covenant

My questions were rhetorical.

Jay G.

I'm doubtful that someone could cut down all three films into one two hour movie if they only cut out stuff not in the book.

I watched the extended edition of part 1 recently, and it wasn't until 40 minutes into the film that the party actually left The Shire. Up to that point, the only bit not from the novel was the Frodo & Old Bilbo prologue, which is something like 5 minutes. Even excising the Erebor flashback, you're still likely left with 30 minutes of material from the novel.

In order to make a 2 hour cut of all 3 films, someone would likely have to cut out material from the book itself as well as the expanded material.

slop101

I love how everyone's taking that joke Hobbit .jpg from Cracked seriously.

B.A.

Damn straight!

hanshotfirst1138

I assume it flashes the "frames" on the same basic principle as a regular projector would?

A missing frame is noticeable, I'd assume that an extra frame, it's sort of like PAL speedup and unnoticeable?

Would bandwidth matter if you aren't streaming and are getting it off of a disc/HD? I assume that some theaters are working on a higher resolution even than 4K for projection, like the digital IMAX?

My local AMC must be a lot more sophisticated than I give it credit for then.

I guess you could look at it that way, and it does widen scope. It's actually the one of Tolkien's books which doesn't have a big thing at the beginning explaining everything and sort of doles out exposition as it goes.

I'm holding out on the EE until all six are out and buying the mega-set. I guess that makes sense, I just think that the CG isn't as good as the makeup probably would've been. I suppose when a movie has as many FX shots as these do, some will inevitable look better than others. I suppose that's one of the many advances to shooting digitally is how easy it is to integrate the FX and change things if need be.

It was sarcasm



Although to be fair, I do doubt if Tolkien would be much enthusiastic about these distinctly more action-oriented and bombastic movies coming out of his books. Obviously, we have no way of knowing, since he isn't around to ask, but evidently his son certainly thinks so.

I'd assume they have to share with whichever overseas distributor they choose?

The did the same thing for Northern Lights/The Golden Compass. Why would they do that? It doesn't seem like a smart decision even to my $11-an hour mind, especially when the budget is as massive the LOTR movies were.

Once burned, no doubt.

I assume Jackson and Cameron think that it helps with the clarity of the 3-D? I can understand the studios being reticent, is it even possible to render it on home video that way? And with so few cinemas able to project it, it seems like it's actually not all that smart financially.

Supermallet

Higher frame rates do help with 3D and immersing the audience in the material. The problem is that 48 fps isn't really fast enough. They should have gone with 60 fps, and I believe that Cameron is doing that for the Avatar sequels. IIRC, the reason they didn't go 60 fps for the Hobbit is that it would have made it impossible for them to finish the VFX in time.

FWIW, even with the less than perfect 48 fps, the HFR viewing I did of the first film was by far the most enjoyable one for me.

And one would have to cut out content that is in the book to make the movie really work. The extra material should go in general, but there's plenty of stuff that's from the book that still bogs the movie down.

Why So Blu?

I hear the 48 HFR has been improved on since last year for Smaug. I'll be seeing it in both formats regardless.

Supermallet

I'll see it in 48, since it was designed for that. Then I'll have to watch it ten times for work in 24 fps.

RichC2

Have they released a 3d 48 fps copy of The Hobbit on home video? My ghetto projector's 3D is native 144Hz, I'm curious to see something at 48 fps on it.

Supermallet

I don't know if the BD spec supports 48 fps.

RichC2

Can support frame packing but can't do 48 fps? Rubbish!

Though I don't see 48 fps frame packing working very well on current standards

Dan

It doesn't. I imagine it could be enabled at some point... but that'd be a lot of extra data that may or may not be supported by the players, HDMI ports, cables, etc.

Supermallet

I doubt it would be a problem on the HDMI side. The players would be a bigger issue.

RichC2

I'd take it at 720p Half-SBS as well, there's no way a blu-ray player that can play 240 fps GoPro videos cannot play 48 fps doing HSBS, even if it is a lower resolution. 1080p frame packed 48 fps sounds like a technical nightmare.

Jay G.

The end result to the viewer is similar, yes.

Repeating frames isn't noticeable, as long as each frame is repeated the same number of times. Film projectors have shutters that show the same frame 2-3 times, to reduce flicker. And 120hz TVs are known as good for 24fps films since they can show every frame 5 times, as opposed to 60hz TVs that have to stagger between repeating a frame 2 times and repeating one 3 times (aka 3:2 pulldown).

Yes, bandwidth matters. It's a matter of how much can be sent to the projector, and what it can process. It's also a bit of a question of standards. The DCP standard allows for a maximum video bitrate of 250Mb/s. So when you go from 2K 24fps to 4K 48fps 3D, you've quadrupled both the framerate and the resolution, but are stuck with the same max bitrate as before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Cinema_Package

There's a DCP 2.0 standard in the works, but also projector and media player tech has to improve. These links from early 2013 show that most projectors can't handle processing 4K 48fps 3D, and thus currently have to compromise on one or more of those aspects for projection:
http://www.hfrmovies.com/2013/01/26/christie-interview/
http://www.hfrmovies.com/2013/02/03/...4k-projectors/

As the tech improves, hopefully the standards will catch up:
http://lists.isdcf.com/pipermail/isd...er/000602.html

Nope, digital IMAX uses two 2K projectors currently. I don't know of any commercial theaters using digital projectors capable of more than 4K.

