Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring - Extended Edition - 4K Dremastered — Page 2

Ronster said:

DrDre said:

I’m oke with the new HDR grades. They look fine to me, but I prefer the original look for all three films.

Ok but what about the sudden swap from Day to Night?

We see the big tree roots at the base “Daytime” when pan up the bigature model of the winding stairs around the trunk it’s night.

How about grading the first shot as night for continuity?

This feels a quite choppy otherwise…

That’s beyond the scope of this project. The aim is to get the colors close to how they looked originally. In any case the sun goes down pretty quickly in countries closer to the equator. I was in Spain a while ago, and it was light when I entered a building, and dark by the time I exited the elevator on the 12th floor. They were walking pretty slowly, so if it was sunset at the time they reached the tree, it would be dark by the time they reached the top.

Hi DrDre, I’d be interested to hear more detail if you were able to share on the specific processes as to exactly how you’re carrying out this work - to confirm, are you using AI (Topaz?) to upscale the original 1080p extended edition FOTR Blu-Ray to 4k and then recolouring the film or are you just recolouring the more recent 4k release of the film?
If it is the former, I’d be keen to understand specifically why you’d upscale the original Blu Ray version of the film and then recolour it as a pose to just recolouring the newer official 4k scans - on the face of it, sounds like it would be more work, so keen to understand the benefit.

notoriousrfp said:

Hi DrDre, I’d be interested to hear more detail if you were able to share on the specific processes as to exactly how you’re carrying out this work - to confirm, are you using AI (Topaz?) to upscale the original 1080p extended edition FOTR Blu-Ray to 4k and then recolouring the film or are you just recolouring the more recent 4k release of the film?
If it is the former, I’d be keen to understand specifically why you’d upscale the original Blu Ray version of the film and then recolour it as a pose to just recolouring the newer official 4k scans - on the face of it, sounds like it would be more work, so keen to understand the benefit.

The new 4K scans are just 2K upscales with a ton of extra DNR. As a consequence they have less detail than the previous bluray releases. My process starts with regrading the film. Then I use a custom Topaz AI algo to get rid of the aliasing, which is present in the EE bluray. Finally, I use another custom Topaz AI algo to upscale the film, which enhances the detail in the film. Right now I’m about 90% with the colors, so I should be getting to step 2 pretty soon.

notoriousrfp said:

Hi DrDre, I’d be interested to hear more detail if you were able to share on the specific processes as to exactly how you’re carrying out this work - to confirm, are you using AI (Topaz?) to upscale the original 1080p extended edition FOTR Blu-Ray to 4k and then recolouring the film or are you just recolouring the more recent 4k release of the film?
If it is the former, I’d be keen to understand specifically why you’d upscale the original Blu Ray version of the film and then recolour it as a pose to just recolouring the newer official 4k scans - on the face of it, sounds like it would be more work, so keen to understand the benefit.

For me personally the Extended Bluray was always the best looking releases if you just look at sharpness and detail.
Being a fan of natural Film-Grain I hate the use of DNR. If a movie is shot digitally, I’m totally fine with the clean digital look. But never, ever use DNR on a analog shot movie just because you hate Grain. But that’s exactly what Peter Jackson did on the old Theatrical Bluray and the newer 4k-Bluray and Remastered Bluray.

For the old extended Bluray of LOTR fake Film-Grain was added on all CGI-Elements to hide the fact that these elements were added in POST. Grain can add additional texture to elements which have little, like “Gollum” or the “Ollifants” in the movies.
If it weren’t for the horrible green tint in the first movie, the old Blurays would be my favorite release to this day.

From the looks of it DrDre 4k-Dremastered could be the ultimate version for all people who enjoy watching the extended Cut. Both in terms of Sharpness, Detail and color grading.

Thanks for the info Prodrummer and thanks for coming back so quick and for clarifying DrDre, really appreciated and very much looking forward to this! Final question from me - as well as the eventual main 4k release, would you consider also releasing a 1080p version for watching on the go e.g mobile phone screen, or am I just better sticking to the Dwalin / 44rh1n regrade for that?

notoriousrfp said:

Thanks for the info Prodrummer and thanks for coming back so quick and for clarifying DrDre, really appreciated and very much looking forward to this! Final question from me - as well as the eventual main 4k release, would you consider also releasing a 1080p version for watching on the go e.g mobile phone screen, or am I just better sticking to the Dwalin / 44rh1n regrade for that?

