TheMovieman

Well, also remember there are three commentary tracks along with the HD audio (and any foreign language tracks) on movies that are 3 hours+.

lizard

Yes, that would be a very tight fit on 50 GB and would require some tricky compression. I was hoping that they would split the movies over two discs again to give them some room for the best PQ and AQ possible. I don't mind a disc change intermission on 3½ to 4 hour movies.

Gizmo

VC1 encode should spread just fine across one BD50. Commentary tracks dont take up much space.

Doctorossi

Yeah, with a quality authoring job, it would be fine. Across two, however, it has the potential to be spectacular.

Spottedfeather

I hate having to change discs almost as much as I hate double sided discs. It just takes you out of the movie.

Solid Snake

shit yeah it does. I was kind of okay w/ Seven Samurai and others that have it at the right moment..but..still...

Spottedfeather

Well, for each movie to fit on one disc, they could just get rid of the foreign language tracks in america. When they release them overseas, just put the language of that particular country. Easy.

Gizmo

I'll wait and see. I don't believe that bigger bitrates = better quality. I know some people watch the bitrate meter and not the movie, not me.

I'm just more amused that Fellowship will be remastered, giving people a reason to upgrade. Not me, I'll keep my $20 Trilogy.

TomOpus

Yeah, because they create discs only for America

Doctorossi

These movies have intermissions which already take you out of the movie, so no harm done.

Doctorossi

Of course it's not that simple an equation, but if you don't believe that higher bit-rates can allow for improved fidelity, you simply don't understand video compression.

Spottedfeather

Since when does Lord Of The Rings have intermissions ?

Dragon Tattoo

I'm guessing you never watched the Extended Editions on DVD.

Spottedfeather

Where did I say they only make dvds/blu-rays for america ? For the version they release in america, put only english audio. In france, put french. In china, put some form of chinese. It would be pretty easy to do. They already have region codes....why not put the language of whatever country each version is released in ?

Solid Snake

For something so specific like this, much like Criterion titles for English titles, English is only needed.

RocShemp

Of course the wording implies that this new master is being minted from the same 2K scan from which the previous master was derived. Will it look better? Sure. Will it look as good as the sequels? Nope. Remember, the masters for the sequels were derived from intermediate scans. All the titles, colour timing changes/corrections, and CGI were applied to the intermediate to create the new negative from which the resulting interpositives were derived. ALmost no one was doing digital intermediates when FOTR was edited and released so the 2K scan was taken from an interpositive.

I'm expecting this to look like the Matrix trilogy HD DVD/BD releases. The first film looks very good but not quite the same way the sequels do.

Solid Snake

....lol...nerd.

Jay G.

Around 70-80% of FOTR had a digital intermediate when released theatrically. After ROTK, cinematographer Andrew Lesnie went back and finished the DI of FOTR. So while the previous DVD transfers were made from scan of an interpositive, the 2K files WHV are referring to could well be the DI for FOTR.

http://www.kristinthompson.net/blog/...-middle-earth/
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0#post20186990

Rubix

maybe they could have put each movie on a disc but only movie audio on one and only commentary on another. so 6 discs still but no switching discs? or would the video alone be too much for 50gb disc?

Burnt Thru

Your solution is for WB to put out dozens of versions of the discs instead of just 3?! Nice idea but I don't think they're going to go for it..

roger_d

Just read this on the Bits:


Now then... before we get to the release news today, we have a little more Lord of the Rings: Extended Blu-ray information for you. A lot of people have asked about the new 2K remaster of Fellowship. Specifically, a few people have wondered if WHV was cheaping out by not remastering at at least 4K. We've confirmed that 2K was the resolution of the final post-production/editorial master for the film. So unless and until someone goes in and rescans all the film elements at higher resolution, then rebuilds the edit and re-renders all the visual effects at the higher resolution, 2K is the highest resolution element available to master a Blu-ray from. And that's what WHV has apparently gone back to. Today, this kind of film mastering work is mostly done at 4K, but back in 2000-2001, 2K was standard.

A couple other comments on the set: A few readers have complained that The Appendices and Costa Botes documentaries are only included on DVD in standard definition. In other words: Why haven't they been upgraded to high-definition for the Blu-ray? Surely they were shot in HD? And the answer is no, they weren't. We've confirmed that all of The Appendices material was shot in 16x9 SD and the finished documentaries were in that resolution and aspect ratio. What's more, the Costa Botes documentaries were 4x3 letterboxed SD. You have to remember, from post-production to finished DVDs, this material was produced in the 1998-2003 timeframe. The HD transition had only just begun, and studios weren't in the habit of paying for HD behind-the-scenes material yet. I think it was closer to 2005-2006 that DVD producers really began shooting such material in HD in anticipation of high-def discs. In the last 5 years or so, it's obviously become standard practice to shoot "making of" in HD. But back then, not so much. So SD IS the final resolution of all this material. As to why all the SD bonus content wasn't collected onto BD-25s for this release, we can only assume it was done to save authoring costs. One other note: The set will include a collectible map of Middle Earth, and the booklets for each film will include a chapter listing and guide to all the extras. So there you go. For those of you've who had questions about these issues, we hope this clarifies things for you a little. We're expecting more technical information from WHV on the set soon, so we'll pass it on to you here as it comes in.

Doctorossi

It would be possible, but who wants cut corners (in the form of lower video quality)?

Michael Corvin

I don't mind all the extras being in SD, but they could at least combine them all onto a single BD.

E Unit

1 50 gig disc could hold most of it too. Oh well, maybe The Hobbit films will have all HD content for the BD releases.

slop101

Exactly! That's a lot of extra discs that just waste space. With blu-ray becoming more ubiquitous, I don't know why they aren't compiling massive multi-disc dvd sets into smaller blu-ray sets. Seems like a no-brainer.