In what could have been a April Fool's prank gone wrong, a member opened a thread in the BD Software section yesterday, claiming to have been informed that the Lord of the Rings trilogy would only be releasing the Extended Edition on Bluray, and only the Theatrical Edition on HD DVD.

He claimed that this was Warner's attonement, to make up for releasing The Matrix on HD DVD before Bluray...

I don't believe this rumour for one minute, and have intentionally stayed out of the argument until I get more concrete information - at which time we can take action as appropriate.

Personally - I think this rumour is nonsense. I think it is inconceivable for New Line to intentionally undermine one format or the other in this way - and I don't think any sane or rational VP would approve or condone an action of this sort.

I feel the rumour is designed to stir up a little "good news" for BD at a time when HD DVD has gotten back it's wind.

What do you think?

Definitely bullcrap. UNLESS New Line wants to milk the HD-DVDs the same way they milked the DVDs, by releasing multiple versions down the line.

I don't claim to know the answer either way but I think it could be true because of the smaller space on HD-DVD. This is an objective observation so don't flame as a fan boy.

Sounds like BS to me. No reason to do that. WB could care less about HD DVD and BD "goodwill" right now. They care about money. Mastering & Authoring both just to make up for the Matrix is a stupid waste of money. I am willing to bet both formats get the same version. IME and Lossless audio would be maybe the only difference but you bet it will all come from the same Masters and Authoring (both VC-1, etc...).
-Evangelo2


http://members.roadfly.org/bm75204/SmellsLike********.jpg

There are some very long movies on HD DVD already that have fit just fine. And they haven't impacted PQ. And the compression has improved since then also.

If New Line had to compress more for HD DVD, then let the critics decide which format had the better picture. Don't decide for us.

However, beatboy's thread stated that this action was supposedly being taken by New Line as "payback" to bluray because of Warner's release of The Matrix on HD DVD first (remember that New Line is part of Warner). This is the part that makes the rumour nonsense to me...

If you had posted this poll in the blu forum, I bet you would get far different results :rolleyes:

I think its so lame that it shouldnt even warrant this poll.

I don't claim to know the answer either way but I think it could be true because of the smaller space on HD-DVD. This is an objective observation so don't flame as a fan boy.

If this rumor is true, this would be the main reason. Many people like to show how a film of similar length has already been put on HD DVD (King Kong at 187min). This title consumed something like 29.8GB of space. What they will not tell you is that Return of the King EE is an addition 64min. Also, KK is not the perfect video encode (though close) and has no TrueHD track.

VC-1 will continue to get more efficient, but somethings are just a reality. LOTR:ROTK will never fit on a HD DVD-30 without splitting the movie in half - something that should not have to be done on a next generation format.

rdjam

please write this 500 times :

[B]AVS is not a rumor board

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