Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring - Extended Edition - 4K Dremastered — Page 3

The final render of part 1 is complete. The release will be tomorrow. 😃

Looking forward to it! Thanks for the hard work, the colors look perfect.

DrDre said:

The final render of part 1 is complete. The release will be tomorrow. 😃

Perfect Timing ^^ What better way to spend 1h and 45min of my weekend than in Middleearth ?

Superb - well I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow night if I can download it in time!
DrDre, do you recolour and upscale separate parts and then join them back together?
Can imagine this would be an absolute mammoth task if you’re having to break in to small bits, do the work scene by scene and then rejoin - how long has it taken you personally working on this project so far do you think?

Downloaded and watched the first part. As an character from another universe would say:

THIS IS THE WAY 😄

notoriousrfp said:

Superb - well I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow night if I can download it in time!
DrDre, do you recolour and upscale separate parts and then join them back together?
Can imagine this would be an absolute mammoth task if you’re having to break in to small bits, do the work scene by scene and then rejoin - how long has it taken you personally working on this project so far do you think?

No, it’s a number of different processing steps, but all on the first part as a whole. It’s a lot of work nonetheless haha.

I’m so glad you have decided to make a preservation of this version of Fellowship. Like many people I was disappointed with the green tint in the original blu-ray version. I used the You_Too AVIsynth GIMP re-colour script to remove the green tint from my version.

I did anticipate the 4k UHD release, but was annoyed that they should so drastically mess with the original colours, especially when Elrond has his flashback to Mount Doom, it does not appear as if he is standing near molten lava, because most of the orange has been removed. This seems like a mistake.

The colours in your screenshot look great. Very much looking forward to seeing it in motion.

I already have the 3 other main colour preservations, KK650, Dwalin, 44rh1n, and have been looking forward to this version since the first post.

This was brilliant, sad to see it finish at the end of the council, wanted to start the 2nd half straight away!

Nailed it from a colours point of view, much more closely to how I remembered it vs the official 4k release, worth the wait and lived up to my expectations - so better than the official 4k release for me!

On the audio side, worth mentioning that the file came with 6 separate audio tracks: a 6.1 DTS track, a 5.1 DTS track, and 4x Stereo Commentary tracks all from the older EE Blu-Rays I think - annoyingly for me, watching on an 2021 LG OLED 55A16LA using USB, it could play the video file but wouldn’t let me select the 5.1 or 6.1 tracks, only the 4x Commentary tracks - I tried using PS5 and wouldn’t play on that either.

So had to play on the laptop with VLC and an HDMI cable into the TV, and then that only played the 5.1 & 6.1 tracks in stereo instead of utilising the surround sound…if I was being majorly picky, I’d have preferred this version to have been encoded with the newer Dolby Atmos and Dolby TrueHD tracks from the 4k Blu-Rays instead of the older DTS tracks from the older EE Blu-Rays just so I could watch and listen in full surround without an issue (might see if I do it manually myself potentially)

Anyway I’ll be interested to see PaulTelsall’s opinion vs the other versions, but regardless had a fantastic experience so far, many thanks DrDre.

Bring on Part 2!

Thanks for the work, where can I download it?

dwarferagon said:

Thanks for the work, where can I download it?

Just PM DrDre. He will send you a link.

notoriousrfp said:
On the audio side, worth mentioning that the file came with 6 separate audio tracks: a 6.1 DTS track, a 5.1 DTS track, and 4x Stereo Commentary tracks all from the older EE Blu-Rays I think - annoyingly for me, watching on an 2021 LG OLED 55A16LA using USB, it could play the video file but wouldn’t let me select the 5.1 or 6.1 tracks, only the 4x Commentary tracks - I tried using PS5 and wouldn’t play on that either.

Use ffmpeg to convert the DTS to ac3.

I think DrDre has done a fantastic job and I really appreciate the hardwork he has put in to make this release.

This is the best the original FOTR EE Blu-ray release has ever looked. The 4k AI upscaling is amazing. Also the 4k HVEC encoding is great, a very high standard. How can this release look so much better than the original source from an encoding perspective? Some alchemy there.

I have spent the last 3 nights comparing the encode and colours across a number of versions of FOTR. The only release that can match DrDre work from an upscale, resolution and encoding perspective is the 1080p blu-ray remaster done at the same time as the recent 4K UHD edition. I’m ignoring the 4k UHD HDR/WCG version, haven’t even used it during these comparisons. HDR/WCG introduces too many other variables.

