back to article Extended Lord of the Rings Blu-rays to hit Blighty

Fans of the Lord of the Rings saga will be eager to know the Blu-ray version of the Extended Edition of the trilogy will be released in the UK on 28 June. Warner Home Entertainment announced the 15-disc box-set, which will include the special features from previous releases - six discs from the Extended Edition DVDs and three …

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  1. irish donkey
    FAIL

    Will we be able to trade in our Extended DVD Editions

    For money off the Blu-Ray Editions? NO isn't it just all the same stuff repacked or is there unseen stuff here? No

    You mean you will charge me again just for the privilege of watching it on my BluRay.

    I smell a rip off coming

    1. DrXym

      No

      They're charging you for the privilege of watching the movie in HD at a higher bitrate, with lossless surround sound. Just as many other movies receive when they are packaged / remastered / restored for HD presentation. You may of course pass if you wish.

      1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

        @DrXym

        Don't you mean "when they are packaged / remastered / rewhored"?

        1. DrXym

          Yeah sure

          Movies have been repackaged for years. VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, Blu Ray. Not just once per format but sometimes many, many times, e.g. Star Wars. A crap film is still a crap film whether you're seeing it on some worn VHS cassette or on a Blu Ray. And if you already own a DVD of some movie it may be more than adequate for your purposes instead of splashing out again, esp. for gratuitous money grabs.

          That said there are some remarkable HD versions of old movies. I have The Godfather Trilogy on BD and the improvement after a full restoration is dramatic. Even TV can benefit - the source might usually be SD but AVC / VC-1 encoding plus higher bitrate would mean a truer reproduction. Some TV shows are even shot in 16mm / 35mm and can benefit enormously - The Prisoner looks mindbogglingly good on BD.

          I have no idea if LOTR EE is going to be a good HD release. The way the extras are still on DVD strikes me as an incredibly lazy, i.e. they are reusing DVD masters instead of reencoding the featurettes from VT masters onto a BD . I expect some of the extended edition scenes and CG could also look pretty ropey in HD.

      2. Michael C

        but there IS a discount

        For MANY of the current releases, if I own the DVD I can send it in for a discount on the BR version. Usually $5, sometimes more, depending on the version.

  2. James 51

    Why bother.

    The orginal DVDs still look great. I'll be waiting for the hobbit boxset.

    1. Piro Silver badge
      Pint

      Quite right

      Anamorphic PAL DVDs still look fantastic.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      Me too!

      Although I have had a Blu-Rey player for over a year now, I have yet to buy a single Blu-Ray disc. The rip-off price is simply not justified over DVD. I remember when Avatar came out on disc - you could get the DVD version for about 7 quid at ASDA. The Blu-Ray version (still at ASDA)? Oh, that'll be about 20-odd quid thank you very much.

    3. Code Monkey

      Re: Why bother.

      I saw them at the cinema. They were great films but a bit bleedin long. I'm fooked if I'm giving up another 9 hours of my life to watch them again, whatever the format.

      1. Michael C

        closer to 11 hours...

        The extended editions added more than 2 hours of integrated footage, not just a few tiny deleted scenes. they actually went back and re-shot additional content for the first 2 films while working on the latter. the extended directors cuts actually change the plot and story (enhance it anyway), quite dramatically, and bring forward fan favorites characters and scenes not seen in theaters at all.

        Also, though i rarely enjoy commentary tracks, as they're typically limited to anecdotes and BS, the 3-4 DIFFERENT tracks for each movie were actually quite revealing, and they talked in depth about the books, the story, and deep details of the production process. They were (mostly) worth watching. That's some 35+ hours of commentary. Though someone who simply enjoyed the movie just being a movie might not see that, anyone who is a fan of tolkein, or of the origins of fantasy writing in general, got a LOT out of it. I was surprised that even my wife enjoyed it immensely.

  3. philbo

    One set to rule them all

    15-disc box-set? Shurely there should be 20:

    Three Films on Blu-ray under the sky

    Seven for the special features on the DVD

    Nine for the Director's Cut (don't ask why)

    One for the index of what's on the other nineteen

    In the Limited Extended Edition where the Shadows lie.

