The Lord Of The Rings Extended - Page 12

I always prefer a discrete surround back channel for DTS-HD, not least because my amp could actually recognise it and I wouldn't have to manually activate the EX processing.


If the theatrical BDs were any indication, then Warners won't be making this as a 'one for all' disc because the rights are scattered about due to the pre-existing New Line distribution structure. UK version had English language only, German version only had German & English etc etc.


A more seamless transition would be nice, rather than that crappy 'insert disc 2 to continue the journey' message which flashed up on the DVD, but apart from that I don't mind changing over at all.

I'm one of the few who's extremely happy that the films may be on 2-discs each... and my reason has nothing to do with bitrate. The fact is, I think they divided each film in a fantastic place, and every single time I watch the extended trilogy (probably once a year for the last seven years), I watch it only one disc (or one-half-movie) at a time. I'll either have a twenty minute intermission at the disc change... or more often than not, I'll watch the extended trilogy for 2-hours a night over the course of six nights (which feels very "epic" to me).

And what's so bad about it? The classic epic movies of old always had intermissions: GONE WITH THE WIND, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. It's a long and historic cinematic tradition.

Frankly, if each movie were all on one disc, I would STILL stop at the same point for my own intermission. Just my 2-cents.

I agree. Frankly, I have difficulty understanding why some are so strongly opposed to spreading films of this length across two discs. As you said, extra long epics like these are always split.

I'd love to know how you can halve the bitrate on a typical film source from ~40mbps (like that would ever happen with WB ) to 15-20 with no effect on compression transparency. I've tried with x264, and I've failed.
Yeah, it'll probably still look fine. Many people may not see any difference. The difference will be there.

I wonder how many people who don't care when movies don't utilize the format's video bandwidth would be upset if studios only included a 640kbps Dolby Digital track?

Well, let's put real bit-rates in for sake of discussion. Let's assume audio bit-rates equal to those of the theatrical release. If my math is right (correct if wrong ), these are the average bit-rates a single disc could provide each movie, one language track, no commentaries (video/audio):

Fellowship of the Ring: 26.3 Mbps / 4214 kbps
The Two Towers: 24.4 Mbps / 4074 kbps
Return of the King: 21.0 Mbps / 4249 kbps


What is your definition of "HD" video?


That's hardly conclusive. Special features are usually encoded at very low bit-rates, meaning more room for decent bit-rates on the main feature.


Okay, so at what bit-rate do the educated reactionaries start to react? (I realize this could be different based on source material and other factors such as studio track record with getting good mileage from the encoders, etc. but for something like LOTR EE?)

I'm happy with about 24 Mbps at the lowest. Lower means I'm not happy!

Those stats are actually pretty funny because the trilogy looks better as the films go on (theatrical BDs, that is).

Obviously the master quality is more critical to overall PQ, and digital mastering technology improved between the first and third film. ROTK may look better, but is the compression any good?

(for the record, im not strongly for or against splitting the discs. with WB doing the work, the compression will probably be crap regardless)

Meaning 1080p, with a high definition audio codec.

Lets look at a few examples:

Dances with Wolves 20th Anniversary: 234min, 2 Commentaries, and 2 format exclusive interactive special features. All on one BD50.

Hamlet (1996): 242min, Commentary, HD introduction(8min), HD trailers(2min), and several other SD bonus features. All on one BD50.

Gone with the Wind: 232min, Commentary. All on one BD50.

Once Upon a Time in America: 229min, Commentary, additional SD special features. All on one BD50

I can go on with a few more but thats enough. My only point is 4 Hours with a High Def Audio Track, and additional language, and a commentary, all fits on one BD50. And its been proven many times.

I know a lot of you don't mind changing discs out half way through, but I associate that with having to swap out a VHS tape, and really, I find it hilarious we still have to do that just to watch a film.

Dts hd master 7.1 nothing less!

There are about a hundred different aspects of watching movies that are more strenuous than swapping discs. Sometimes I even drive to a movie theater

Why can't movies just be beamed directly to my brain

When I always thought of LOTR I used to think of the expression, "you get what you pay for". I think that I must have been one of the very few suporters of the films that was not satisfied with the picture quality of the first film in theaters. It may have been the quality of my local cinema then. I don't own the theatrical releases because I had never had good expectations for any of the films. On another note I thought the story, acting, directing, artwork, and everything else turned out just fine.

Well, you have good company in cinematographer Andrew Lesnie. Due to the way they were made, the prints had a lot of quality loss, a lot of which could be avoided on blu-ray.

Oh don't mind me, just stirring the pot.

Personally I don't care whether the discs are split or not, as long as the quality of the video and sound is very good. Although I think it's pretty ridiculous stuffing 9 old dvds in a blu-ray set when they could use BLU-RAYS.

Agreed!

The hundred or so fan names will still roll at the end of each film in glorious high defintion regardless, which is all that really matters.

