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44rh1n's "The Fellowship of the Ring" Extended Edition Color Restoration (Released) — Page 10

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Jay said:

After reading comments from one of the members in the blu-ray.com thread whose opinion I trust and usually agree with, I decided to give these discs a shot after all instead…

And there’s no way these are real 4K back-to-the-negative scans. No way.

Thanks for this review. Set aside the HDR, this is a real bummer for me. It seems I would do better if a upscale my 1080p Blu-ray’s/44rh1n´s TFotR to 4K myself and have more detail this way. Good I don’t have the skill set to implement HDR myself but for a nice sdr experience - there is madVR.

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4K Bridge of Khazud-Dum comparison

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWO4JFE_WeE&feature=emb_title

I think the 4k is a slight improvement here taking away the Orange tint when the Balrog has gone but I can’t say the same for all the color tint removals on Saruman and Galadriel for example it’s a bit too different looking to me. There is a shot of Gimli at the coucil of Elrond that looks better with no Bloom but the golden hue is gone…

All in all It looks good but it is different and although some of the difference sits well some does not sit well.

So I think perhaps there is room for a halfway house on take some bits and restore color tints to others and use the shots without the Bloom but add the Color tint sans Bloom. The Gimli at the council is bloomed out so it could be better just with the tint say.

I am not sure if that is a choice to take for the project in question but I would certainly like Burnt in original subtitles for all 3 films like in the cinema which would be good too. Something I wanted to do for a while.

Anyway just a few thoughts on it. I think it would require a thorough comparison.

When I said “sans bloom” I did’nt mean Orlando Bloom 😃

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPBP-3-_Beg

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This sounds like an amazing job! I only just fell down the rabbit hole of FOTR color issues, as I had only ever watched the EE blurays and never really knew this was a thing! Any way to get the link for V3? It would be massively appreciated!

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CMMAP said:

Jay said:

After reading comments from one of the members in the blu-ray.com thread whose opinion I trust and usually agree with, I decided to give these discs a shot after all instead…

And there’s no way these are real 4K back-to-the-negative scans. No way.

Thanks for this review. Set aside the HDR, this is a real bummer for me. It seems I would do better if a upscale my 1080p Blu-ray’s/44rh1n´s TFotR to 4K myself and have more detail this way. Good I don’t have the skill set to implement HDR myself but for a nice sdr experience - there is madVR.

If you set aside the obviously problematic shots that have had copious amounts of new DNR applied, the 4K discs have more real detail than the 1080p discs. They’ve reduced the grain, which you may or may not like, but actual detail is (mostly) superior on the 4K version. And the HDR grade is nice.

That said, I watched the EE Blu-rays earlier this year with my display handling the upscaling, and aside from the issues those versions have—and they do have issues—I quite enjoyed them and thought they looked great overall.

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MTFBWY…A

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This is my last post on this topic since this has sort of turned into the unofficial LOTR 4K review thread…and apologies to 44rh1n for the tangent 😃

I’m going to post an opinion that runs counter to what most others are sharing elsewhere right now and say that ROTK is the worst-looking of the trilogy. While TTT has some abysmal moments due to excessive DNR and the newly-DNR’d Rohan exteriors are a real shame, it has superior detail to the 1080p EE through the vast majority of the presentation and isn’t distractingly oversharpened most of the time.

Unfortunately, ROTK has a consistently oversharpened look throughout. Immediately after finishing the first disc, I put in the 1080p EE Blu-ray to compare and was shocked at the consistent grain field (this one was actually much grainier than I remembered) and nearly zero difference in fine detail compared to the 4K disc.

There are still benefits to the new HDR grade; ROTK in 1080p SDR looks murky in comparison. Darker scenes definitely benefit from improved shadow detail and depth. However, the blown-out highlights on the 1080p disc are even worse on the 4K disc. Minas Tirith exterior shots look terrible. Gandalf’s face often looks like pixel art.

ROTK 4K is one of the ugliest 4K discs I’ve seen. All the grain has been wiped away and what remains is an image that I would’ve been upset to see on a 1080p disc a decade ago.

Having seen the 4K discs with my own eyes, I would not buy them again if given the choice.

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At this point,

i would dream of simpe EE BDs color matched with the UHDs (the UHD is BD upscaled so no need to do the reverse) 😃

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I just finished watching the new 4k blu-rays as well.