I used my 65" 4k LG E6 OLED for the comparisons, this is an OLED from late 2017, and the near black handling is horrendous for revealing encoding problems, in a dark room it makes a lot of content unwatchable for how it handles near black from 1 - 5%. Basically if you thought the Game of Thrones blu-rays had poor encoding, on this TV they are unwatchable. Vincent Teoh always uses a GOT scene in the crypt at Winterfell with Jon Snow to illustrate this problem. This release has no such encoding problems and looks great.

This is where most of the other versions suffer. Both KK650 & Dwalin have encoding that is not as good as the source. My own version using the You_Too AVIsynth GIMP re-colour script, can’t compare to this version.

I come to this release wanting the best version of the FOTR EE without the green tint. The new remaster has too many colour revisions for my taste. I’m no expert on the colours of FOTR or how it should look. I’m used to the version I made, which has a particular look. I have not watched the original theatrical or EE release since 2011. Out of the earlier versions Dwalin had the best colours, but the encoding was average, so I stuck with my version. 44rh1n version also has good colours, but the source has too many other problems.

For 95% of this version the colours were great. But there are a few scenes where I prefer the look in other versions. It goes without saying, that the colours here are a huge improvement over the original EE blu-ray. I’m going to make another post with some specifics.

I do have a lot of versions of FOTR, but I was really only interested in how the colours looked across each one. With that in mind I ignored the EE Blu-ray, because of the green tint. I don’t have access to my Theatrical blu-ray, which I only bought for the 10 minute super trailer in 1080p. I was one of those people that was happy to skip the theatrical DVD and buy only the EE DVD release, because they told us ahead of time. I haven’t seen the theatrical in full since I rented the DVD release whilst waiting for the EE DVD back in 2002.

So I used the following versions:

1. My encode using the You_Too GIMP script
2. Dwalin release
3. EE Blu-ray Remaster
4. FOTR 35mm theatrical scan

For 95% of the film, I was very happy with the colours of this version. There were many differences between the different versions, but none that I found troubling.

There were a few scenes where I switched back multiple times and noted differences, but hard to say which I liked the best.

https://i.imgur.com/GK9QPuI.jpg

This scene was the only scene that I found troubling. The screen cap looks fine. But in motion the tint of blue and yellow makes both wizards look ill. Timestamp 1:25:11 to 1:26:00

The irony is the shot of Gandalf on the eagle, flying away from Orthanc, is easily the most beautiful painterly looking rendition across all versions.

I hope this observation has some value, it is not like the scene needs to be re-done, it was just the one part of this encode that stood out. I have to admit that on my iMac screen it looks fine, so it might be my OLED that emphasis these tints. I will look on my Samsung LED TV for another comparison. *Update. Just looked on my Samsung LED TV and felt the same about the colours in this short scene as on the LG OLED.

I would never rush art; but i am visiting New Zealand (including Hobbiton and Mount Sunday) in January, and i would love to take this with me to watch in the evenings! lol

Wow. I am little late to the party here, but these look amazing. Take as much time as needed to complete the trilogy DrDre. Thank you so much for giving us possibly the best versions of the extended edition even after I see you worked on the theatrical releases.

I wish it was legal for us to support your work. An excellent enhancement for a truly spectacular trilogy.

Can I get a PM to access?

Hi, how might one get a link for what is released so far? The screen shots look fantastic!

Great work as always DrDre!

Any chance you can make the EE movies one file? I always hate how you have to swap discs, or files to watch them.

EDIT: nvm I see this has already been asked.

I made some screenshots of the 35mm, hd, 4k and hybrid versions to compare framing and colors.

As the hybrid shows, which overlays sources of BDRIP (2.35:1), DVDRIP (4:3) and WEBDL (16:9), a lot more area has been shot on original film.

So, does anyone know if a full scan of either the original camera negative, or the 35mm prints exists? I don’t have access to any private trackers or usenet newsgroups.

WXM said:
that has never been released in any form

Too bad of course. Although the movie is available in several aspect ratios, so somewhere a version of the full frame picture should exist. Preferably with the original color grading/timing.

So excited about this!

Super excited for this release, thankyou for your hard work!

I am interested, how does the Upscale process compare to the real 4K releases regarding the process followed?