Yeah, and when I go to the theater rarely do I have to get up halfway through the film to go swap reels on the projector.

The reason that the movies are spread over 2 discs instead of squeezed onto one probably has nothing to do with compression. It's just Warner being lazy, they already created masters which were split in half for the DVDs which they are presumably re-using for these Blu-rays. Maybe the movies could fit on one disc with no quality loss. Maybe they couldn't. We won't know until The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Ultimate Extended Editions re-release which will occur in 2012 to coincide with the theatrical premiere of The Hobbit.

If Warner is too lazy to come up with a decent release of these films, well I got bad news for them, I'm too lazy to buy them. I've already bought the films twice on DVD, I'm not planning on buying them 3 times on Blu-ray (Theatrical, lazy EE, upcoming ultimate EE).

Funnily enough, all of those titles actually suffer from compression-issues in some form or another. Mostly mushy grain-reproduction and reduced high-frequency detail.

The first film did not look very impressive in theaters. The DI process used was rushed and inferior to the processes used for the second and third films. This explains why the Blu-Ray of FOTR looks softer than TTT and ROTK. All three BD's look better than they did in theaters and I saw each film over 10 times in theaters.

Thats what im doing also

Dances with Wolves is 239 minutes and Return of the King is 251.

the average bitrate of Dances is 19.

Yes, please put them on two discs. I don't won't to risk any more compression issues then we already have because people have a bug up their butt about getting off their butt to switch discs.

Although even if they released two versions, one extended set that had them spread out on double discs and another set with them on a single disc, there would be people complaining that there was too many options and it was a gimmick to get collectors buy both sets.

I don't have a problem with them spreading the extended edition over two discs. That's how it was on the dvd. The intermissions are at appropriate points in the films, be it Pippin's "Great ..... where are we going?" at the Council of Elrond (which just so happens to be the exact same point where the layer transition happens on the theatrical dvd) or Faramir's "Bind their hands" in The Two Towers. Also, the music lingers on for a few seconds after the picture cuts to black.

What I'm trying to say is that the extendeds really do seem to have been intentionally edited for watching with an intermission and not all at once.

QuiGonJosh, shall I reiterate what I said on the previous page?

How can the theatrical blu-rays look better than they did in the theater when they look worse than an hdtv broadcast????!!!!!:

film-like:
http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u...gs/Fotrhd1.png

watercolor photoshop filter:
http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u...gs/Fotrbd1.png

By the way,

Am I the only one who is annoyed by Warner's intention to include the extras on DVD from the previous SEE DVD release?

There are some problems I have with this:

- Most LotR fans DO own the SEE editions on DVD anyway. If buying the Blu trilogy, they will have to pay once more for the same copies of DVDs they already own once again: for 6 discs at least (or 9, if one already has the Limited edition with the Costa Botes documentaries).

- There are some extras which would profit from higher HD resolution: the multitude of the artists' galleries from the appendices, for example. Not to mention the bonus features which Peter Jackson wanted to produce for the HD release: instance the deleted scenes and the blooper reels. I am afraid that such a release would kill any hope to see these.

- Some localized versions of the bonus features on DVD (released by Warner in Germany, Eastern Europe and Russia) lacked subtitles for some of the features on "Fellowship of the Ring" (disc 4, two featurettes) and "The Two Towers" (disc 4, most of the featurettes). This was probably because of the tight schedule the DVD release had back in 2003 and 2004. However, if Warner plans to just re-pack the existing DVDs for the Blu-ray release, they will have the same issues, as nobody is likely to reauthor them to include the missing subtitles.

Thank goodness for you that you weren't going to the theaters in the 30's and 40's. You actually did get up while they changed the reels to the next group for the second half...I believe they referred to the event as "intermission".

Granted, someone else did it, but still...

Of course, back then, people dressed up to go to the movies and you got newsreels, shorts and other content before the movie - all for around 50 cents. Now we get Coca Cola commercials and 10 minutes of trailers for $12.

Agreed.

At the very least, they didn't wait until later to include the Costa Botes documentaries like they did last time with that triple dip "limited edition" back in 2006.

Regarding the easter eggs from the 4-disc sets, they'd better be including all of them. It would be awesome to see the 4-minute trailer for The Two Towers in full 1080p with lossless audio! I remember watching (and re-watching) that trailer so many times until I could finally own the actual movie on dvd.

It wasn't so much "rushed", it wasn't a complete DI. Most of the movie was done like old-school digital effects shots (ie, printed on film and cut into the negative). Consider how many optical generations that is between the camera negative and a super35 print (negative -> scan -> print back to negative -> interpositive -> dupe negative with the super35 anamorphic squeeze -> print)... 4 stages of quality loss are completely avoidable on blu-ray.

And about 20-30% of the movie could look as good as Gladiator or Minority Report with minimal effort (well, relative to re-rendering and re-compositing visual effects), since it's just plain analog film.