I will also render a 1080p version. 😃

notoriousrfp said:

Thanks for the info Prodrummer and thanks for coming back so quick and for clarifying DrDre, really appreciated and very much looking forward to this! Final question from me - as well as the eventual main 4k release, would you consider also releasing a 1080p version for watching on the go e.g mobile phone screen, or am I just better sticking to the Dwalin / 44rh1n regrade for that?

You’re welcome 😃
I should add that even the extended edition has some scenes with DNR applied.
=> Example: When Legolas talks to Theoden, after Aragorn fell of the Cliff (2nd Movie)
But this DNR was already added during the creation of the 2K Digital Intermediate, which all Bluray-Releases are based upon. The only way to get rid of all the DNR is to create a new DI, best with new 4K-Scans of the original film stock.

Those screenshots look AMAZING. Would love to get a copy of this!

Also, looking forward to when you do the other two movies as well. 😃

The master file for the first half of the film is completed. Now, it will take a few more days to get a high quality UHD mkv. 😃

There were a few issues in the last render, that needed to be fixed, so there is a little delay, but once it is done, I’ve decided to release both halfs of the film seperately, so there should be a release for the first half in the first week of June. 😃

Epic thankyou, can’t wait!!!

Interested to hear of the issues if you were able to elaborate?

What sort of file sizes are we talking for the various release resolutions, and will it just be a case of using Mkvmerge to eventually join together the 1st and 2nd half of the film if we wanted a seamless experience?

(In fairness I quite liked the break point on the original DVD/Blu Ray)

How long do you think it will take to release the 2nd half once the first half’s finished?

notoriousrfp said:

Epic thankyou, can’t wait!!!

Interested to hear of the issues if you were able to elaborate?

Some shots had excessive grain due to a combination of the regrade and upscaling.

What sort of file sizes are we talking for the various release resolutions, and will it just be a case of using Mkvmerge to eventually join together the 1st and 2nd half of the film if we wanted a seamless experience?

They are between 45 GB and 50 GB for each half for the 4K. The HD version will likely be around 20 GB for each half. They are presented exactly as on the DVD, so merging them will require some editing.

(In fairness I quite liked the break point on the original DVD/Blu Ray)

How long do you think it will take to release the 2nd half once the first half’s finished?

Depends on on a number of factors, so I’m not making predictions. 😉

Here are a few teasers of the new colors of FOTR-EE:

Looks fantastic!

This looks to be my ultimate version of Fellowship. I’ve really enjoyed having 44rh1n’s version available, since it gave us the extended version without a break midway and with corrected colors, but this would replace it as it has a better source (his version used the theatrical blu-ray for all the non-extended scenes), making it a best of all possible worlds edition. Can’t wait!

Hydra Spectre said:

Will you redo the Theatrical Versions of the trilogy? Apparently, you lost the original files, but will you redo them to be in line with these Extended Editions once these are finished?

No, I was able to recover the 2160p versions. I only lost the 1080p versions in the end.

So I guess today is technically the first Sunday of the month so fingers crossed the release of the first half may drop today…right? Or is it just a fools hope 😅

It’s still rendering, so a bit more patience. 😉

The rendering is taking a little longer than expected, but we’re getting there. In the mean time here are five 4K sample frames:

DrDre said:

The rendering is taking a little longer than expected, but we’re getting there. In the mean time here are five 4K sample frames:

Absolutely gorgeous ❤️ Makes waiting for the final release even harder ^^

Ah I can’t wait, this will be the ultimate version of my favourite film! Wow amazing detail in those shots above, upscale looks fantastic!
Just didn’t get on with the official 4k release - when watching it just wasn’t how I remembered certain scenes looking, mainly with the saturation of scenes turned down (Shire) Rivendell/meeting of the council (not yellow enough) and Lothlorien (not blue enough/ too grey) Why did PJ have to tinker with the colour scheme - literally no one asked for the colours to be changed, very George Lucas esque imo

And why did they recolor everything but not touch the very different face of Gollum in Fellowship?

notoriousrfp said:

Ah I can’t wait, this will be the ultimate version of my favourite film! Wow amazing detail in those shots above, upscale looks fantastic!
Just didn’t get on with the official 4k release - when watching it just wasn’t how I remembered certain scenes looking, mainly with the saturation of scenes turned down (Shire) Rivendell/meeting of the council (not yellow enough) and Lothlorien (not blue enough/ too grey) Why did PJ have to tinker with the colour scheme - literally no one asked for the colours to be changed, very George Lucas esque imo

I could live with the new color grading of the official 4k-Bluray, but the inconsistent and massive usage of DNR was a deal breaker for me. This Dremastered Edition could be the best of both worlds. Organic picture with most of the film grain intact but with an corrected color grading without the green tint.