I would say FOTR is an improvement over the old blu-ray and for sure the best looking of the 3 movies. I really liked the new grade apart from The Shire and the council scenes.

TTT and ROTK I still prefer the old blu-rays. I was actually shocked by how bad ROTK looks. Like Jay above me I would have to agree that ROTK is one of the worst 4K discs I have seen.

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I’m been watching screen comparisons and this is my take: FOTR Blu-ray has revisionist colour timing, TTT and ROTJ 4Ks have revisionist colour timing. You just can’t win.

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Nobody’s satisfied with the official colors of at least one release of all three? Fine. I’ll compile an 8K Ultimate Edition myself using the latest non-revisionist releases, as soon as I can find the time and resources to make such a compilation.

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simenh1 said:

I would say FOTR is an improvement over the old blu-ray and for sure the best looking of the 3 movies. I really liked the new grade apart from The Shire and the council scenes.

I read that the Shire lost some of it’s green (trees and grass look more bleak), is this true? And what’s wrong with the council?

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So I recently bought the 4k Blu-rays. I never owned the original Blu-rays. Do even the DNR’d sections have more detail than the DVDs, at least? Would a new fan edit be required to get the best of all sources?

Nobody sang The Bunny Song in years…

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So, I don’t have an hdr TV but my folks do, so I took my UHD player along with my LOTR UHD BDs with me for Christmas. We’re watching FOTR now and I definitely don’t like the new grade so far - the Shire looks bland and desaturated. And I don’t like the hdr either - the brighter scenes seriously hurt my eyes and it makes it uncomfortable to watch.
I will keep the UHD Blu-Rays but only so that I can download any fan-versions sourced from them.

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Hi,
newbie here. I’m so glad I found this. How do I download? (I own the Blu-ray of course).

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We watched disc one last night and today, I decided to try playing disc two of 44rh1n’s version instead and almost immediately my mom, who has no idea about colour grading and stuff like that but is a huge fan of LOTR, commented that the colours are much nicer.

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Harmy said:

We watched disc one last night and today, I decided to try playing disc two of 44rh1n’s version instead and almost immediately my mom, who has no idea about colour grading and stuff like that but is a huge fan of LOTR, commented that the colours are much nicer.

Shame, really! What a missed opportunity. Now, the next question is; how easy is it to restore colours to a HDR picture? Would the complete film have to be tone-mapped, with HDR removed, or is it possible to adjust the colour in certain spots and keep the rest intact?

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I think it would have to be SDR but to me, that’s not really a problem - the colours of 44rh1n’s version are just lovely, so if we could get the best of both worlds - the detail of the UHD or rather EE BD version with the colours of the theatrical BD or EE DVD, I would be perfectly happy.

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If I find a new-used graphics card I would try to upscale the 1080p BD and look how that’ll look. Problem could be the grain, that will be removed in this process to a certain amount.

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Harmy said:

I think it would have to be SDR but to me, that’s not really a problem - the colours of 44rh1n’s version are just lovely, so if we could get the best of both worlds - the detail of the UHD or rather EE BD version with the colours of the theatrical BD or EE DVD, I would be perfectly happy.

Although I have not seen the full thing as previously stated the Balrog fight seems to be an improvement and if you watch that video again seems it has been tweaked when the Balrog hits gandalf magic shield… the bit where they take and paddle the Elven boats also seems a better color too in 4K version but would assume this would not include the dreamlike conversations and gift giving on the shore as all these seem to have lost the bloom effect.

There might be a few more that sit better?..

Did they fix the music cue in the dagorland prologue yet?

What I think I am trying to say is you could go full on preservation which I also think should be mostly the case but you could also make a slightly tweaked version that has small differences based on clearly better or superior choices.

I get the argument of superior based on somones opinion might not ring true, but is there anymore to appreciate from this release other than pixel detail?

Wait for Blu ray next year…

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Ronster said:

Wait for Blu ray next year…

I really doubt the colours on the blu will be different from the UHD disc. They seem to be stylistic choices by Peter Jackson, and there isn’t any huge backlash because, all in all, they are an improvement over the old blu’s.

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Centurion said:

Ronster said:

Wait for Blu ray next year…

I really doubt the colours on the blu will be different from the UHD disc. They seem to be stylistic choices by Peter Jackson, and there isn’t any huge backlash because, all in all, they are an improvement over the old blu’s.