    One Set contains them all, In one Set you'll queue them,

    One Set you'll bring them all and in the darkness view them

    In the Limited Extended Edition where the Shadows lie.

    1. Thomas 4
      Thumb Up

      *Applause*

      That was a phenomenally geeky effort, sir. Bravo!

      1. philbo
        Happy

        Thank you :-)

        Thank you.. I am phenominally geeky when it comes to things like LOTR and parodies. Just realized how wonderfully appropriate the "philbo" handle is at this point (times when "philbo" has gone, I generally register as "philbo baggins", which would've been even better)

    2. BorkedAgain

      Hats off, sir.

      Couldn't have put it better myself.

      "Nine for the Director's Cut (don't ask why)" made me quite literally laugh out loud.

  4. thesykes

    How many discs?

    One thing is for sure, the true dedicated fan will achieve something they never thought possible. Watching this lot in one session will transform them into a character from the films.

    Shame it'll be Gollum, as they stumble blinking into the sunlight after such a session.

  5. kurkosdr

    @irish donkey

    You know you can convert an MKV file to Bluray-Movie format (m2ts) WITHOUT the need to re-encode, with a program TSMuxer, right? http://tinyurl.com/6kfmfd

    And you don't even need a BD-R. All you need is a DVDR DL.

    And if it doesn't fit to 7.95GB, you can always split it in half without quality loss with a program called avidemux.

    Just make sure the resolution is 1920x1080 OR 1280x720. Then it's all a walk in the park.

    This thing should be taught to schools...

    1. irish donkey
      Happy

      I could....

      But that's against the terms of the license and we all know breaking the terms of the license kills babies.

      Be careful as it looks like you are 'releasing a method of by passing copy protection' which is against the digital 'don't kill digital babies law' and could find yourself in deep water!

      I'll just stick with my DVD copies for now. Until the Hobbit comes out in the new BluRay/DVD/Super Duper format which is gonna cost even more than bluray. and promised 100 times more clarity that yer own eyeballs can perceive.

  6. The Indomitable Gall

    Bluray & DVD

    "the bonus features will be on DVDs, while only the films themselves are offered on Blu-ray - no surprise, since the extras will all be standard definition anyway."

    Well they *could* have put all the SD bonus features on a single Bluray disc, but of course then it would have an impressive N where N = num(discs).

  7. Mike Brown

    films spread over 6 discs?

    wtf? surely with 50gb blus the films should be on 1 disc each? the wost thing about the dvd vsersion is swapping the discs. i really hoped with the blu ray versions this wouldnt be the case.

    still buying them tho. got the theatrical versions for a tenner on blu, and they are stonking.

    1. BristolBachelor Gold badge

      Not on a single disk

      The reason that the original "collectors" DVDs had each film on 2 disks, was to allow less compression to give a better quality film.

      Now they could've done that with the Blu-ray version, but then people would complain that it was just the same quality as before. Probably instead, they are doing the same thing again; Using HD resolution and sound, but less compression than would be needed to fit it onto a single disk.

      If you are really upset about it; buy the set, buy a copy of Slysoft HD and put everything together on a HD player like the Playon HD, and watch it from start to finish without getting out of your chair.

    2. Michael C

      not just the film

      besides the fact they would have had to increase the compression a bit to get the near 4 hour extended version on a single 50GB disk, there are also 3 or 4 directors commentary tracks for each movie, which can not be separated to other disks.

      The DVD was 2 disks each because even a dual layer DVD 18 could not hold the super-bit version of the movie, meaning an 18GB disk was not enough, and HD is 4x the data for video and more than double for audio (near 4x for lossless there too). 50GB simply isn't enough. If it was HD DVD you would need 3 disks for each film, be glad it didn't win...

  8. Kevin Fairhurst
    Pirate

    Apparently this is listed as $120

    So that will translate to an RRP of £90 here with VAT added! Ouch!

