BLU-RAY extended edition

Live blogging of the films

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-captured/posts/a-return-to-middle-earth-part-i-liveblogging-the-lord-of-the-rings-on-blu-ray

My copy arrived in the mail today! Amazon was even quicker than usual but the package didn't get here until the evening. I stayed up late watching clips from all three films (including nearly half of Fellowship). The Blu-ray quality is truly phenomenal. I've always thought LOTR looked great on DVD and I still think that, but it's even better now. I was particularly struck by the clarity and depth in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, one of the first scenes I watched. The level of detail on the props, the clarity with each all of the Rohirrim were shown, and the distance at which individual orcs could be perceived all took my breath away. The sound quality is similarly improved and there were a number of lines of dialogue when I was able to understand better than I ever had before.

I also watched the first of Costa Botes' three documentaries that were originally included in the 2006 Limited Edition. It wasn't what I was expecting, but I found it to be a funny and at times informative look at the films. It did retread a lot of the ground already covered by the truly exhaustive and excellent documentaries from the original EE, though, and it didn't always give as much context or explanation as those. On the other hand, Botes gave a much more personal and informal look that is "behind the scenes" of the EE documentaries as much as it is behind the scenes of the finished films. I think the two documentaries complement each other nicely. All in all this is an amazing version of LOTR so far and I feel confident in saying it is the greatest version of the trilogy released thus far.

NB I was really surprised that they managed to fit no fewer than five discs in each of the individual plastic cases. Compared to the amount of space the original individual EE box sets took up they were really economical.

There is a very short scene right after they leave Bree- only a few seconds long where they are in the foreground and I only noticed in the blueray version that Bree is in the background. It really is amazing howmuch more detail there is in there- another thing I've noticed in particular is fabrics and the fact you can see individual stiching in some cases!
I should also add there are some small downsides to extra detail- including a few rather obvious stunt doubles!

Shelobs double was very noticable.

And Gollums!

Bumping this thread because Amazon has the Extended Edition Blu-ray on a special one-day discount for $44. For comparison, the current list price is/was $100 and the original price was $120. If you haven't picked up a copy yet, now is your best chance to buy one of the greatest box sets ever released (for less than half of what I paid ).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox/ref=pe_36550_26807590_pe_00_head

I saw the blue ray version when I was at marathon, dunno how it looks on a regular tv, but it was good ^^ although, some places the blue ray thingy didn't work and it was a bit too noticeable.

Blu-ray is significantly higher video and audio quality than DVD, and in my experience is noticeable even on home TVs. Obviously you need an HDTV to get the benefit though, so they'll be fairly big to begin with, though you can buy modestly sized HDTVs. I was really pleased by the HD version; what parts didn't you like?

i do't have that kind of tv i think. I dunno if I want to see it in HD yet, but in the cinema it looked great. I can't remember what parts were bad, but there were certain parts where their faces was suddenly more blurry than the rest of the footage, mainly in different camera angles, so presumably something to do with the camera, i don't know.

Why is this in the lord of Rings forum lol

because it's about Lord of the Rings? maybe, perhaps, i don't know.

Oh okay. I'll ask someone else

Where would you suggest I put it?

put what?

This thread.

(That was in response to Carly's question about the thread's location.)

dvd thread lol

blu-ray thread lol

one thread for all i s ays

Eldorion wrote:This thread.

(That was in response to Carly's question about the thread's location.)

you lack the fun mind from baroque times...

Got my 3D blu-ray player about 6 weeks ago. Only watched 2 movies on it.

How are the 3D effects for a home theatre? I've tried out the sample set-ups at Best Buy before but I found the glasses uncomfortable and the effects to be a bit underwhelming. I don't know how high-quality the set-up was though.

Was surprised how good it was. Would prefer the glasses to be enclosed instead of just normal glasses. The guy at the shop said stick cardboard down the side, but that would look silly

That's encouraging to hear. Were the glasses similar to the kind you get in theatres? Those sometimes give me a headache but I don't know if they've made any advancements with them. I seem to recall reading that home theatre glasses were different.

Theatre glasses are slightly bigger, mine are tv shaped and very light.