PaulTelsall

Here in the UK all 3 extended editions are getting a cinema outing for ROTK 20th anniversary.

I saw FOTR on Friday. Unfortunately the cinema had a fairly low contrast projector, so that was quite disappointing. Initially I thought we were watching a 2k presentation of an older release. It wasn’t till the Mount Doom flashback with the altered colours that I realised that this was the new 4k version of FOTR EE(the end credits confirmed this). The DNR was especially bad on the large cinema screen, quite distracting. If they were using a 4k projector with a 4k DCP I couldn’t tell from the image. The colour changes were not as obvious as on my setup at home.

I just kept thinking, wouldn’t this be great if it was DrDre version. TT is next week, different screen hopefully with better contrast. Not watched the 4K release, but believe the DNR is even worse.

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 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’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.