    That's quite an ask, expecially for those who spent around that anyway in buying the three extended editions on DVD with the figurines! Especially when the non-extended-edition blu's can be picked up for ~£15 for the set!

    Jolly Roger, as that kind of price pretty much encourages people to downloaded the inevitable mkv rips that will appear!

    1. Sean Gray
      Unhappy

      Exchange rates

      So that'll be £120, then.

    2. ravenviz Silver badge
      Troll

      Re: Apparently this is listed as $120

      Not too bad! There is a BluRay player in the box, right?

    3. stratofish

      Title

      The RRP of the extended DVDs when they came out was £30 a set (without extras) so this is right in line with those.

      You may have got a deal where you got figurines included but that was your retailers choice to go below RRP and maybe they will do the same again this time.

      A lot of supermarkets cut below RRP now so I wouldn't be surprised to see it for £60-£70 anyway.

      1. Kevin Fairhurst

        The thing is....

        For people who already have the box sets, £60 is still *way* too much money to buy the films again. Especially given that the original bluray's had transfer issues, a lot of people are going to be very wary of splashing out on these.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    @irish donkey

    Something can only a rip off if you buy it. Don't want, don't buy, no rip off. Solved your issue. No thanks required.

    Same rule can be applied to iPhones, iPads, Ferrraris, Paris Hilton and any other expensive item. If you don't buy it then it doesn't matter what the price is and whining about it being a "rip off" is null and void.

    1. irish donkey
      Troll

      No thanks required.

      Go on please tell me.

      You think this is good value for money. A must for any true LOTR Fan. A worthy release?

      I think that is stretching higher bitrates a little too far.

      Been there got the T-Shirt, Read the Book, Listened to The Audio Book, Seen it at the Cinema (Twice) Bought the Extended DVD's once for me once for somebody else that needed to educated. And even some figurines for the mantel

      But I guess I STILL isn't giving enough money to the meeja industry.

      Repack it all up again and resell it and see if we can get some more money for old rope!

      Or could this be to do with the fall out Peter Jackson had with the Movie Studio about who gets the biggest cut of the DVD Revenues.

      Well Peter we promised you the biggest cut on the DVD's but these aren't DVD's these are BluRay and require a different licensing. You don't get a cut of this pie!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Something can only a rip off if you buy it.

      Yes but 10 out of 10 for trying to rip their fans off.

  10. IR

    I usually don't care too much about packaging

    but that huge blue block at the top of the front cover looks truely awful.

  11. DrXym

    DVD extras

    Sounds like the only thing different about the Blu Ray versions is the movie disc. The extras will be the same ones that were in the DVD boxed sets. It seems a bit lazy and sloppy really - they could have crammed the DVD features onto a single Blu Ray disc and cut the disc count in half.

  12. Cunningly Linguistic
    Headmaster

    Simples...

    ...just wait a few months, then when the limited number of 'gotta get it' fans peter out the rest of us will be able to get it for half price (or even less on ebay).

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fail!

    I've already bought these films. Theres no way I'm going to pay again for the same films.

    I guess if i wait a week i'll be able to get a digital copy better than the ones they provide off PirateBay.

  14. Bob Prentice
    Troll

    Lets just hope

    That George Lucas hasn't read this.

    1. Thomas 4

      That said

      I'd pay some top money for a Blu-ray edition of the original trilogy PROVIDED nothing had been altered in anyway shape or form whatsoever. That means all the original scenes, right down to the damn fool Ewok song, no "remastering" where you shoe-horn in pointless scenes. Just the original stuff.

      Get that right and I might even allow you to put on a directors commentry.

  15. Peter Finney
    FAIL

    Erm, no thanks.

    Bought the original trilogy, appalling quality, took them straight back. No mention if they've fixed that this time round and films spread across 2 Blu-Rays, get real!

    1. Windrose
      Thumb Up

      Remastering.

      From what blu-ray.com can tell us, "The Fellowship of the Ring" has been remastered from original 2k sources.

      If this is true, then there is hope for a good treatment of the others. Whether one want to put down money for higher resolution ... your choice.

  16. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Coat

    Is it just me?

