The Lord Of The Rings Extended - Page 109

After seeing your correction, that was my first thought as well: This scene was indeed among the scenes that were intentionally regraded, so we could never get it to look exactly like the theatrical edition without screwing up other scenes. For instance, the shot of Gandalf is still darker and greener than the theatrical edition, yet the green blanket is obviously gone, and the luminance has obviously been boosted (without clipping anything in other scenes). Since the dimmer nature of the scene creates a smoother transition into the next one, it would have been a prime candidate for a regrade.

The other possibility is that your fix is still slightly off, but it's almost certainly correct for specific colors and brightness levels at least (Eisenhower said fade to white is the exact same RGB value as the theatrical version...assuming we're comparing the same frames). If you could post some comparison shots between the TE and your EE fix across multiple scenes, it should become clearer which is the case.

I've withheld buying this version due to the problems with FOTR, so I can't comment about whether it has actual black crush (clipping) or recoverable underexposure. If you do end up posting a bunch of comparison shots, it might be helpful to post some from Moria, since you could help render a final verdict on the black crush issue.

In any case, we're lucky that you're putting so much time and care into getting this right. It kind of puts the Warner Bros. techs to shame, doesn't it? I don't have an HTPC setup yet or even a Bluray burner to create another lossy reencode, so it doesn't work for me...but I can appreciate the effort nevertheless. My current course is to hold out for a trade-in program or reissue after the condescending PR reps from Warner Bros. finally recognize that insulting our intelligence is bad for business.* I'm hoping they have a firestorm going on at their offices right now, and they're in the midst of fixing FOTR for a disc trade-in program in the near future. I'm okay with a wait (so they can really dot their i's and cross their t's this time), but if it takes a year or more, I hope they'll finally decide to release the special features in HD with the "super duper special collector's edition" version.

*Such recognition always seems to be half-assed and short-lived though. I really don't understand why disrespectful corporate PR stonewalling is so common: They know that people who recognize the problem aren't going to be fooled by the BS "company line," and their cavalier attitude toward blatant lying and shirking accountability can only hurt their reputation in our eyes. We won't go away until they fix the problem, and they know it. Moreover, hardly anyone else will even pay attention to their words anyway, so it's a wonder why they aren't forthcoming about acknowledging the issue from the start (like Tylenol, a marketing class poster child for good PR). Heck, they don't have to issue a scathing press release about the enormity of their screwup; they could downplay their mistake as much as they wanted to save face, as long as they pledged to correct it for those who care. All they need to do is make a low-profile indication (that we can locate) that they're aware of a "a subtle mastering issue" with FOTR that most consumers will not notice, and act like they're so intensely committed to quality that they will offer a replacement disc for "the most hardcore and nitpicky of videophiles." In other words, they could spin the whole thing into something that sounds heartwarming. If the bean-counters are freaking out that much about the scale of a replacement, they could simply charge the cost of a disc and shipping for a trade-in, and we'd still be much happier than we are today, even if we wouldn't especially appreciate bearing the cost of their mistake.

The people who worked on it, including Peter Jackson, specifically stated they don't want it to look natural.

EXACTLY!!!! The crushed blacks and the underexposed look is far more egregious to me, than the green tint. Althought the green tint is hideous as well. But the darkness of the picture is the real deal breaker for me.

I just meant for the skin of the actors. When you are freezing in winter, your skin turns ruddy as your body tries to compensate with blood flow. If you look actually blue, you're dead

Cheers for what you said! It's nice to know that people here appreciate the effort i've put into regrading this! To be honest though, I'm kind of enjoying it as well. Anybody that wants to give regrading this a go, send me a PM and i'll let you know how to proceed.

I am very happy with the flesh tones in colour neutral scenes. Does it look exactly like PJ intended? Who knows... What I do believe 100% though is that the constant green tint is not meant to be there, it was never intended by PJ and is a mistake by Warner, whatever PR statement they may release. The film looks MUCH better without it, believe me. Fingers crossed, they admit the mistake and start a replacement scheme, but their PR statement makes it fairly unlikely, as it would essentially mean admitting that they lied in the first place.