Yeah but then you wont have to convert the HDR to SDR assuming that is another hurdle may aswell wait for the SDR Blu… Atleast that is what I meant and it will have more detail still in the majority of parts but perhaps not all especially the scrubbed scenes which is the point right?

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Ronster said:

Centurion said:

Ronster said:

Wait for Blu ray next year…

I really doubt the colours on the blu will be different from the UHD disc. They seem to be stylistic choices by Peter Jackson, and there isn’t any huge backlash because, all in all, they are an improvement over the old blu’s.

Yeah but then you wont have to convert the HDR to SDR assuming that is another hurdle may aswell wait for the SDR Blu… Atleast that is what I meant and it will have more detail still in the majority of parts but perhaps not all especially the scrubbed scenes which is the point right?

No The new BRs will be downscales and conversions of the new 4K HDR master.

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Chewielewis said:

Ronster said:

Centurion said:

Ronster said:

Wait for Blu ray next year…

I really doubt the colours on the blu will be different from the UHD disc. They seem to be stylistic choices by Peter Jackson, and there isn’t any huge backlash because, all in all, they are an improvement over the old blu’s.

Yeah but then you wont have to convert the HDR to SDR assuming that is another hurdle may aswell wait for the SDR Blu… Atleast that is what I meant and it will have more detail still in the majority of parts but perhaps not all especially the scrubbed scenes which is the point right?

No The new BRs will be downscales and conversions of the new 4K HDR master.

Frodo “I’m going to Mordor alone”

Sam “That’s right, and I’m going with you!”

You see what you just did 😉

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Ronster said:

Yeah but then you wont have to convert the HDR to SDR assuming that is another hurdle may aswell wait for the SDR Blu… Atleast that is what I meant and it will have more detail still in the majority of parts but perhaps not all especially the scrubbed scenes which is the point right?

Yea i suppose so. Make the shire a bit greener, possibly restore the flashbacks, replace the scenes with the most offending DNR, who knows…could be great 😄

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Who knows what will be on the Blu Ray collectors set but in trying to figure out the prologue which EA games held in their possession various versions… I have been looking through what was released on the games audio an aside from Gil Galads death scene which was censored. I have spotted a restored music cue in the Third age game but then this switches to a different music cue which is present in the Two Towers game Prologue and which also includes Elrond coaxing Isildur to cast the ring of power into the fires of Mount Doom before he is ambushed…Certainly worth checking the music here it is epic.

Such a hassle was made of the prologue and it almost feels like it has become mythic of what it could have been and was changed at the very last minute and got bodged up.

It is still good but it’s not as good as it could have been and that is because it kept getting fiddled about with Howard Shore must not known if he was coming or going it got changed so many times…

Anyway It is a project I might attempt tomorrow… Today is my Birthday and unlike Bilbo because of the coronovirus I won’t be able to do anything but just spend it by myself likr Gollum.

But to restore the music to this part seeing as it is available seems like a good cause although to truly represent what it might have been there is still more visuals and much unavailavle material, but it none the less can be better and I intend to make that happen.

The actual start of Galadriels monolgue has footage where she speaks elvish then I also feel it would sho stars and the mirror… The actual title the Lord of the rings was not to appear until Sauron Brandished his hand with the ring on… Building Barad Dur was also meant for the prologue it is something impossible but semi possible because of some of it is available…Let’s see what I can do with it,

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Posting this here too since it seems there are multiple projects going on:

Hey, just stopping by to say to everyone involved in this, especially the color restoration of Fellowship: THANK YOU!
I found it just a few days ago “by accident”, and I thought it must have come from the guys on this forum.

Back when they released the extended versions on blu-ray, (Around 2011 or so?) I made an own attempt of just doing a one setting for the entire film script in avisynth and it’s pathetic compared to what you guys achieved here. Finally, we can all watch Fellowship the way it looked and should look. I removed my old files with a smile on my face. 😃

I know they released a 4K upscale of both the LOTR and Hobbit trilogies (yes, upscale) but they changed the color timing in every single one, as far as I know. Choosing upscale instead of an actual 4K source is a bad move no matter where or when, but I still lack the hardware to view 4K material so I’m happy with what I have.

Sorry for not being around often anymore. Still having extreme health issues and no light at the end of the tunnel in sight. But glad to see you guys still keep the strong spirit of movie-preservation alive!