    Or does "Limited Extended Edition" sound ridiculous? I get annoyed by any "limited editions" anyway, as a production run of 15,000,000,000 is also limited, albeit to 2.5 per person on Earth (give or take 0.1).

    Will they have an "Extended Extended Edition" later (and get into trademark trouble with Asus (Eee-PC))?

    Will this EEE be on the future Ultra-Violet-Ray disc? Will an EVEN MORE EXTENDED EXTENDED EDITION be available on the even more future Xray-Disc format (sounds better dunnit?)?

    Mines the one with the battered 3 volume LotR BOOK in the pocket.

    1. '); DROP TABLE comments; --
      Coat

      No...

      because by the time they get around to the EVEN MORE EXTENDED EXTENDED EDITION it'll be about time to reboot the franchise (aka Yet Another Remake(tm))

      Only the next time it'll be in full-sensory immersive jack-cyberspace in all 5 senses, so not only will you see the wonderful scenery in all directions in teravoxel resolutions, and hear the crashing soundtrack faithful to a gigahertz, you'll also be able to taste the sweetness of the lembas and smell the odouriferous foulness of Gollum's farts...

  17. Ian Ferguson

    Wait, wait, wait...

    Before you throw away your DVD set and buy the Blu-ray set, bear in mind that there'll almost certainly be a 3D Blu-ray set before too long, not to mention an ULTIMATE version including the Hobbit...

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You cant beat the old analogue quality

    I think I will wait for the 600 vhs tapes edition myself.

  19. Jessica Werkz

    Really Blu-ray?

    I wonder if the discs are really Blu-ray.. Which magazine checked 17 different Blu-ray movies a few months ago and found that 12 of them weren't Blu-ray at all but normal DVD's with the white light enhanced.

    When Which asked a Blu-ray industry body some very technical questions about these non-blu-ray Blu-ray disks they got no answers except the statement about how happy the customers are with the disks anyway...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      link please

      link to the Which report, please!

    2. Kevin Fairhurst

      Erm

      Did you read the article, or did you just summarise from someone else's comment on a web forum that someone had posted after reading a blog about his mate in the pub saying that ....

      I just googled and the Which article I found where they tested 17 discs in December 2010 didn't say anything about the physical discs being DVDs as opposed to Blu's (as your comment implies).

      They found that with some of the 17 discs tested, the picture quality wasn't significantly better than the DVD version of the film, when played on the same player & TV in a side-by-side comparison. BTW this was "man on the street" comparisons, not geek / expert analysis on DNR and grain etc AFAICT.

      The reasons suggested were that some of the DVD transfers were pretty stunning in the first instance, and thus the Blu's didn't offer anything extra. Some of the Blu's were noted as being significantly better than the DVD equivalent.

      And some of the Blu's were apparently a crock of shite and not worth spending any money on. I'm guessing they were ones that didn't have a proper transfer, then!

    3. Kevin Fairhurst

      That Which report

      http://www.which.co.uk/technology/tv-and-dvd/guides/blu-ray-disc-quality/blu-ray-versus-dvd-

  20. Bassey

    I love it

    Pay more to see the scenes that weren't good enough to make the orignal release.

  21. John Munyard

    Making an epic out of a trilogy

    At this rate it will be quicker to read the novels than to endure the (seemingly) never ending movies.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      title

      Ah, but I wouldn't count on them missing out the opportunity to release the Ultimate Dead Tree edition with special bonus text in 12 extra books!

  22. Dale 3

    How many endings will this one have?

    At least two more, to justify the price.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    All well and good....

    ....but this is going to kill my ratio

  24. Lottie

    tytul

    After the Limited Extended Edition has been out for a couple of months, will we see the Extended Limited Edition boxed set and subsequently, the Ultimate Extended Limited Edition.

    Maybe they're in a race with Bladerunner for the most number of reissues?

  25. Stuart Duel

    Lazy, greedy

    What is the point of including the extras on DVD instead of Blu Ray? Were they too lazy to remaster and rejig the extras? Or did they have a bazillion left over extras discs from the first pressing they needed to get rid of?