I am currently regrading the scenes in moria. It should be finished by tomorrow morning and i'll then post up some comparisons between the theatrical version and the regraded extended edition. Is it not possible though that the theatrical edition blu-ray was overexposed and was showing detail in the shadows during the mines of moria that one shouldn't be able to see? After all, it is meant to be dark down there. Gandalf's staff is the only light source for much of the mines of moria.

Of course you're right in the case of real life but as far as i'm aware, in the language of cinema, colour grading a scene blue is meant to make it look colder, including flesh tones. What you are suggesting, boosting the reds in this scene, would subliminally make the viewer think the scene was warm, which would kind of conflict with there being snow all over the place, suggesting that its very cold.

Don't forget to try the Hue change I described above -- the solution may be as simple as that

You could easily color grade it To have the sky and snow bluish and the actors pink though. Everything bluish to me doesn't suggest cold, it suggests artsy filtering like a guy Ritchie film.
But that's just me
Runaway Train with Jon Voight is one of the coldest looking and suggesting films ever IMHO but Jon Voight and company have pinkish red, not blue skin throughout.

Are you guys talking about the same meaning of cold? Cold in terms of color temperature and atmosphere is blue (unless you read e.g. 9500 Kelvin as "hot," like you would for physical measurements ), whereas skin turns pinkish when cold. Maybe it's just my screen (HP Dreamcolor, with very strong primaries), but I actually see both in kingkong's screencaps: The overall scene has a slightly bluish cast for atmosphere, but the skin tones are a bit pink (as you would expect of characters out in the cold).

I honestly have no idea anymore.
To me the darker, blue-greener EE snow shots don't look colder, just later in the day

Finally got my set in the mail from Amazon (Super Saving Shipping... gotta love it), and although I've been eagerly following this thread, I've kept out of the speculations and discussions. But I've gotta say, with eyes on my calibrated system... it's pretty crazy dark and green. Luckily, this thread had prepared me, so I began color correcting my Panasonic PT-AE4000 with the help of the built-in waveform monitor, and an eye on the "white" value of the opening title. I figured the "white-out" at Rivendell may not be the best, since it is perhaps not supposed to be "pure white"--for whatever creative reason. But for the opening title, red/green/blue values should match or be very close. (In fact, turns out they still don't quite match for me, but faces got too pink if I made the title "pure white".)

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of this release, but I'm personally very satisfied with how I've returned this release to the "look" of the DVD Extended Editions with the following "trims" on my Panny 4000:
--increase "Contrast" value by 10
--increase "Gamma Low" value by 1
--reduce "Contrast G" value by 7
--increase "Contrast B" value by 5

For whatever it's worth, I make my living as a cinematographer and feel somewhat awkward about "re-color-timing" a movie... but frankly, it's not the first time. Now that so much "tweaking" and "crunching" is possible in the color suites, certain releases (including the recent ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN and the abysmal GHOSTBUSTERS) need a little help at home to restore them to their proper filmic glory. I now count FELLOWSHIP on that list.

I'm truly happy for the people who do not perceive the "green push" in FOTR, but I also believe that something did go wrong somewhere along the line. Luckily, with my color trims listed above, I am now 100% satisfied with my purchase. After a mere ten minutes of easy tweaking, I can now watch it with a geeky grin on my face and the contentment of knowing I don't have to spend any more energy on it.

You´re probably right. My colour calibrated monitor is connected to the computer regrading the film. I´m currently using my laptop that makes everything look blue so I can´t really judge the screencap colours right now. I remember them looking fairly accurate in terms of flesh tones when I captured them though on my monitor (apart from Gandalf that is).

I´ve got to say that you´ve pretty much done almost exactly the same there as what i´ve done with the regrade and without having to reencode or anything. Nicely done!

Let our Eyes be the judge of what "looks right"!!!

Of course they could - but there's one small problem: If they admit a mistake now, right at the time of release it will go through all the press which is precisely what they do not want. From a pure business standpoint the best course of action is to stall for some time - at least until they can be sure that admitting to it won't be too costly.

I'm curious what will happen with the German replacement discs that need to be done for screwing up the German soundtrack. Will they have a corrected transfer or not? Warner has enough time for that if the green transfer is indeed a mistake.

Nice to see some more posts from professionals.

