Burro

interesting just check
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/...d-conversions/

blabla 3d and so on but at the end:

I'm calling that interesting. I was also disappointed at the extras that came with this release, one of Warner's biggest ever. I hope that someone high up in the chain of that company (with some sense of pride) is taking note of this.

[Witch King of Angmar]

I don't know why they replaced Glorfindel with Arwen. She didn't do anything in the book and Why would Elrond send his super hawt daughter to some dangerous forest?

[Grand Bob]

Originally Posted by Witch King of Angmar

I don't know why they replaced Glorfindel with Arwen. She didn't do anything in the book and Why would Elrond send his super hawt daughter to some dangerous forest?

Since she is not mentioned in the book that much, I think Jackson was trying to find other things for her to do, as the plot is male-heavy. In the book, Glorfindel only appears on the road after Weathertop and the Council of Elrond, so Jackson probably didn't want to introduce another character for those minor roles.

[raygendreau]

Thank you for providing this empirical data, Jonmoz.

Quote raygendreau all this talk of bitrates has got me thinking,so much so that i have put the Lotr disc into my Ps3 and as you say on the bitstream it's bitrate is fixed to 5.1 at 1.5 Mbps,but when you change the Ps3's output to Lpcm it's 6.1 at a varible 3-6 Mbps. Quote

Which PS3 do you have? (slim or fat) If its fat, there is a hardware limitation that prevents it from bitstreaming DTS-HD MA. When set to bitstream, the decode will have to be accomplished in the AVR and it will have to be one of the ‘legacy’ codecs included on the LOTR BD such as DTS-ES Matrix. You still get the ‘6th’ back channel but the bit rate has a fixed limit of 1.50925 Mbps due to the DTS licensing agreement for that codec If you have a slim you can bitstream DTS-HD MA to your AVR and if it is equipped with a DTS-HD MA decoder, it should display that it is decoding DTS-HD MA 6.1. With either version of the PS3 you can do an onboard decode of DTS-HD MA 6.1. Your PS3 shows this as a variable bitrate of about 3-6 Mbps for the LOTR BDs.( The licensing agreement with DTS for DTS-HD MA allows up to 24.5 Mbps variable) In this case, LPCM is sent directly to your receiver’s DAC (digital audio converter) where it is converted to analog for your speakers.


Quote I then took the disc and put it into my Pioneer Bdp-09fd,i usualy have the onscreen display turned off for a more cinematic feel but i turned it on for this comparison,i also use my players twin Hdmi outputs one for picture one for an improved audio,or so Pioneer tell me.

On Playing the disc the Pioneers display shows Dts Master audio 5.1 at a varible bitrate of between 3-6 Mbps. Quote
Does your Pioneer have the DTS-HD MA firmware update noted in these specifications from Pioneer? Apparently Pioneer decided to pay DTS licensing fees for DTS-HD-MA sometime after it was introduced.

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PU...9FD.Kuro?tab=B

Quote On my Onkyo it will play any Hd source Dts or dolby via bitstream at the full resolution,but only if the connected Blu-ray player sends the full resolution audio codec to it,for example if i connect the Ps3 via Hdmi on it's bitstream setting all i will get is 1.5 Mbps,but if i alter the settings to Lpcm i will get the full bitrate audio regardless of the number of audio channels. Quote

This sounds like you have the PS3 fat as I described above.
What Onkyo model do you have? I would like to check out the specs on it.

Quote It's true certain early Blu-ray players only sent the Dts core 1.5 mbps from their Hdmi but this is not the case anymore,just as early Blu-ray players would only give you the Hd audio formats if they decoded them and then sent them to the recievers 5.1 or 7.1 inputs. Quote

Quote A recievers Hdmi can't decide to limit the bitrate coming into if it,as long as the reciever supports decoding of the full audio codecs it will play at full resolution as long as the source is the full audio codec,it may or not depending on its decoder convert the Dts 6.1 es matrix to 5.1 but that will not alter the bitrate Quote

Actually, the limitation in bitrate is a contractual requirement agreed to by DTS and the player and receiver manufacturers. Think of it as the difference in price for connection speeds from your ISP. The higher the speed, the higher the price. So, yes, the limitation actually occurs in the receiver’s DSP and is dependent on the license agreement between DTS and the manufacturer.

In conclusion, If either your player or your AVR or other downstream equipment is licensed to decode DTS-HD MA, they will get the top of the line audio available from the LOTR BD which is DTS-HD MA 6.1. Another feature of DTS-HD MA is speaker remapping. It replicates the Studio master ‘sound image’ regardless of your speaker arrangement (5.1,6.1 or 7.1) See the explanation and graphic displays in the DTS White Paper PDF on the DTS Website for more info. If your equipment is not DTS-HD MA licensed, you will get one of the ‘legacy codecs’ on the disc that your equipment is licensed for. (DTS-ES for example)

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by Witch King of Angmar

I don't know why they replaced Glorfindel with Arwen. She didn't do anything in the book and Why would Elrond send his super hawt daughter to some dangerous forest?

Surprised to hear the dead leader of the Nazgul express concern for the formerly Elvish princess.

[Fors*]

Just finished reading Chapter 4 of Book 6, the Field of Cormallen. I will be done reading the entire trilogy by the end of this week .....just in time to throw in Return of the King on blu, which I haven't watched yet since I wanted to finish reading the books first.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by Grand Bob

Since she is not mentioned in the book that much, I think Jackson was trying to find other things for her to do, as the plot is male-heavy. In the book, Glorfindel only appears on the road after Weathertop and the Council of Elrond, so Jackson probably didn't want to introduce another character for those minor roles.

Meaning it was politically correct to involve Arwen more. Also it was financially savvy to not pay another person for the Glorfindel role and to get their money's worth from Liv.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by radagast

Meaning it was politically correct to involve Arwen more. Also it was financially savvy to not pay another person for the Glorfindel role and to get their money's worth from Liv.

They made her look more tough than she really is, didn't Elrond and Gandalf use the bulk of the power that pushed the Nazgul down the river?

[Sgt Pepper]

Reading this thread really makes me want to watch these movies again. But I simply cannot return to the theatrical versions after the grand epic scale of the extended editions. Those need to be released on Blu-ray as soon as possible!

[Ken Brown]

Once more into the breach, dear friends. Peter Jackson recently had this to say about the 'LotR' Blu-ray release in an interview:

Michael Kung: The theatrical cut of the “Lord of the Rings” Trilogy was just released on Blu-ray, and dedicated fans are purposefully giving the set one-star reviews on Amazon and other online marketplaces because they want the extended version on Blu-ray. How you do you navigate fans like that?

Peter Jackson: I agree with the fans. I was heavily involved in the DVD process when the films were being released through New Line, but now that Warner Brothers has taken control over the releasing of the films, they just tell me what they’re doing and don’t involve me in the process. [With New Line,] the one thing we never did with the fans was make them feel cheated. Back in the original release, we always put extra material in, extra documentaries — a lot of added value. I so totally understand why the fans would be upset; I don’t disagree with them.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

They made her look more tough than she really is, didn't Elrond and Gandalf use the bulk of the power that pushed the Nazgul down the river?

Elrond commanded the river. Gandalf added the "horse shapes" the appeared in the flood.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Ken Brown

Once more into the breach, dear friends. Peter Jackson recently had this to say about the 'LotR' Blu-ray release in an interview:

Keep in mind he's speaking about the special features, not the transfers.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Keep in mind he's speaking about the special features, not the transfers.

Yup, one would assume that means he liked the transfers, maybe more so than I do and I think the transfers look better than the movies did when I saw them in theatres.