Yeah, this is just needless and baseless speculation. I'd rather people discuss their own opinion of the films instead of trying to get an upper hand by speculating what the original creator might've thought.

Yes, they have to share a their cut with the overseas distributor, hence the lower revenues.

It makes sense because of how massive the budget was for those films. New Line was a relatively small studio at the time, and they put near all of their money into the franchise, which was as yet unproven. Greenlighting a trilogy upfront was unprecedented, and I'm pretty sure The Hobbit is the only other time something this big was attempted. Even the Harry Potter series was greenlit one at a time excepting the final two films.

Preselling the films overseas let New Line start bringing in revenue for the films before they were even finished. Otherwise, if FOTR had bombed, New Line very likely would've been no more.

More likely it's that they're more confident of the trilogy's chance at success, and have the success of the LOTR series to use as leverage for more favorable deals.

It does help with the 3D, yes. And no, there's no current home video standard that supports HFR 3D. Blu-ray 3D only supports 24fps 3D, not even 30fps. However, there is the thought of "future proofing" the film by shooting in this method, since if HFR takes off later, this film will have such a version ready for viewing. It's similar to shooting in 4K, even though most digital theater projectors are still 2K.

I'm pretty sure the main reason was because it allowed easy conversion back to 24fps, just remove every other frame. 60fps in contrast will be hard to convert back to 24fps, so may not be playable on some types of projectors at all. Also, I'm pretty sure 60fps was selected all the way back with Showscan as a film rate due to its compatibility with 60hz TV signal. It's not necessarily the ideal frame rate for smooth motion.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/peter...50222861171558

Supermallet

I don't have the link in front of me, but Douglas Trumbull did tests on HFR back in the '70s and found that people were more immersed in the material the higher the framerate went, capping out at 72 fps. So, given that most TVs refresh at multiples of 60hz, it makes sense to use 60 fps for HFR.

Jay G.

Are you sure most TVs are 60hz? Because according to this map, most of the world, including some of the most populous countries, used PAL or SECAM, which is 50hz:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PAL-NTSC-SECAM.svg

RichC2

So the 48 fps version of this movie, shipped via SATA drives, is roughly 639 GB. That's a lot.

Never The Same Color or fail.

Supermallet

Most TVs in countries that Hollywood studios care about.

Dr. DVD

I saw the first in the HFR and while the stationary scenes were very impressive, the ones featuring lots of action had an unintended comedic effect for me. I felt like the Benny Hill theme should have been playing. There is a type of movie to try this, but this wasn't it. What's worse is many critics are most likely seeing it this way and letting it affect their judgment. I actually enjoy the regular rate version of the movie more after having seen it in 48 FPS.

I am okay with some of the changes, but so help me if

slop101

Don't forget to stop by Denny's for this year's Hobbit meals!

[spoilerized for size (and disgustingness)]

Dr. DVD

Looks about as excessive as the Kong Whopper Burger King had back in 2005 (three whopper patties I believe).

I would love it if they found a way to sneak one of these takes into the movie.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/05fvbkwzEJo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

hanshotfirst1138

It sounds like the amount of money to render the effects for that would be obscene, and frankly unnecessary. Will all of this benefit anything besides 3-D? Because I realize it isn't going anywhere, but I'm still not sold on 3-D offering any artistic improvement.

How would you repeat a frame on a regular projector, I assumed it just projected the number of frames of the film it was projecting? Most of that is Greek to me.

It sounds like the issue of of storage continues to be an evolving problem with digital.

I'm assuming that all of this will further jack up the prices for 3-D tickets? I don't know, I know I'm old-fashioned, I'm just skeptical. 24 frames per second has worked for over a century. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try new things, I know, just saying .

Why would they use two 2K projectors instead of a 4K projector?

Yes, but no one gives a shit about my opinion .

You'd think some of the major studios would have their own distribution arms overseas, as big as they are.

The proverbial selling everything to buy the loan?

Wouldn't said revenue be one lump sum rather than the box office of the movie, which could be either a lot or nothing, and the were hedging their bets?

Maybe, but I'm sure the situation with Northern Lights/The Golden Compass made them wary.

Some theaters in my neck of the woods are crippled by digital period, 2K, 4K, or OK, they just can't handle the price. It's a sad thing, Christopher Nolan and the folks batting for 35mm do have a point.

That must've been a nightmare to shoot on 35mm, it would've eaten film. How do you adjust that kind of thing, I'd assume more frames would mean slower motion, I'm assuming that the way the projector handles it and the 3-D effects counteract that?

I assume that films are shipped to theaters on hard drives now?

I understand the purpose behind them, but region codes irritate the shit out of me. I bend over backward to support these things when I could just torrent it and call it a day, and having to dance around the region codes and expensive region free players doesn't seem like much freaking consolation.

Yum.

RocShemp

I would probably be able to eat any of that with no problem. Might even stay hungry.

RichC2

Digital presentations are shipped on HDDs.

NTSC and PAL aren't region codes, they're actual standards.