Indeed. I´d imagine being a professional cinematographer gives him a better eye for colours and all the other visual aspects of a film´s transfer than many of us. His changes to his tv´s colour config should give him a very passable version of fotr IMO.

That's exactly what I've been thinking.
There won't be two replacement programs in Germany...so let's see.

I really hope they fix this problem with the green tint but after Warner´s PR statement, I´m not holding my breath...

+1

Especially professionals with eyes that work correctly.

True, that.

Nah, apparently our eyes auto adjust the color anyways so who cares

The first thing this brings to mind is that 220 is exactly 15 points below reference white (235), with a few instances (as is commonly seen) where a point here or there is above white. 15 is also the offset for reference black (1 is supposed to be the minimum possible value, with 16 being reference black).

What if, instead of having the image at reference 16-235, they accidentally put it at 1-220?

Can someone check a screen capture for this? Find a scene on the TE with shadow detail that is missing on the EE. Verify the TE detail is in the 16-31 brightness range. Then, look at the EE frame, and see if there is any detail in the 1-16 range. Keep in mind that in order to do this, you need a screen capture utility that does not convert video 16-235 into computer 0-255.

If the detail is there in the 1-16 range, then it would be practically a dead giveaway that this transfer is botched. That detail is never seen on a properly calibrated set, and I'd be willing to bet TTT and ROTK don't have detail at those levels. If the detail isn't there, it could just mean they clipped it after lowering it, and there's no way to get it back by re-grading ourselves.

Also, some reports seem to indicate that not every scene has crushed blacks, so a blanket adjustment to the whole film wouldn't work.

The lowest I've found on a quick check is 15.

Hmmm, in that case, I wonder if lowering the brightness on the TE 15 points would match the black crush seen on the EE, in most scenes, anyway. There may have been a few intentionally re-graded darker, but probably not as much as is seen here.

Anyone here able to post screenshots of bag end/second breakfast of TE at -15 vs. EE?

I have seen one histogram that had some color information clearly cut off at 0 so maybe it was indeed accidentally shifted to 0-220 but with the lowest 15 values cleared afterward.

Green tint in the opening credits, green tint throughout the feature, green tint throughout the credits, green tint on the actual menu, and some black crush to go with it as well. Once again, I call all videophiles to review the evidence for yourself and do not be deceived by the PR of WB.

I am so glad we have a professional cinematographer who feels the same way as we do, which gives further support that there was indeed a problem with the mastering of the FOTR EE Blu-Ray.

As others have pointed out, you're absolutely right - WB is knee-deep in their marketing efforts for the set and know that they would have to pull their advertising in order to not push a defective product. Problem is that they have already spent tons of money to market the blu-ray EE trilogy and it is in their best interest to get all the initial sales from all the advertising they have in place. If they were to admit the problem now, those advertising dollars would fizzle and I don't think they're prepared to do that.

Unfortunately, that means they're going to stall and hope that people ignore the problem and take FOTR as-is. Then, they may quietly institute a replacement program after their first pressing of the trilogy have all sold out a year from now or so. But we gotta put pressure on them now because who wants to wait that long. If that's the case, I hope they start offering refunds if they're not prepared to offer a replacement. In any event, don't buy the lie. Contact WB and let your voice be heard. I already wrote to them, but unfortunately have yet to hear back from them.

Shhhhh! Don't tell the studios or they'll just issue a statement telling the "nitpickers" to adjust their sets and not provide corrected discs.

I expect Amazon are one of the major distributors of this product.

Would it make sense to return this title to Amazon for a refund as defective? If enough people do that, I expect word would get to WB quicker, especially if Amazon temporarily pull sales like they do with any product that has issues.

WB will likely not respond to people simply emailing them as they are somewhat invisible (although it can't hurt to let them know your dissatisfaction), but Amazon has a huge online presence.

Another thing we can do that will make a difference is go to the AMAZON EE Bluray Trilogy page and write a stinging review stating your dissatisfaction with FOTR (I gave it 2 stars because FOTR was so bad). If enough people complain and let the unsuspecting public know how bad the problems are with how DARK it is and how unnatural the hideous green tint is then Amazon will complain to WB because the truth is "bad for business" and hurting sales (which is the only thing Amazon and WB really care about)