    As someone else pointed out, wait a few years and there will be a remastered 3D version. A few years later there will be a super edition containing everything from The Hobbit and LOTR trilogy.

    No doubt a few years after we can roll our eyes at the news that Peter Jackson has secured the rights to the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, and yet more rounds of re-re-re-re-re-releases.

    Hopefully Jackson will have the good sense to leave the Middle Earth prequel and sequel knock-offs well enough alone.

  26. TelePom
    Thumb Up

    Hmm

    I'll stick with my text-only version. The visuals are amazing, and the whole lot can be squeezed onto a Kindle with zero compression.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    High Duffinition

    Better bitrates still can't make Elijah Wood act, Sam Gamgee get thinnner (despite a year in the wilderness he's still a bloater?!), or put the story back together properly instead of it having been butchered to keep it simple for the kiddies >:-(

  28. ravenviz Silver badge
    Joke

    LoTR Summarized (for free)

    "Two short people go for a walk for a year, which we then find out they could have done on a big bird in half an hour"

    The End.

    http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/153157

  29. Jessica Werkz

    @Kevin Fairhurst

    "Did you read the article, or did you just summarise from someone else's comment on a web forum that someone had posted after reading a blog about his mate in the pub saying that ...."

    No I read it in the printed version of Which.

    1. Kevin Fairhurst

      So can you

      confirm that the printed article is the same as the online one I linked to?

      1. Jessica Werkz

        @Kevin Fairhurst

        'confirm that the printed article is the same as the online one I linked to?'

        Why would I want to do that, I know what I read and it didn't read well for Blu-ray disks.

        Whether you believe me or not I'm not really bothered. In fact it's probably easier for you not to believe me and instead believe that it was some pub trash talk. OK.

        1. Kevin Fairhurst

          @Jessica Werkz

          Your post on here suggested that according to the Which article, people were buying BluRay discs and receiving DVDs instead, with an adjusted White Balance. There was a claim that the suppliers knew this and yet had received no complaints. I was not saying that I didn't believe you, but as an owner of several BluRays (some still unwatched) I wanted to know which 12 were really DVD discs so that I could kick up a stink and get my money back!

          The first few words in the "pub trash talk" comment asked if you had read the article yourself. I asked this because Which articles can be notoriously unavailable to non-subscribers, thus preventing us from going back to source and validating your comments (and finding out which of our discs may really be DVDs).

          The only Which article relating to BluRay / DVD comparisons online (which I linked to) painted a different picture to your comment. The discs received *were not DVDs* although for several of them (8 from 17 tested, not 12 as per your comment) the improvement in quality was not really significant or noticable when compared to the DVD. This is different from saying that the consumer had received a DVD in a BluRay case!

          The Which article that I found did not backup your claims, which is why I had hoped that you would confirm whether or not the online article in question was the same as was in the printed article. You say you know what you read, but if it was the article I linked to, then it appears that you are giving a false impression of what you read.

          Five of the discs tested were found to be "outstanding [...] far superior to their DVD equivalents". From the remaining 12 (is that where your figure came from?), four were found to be "a significant improvement on BluRay [...] significantly better than the DVD versions".

          Of the remaining 8 discs, "A significant proportion of the Blu-ray discs on test failed to offer a significant improvement over their DVD equivalents, even though they tended to look superior. In some cases this was thanks to the high-quality picture of the DVD itself."

          So the BluRays tended to look superior to the DVDs, although the improvement was not actually great enough to justify buying the BluRay over the DVD.

          At the end of the day, while not supporting your claims, this article doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. i.e. that money grabbing studios will rush out any old shit transfer on to BluRay and sell it for £25 to try and con gullible Joe Public out of his hard earned beer tokens. It was the same when DVDs first came out, and it will be the same when the next technology emerges. Caveat Emptor!

  30. Peter 48

    how much better will it be?

    considering the Extended edition dvds are probably some of the best quality released out there and look phenomenal with a decent upscaler, I would need to be seriously impressed by this bluray release to bother with it. I honestly can't see how they could look or sound any better than the dvd release.

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