Prodrummer1603

blakninja said:

So you are taking the Bluray EE as source and upscaling it to 4K UHD?

The screenshots are amazing.

Do you own the 35mm and use as reference? Like you would look up every cell in the 35mm and try to replicate that on your computer? Wow.

My understanding is this:

• Extended Bluray as Source
• using AI to get rid of the edge enhancement present on the Bluray
• regrading the movie by using a global LUT, only making small adjustments for individual scenes/frames if he feels the global LUT didn’t do a good job
• using the 35mm cinema prints as reference
• upscaling the final product to 4k using AI

waffle said:

Boobafett2 said:

Absolutely breathtaking work Dre! Any chance for an early Christmas present this year? 😛

He’s probably busy with family and other things considering it’s the holiday season. I’ll wait however long it takes for him to finish rendering the second half because the first half looks amazing.

Asked DrDre myself. His response:
“I’ve made some progress, but sadly I will be going abroad for work until the end of the year, so all projects will be on hold until January.”

Guess we have to wait a little longer.

Staebs said:

Prodrummer1603 said:

I don’t find the extra scenes with Merry and Pippin that bad. They are not great but they don’t hurt either.
Find the scene with Eowyn and Aragorn (stew scene) more troubling.
And all the extra Army-of-Dead-Scenes in ROTK ruin the movie for me.
Thats why I Cut those.

This guy actually edited that scene with Eowyn and Aragorn in a way that cuts around the out of place stew joke and keeps the mention of Aragorn’s age. It’s not a bad edit at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdbV-97esNc

It’s funny, like half the EE scenes (while I loved them as a kid watching the movies), just don’t really justify themselves worth keeping. Army of the Dead scenes that remove all later suspense, the stew scene, drinking game scene, Merry and Pippin, Gandalf vs the Witch King (this is the worst). But of course it’s different for everyone. Hal9000’s extended edit of Kerr’s edit (while it does certain things I dislike to try and stay closer to the book) literally makes pelennor fields so much better by cutting it in a way that maintains tension and doesn’t let the dead army immediately win. I am nowhere near talented enough to do things like that on my own, so I hope someone can make a “less extended edition” of the 4K EE Dremasters when they’re all done.

FYI:
I tried to cut out the Gandalf vs Witchking scene. You have to use scenes from the Theatrical Cut to make it work. Sadly the encoding of the Theatrical Bluray is of lower quality which means that the grain structure and detail is not as consistent as in the Extended Cut. Will have to make some tests on my 65" OLED if I can spot a difference.
The Extended Cut also pushes green a little more but I cut on camera changes so you wont spot it. Gladly the music and sound blends over without any issues.

EDIT:
Did a run on my OLED. I would be lying if there was no difference. But the differences in picture quality between the Theatrical Scenes and Extended Scenes are so minor that only nit-picky nerds would care 😃

ConstipatedSpidey said:

I personally love the EE more than the TE, but not FOTR as much. The only EE scenes I would keep is Sam and Frodo seeing the Elves travel to Valinor, and Galadriel’s gift giving. Maybe Isildor being shot full of arrows. All the rest mess with the pacing and are minor. scenes with no bearing on anything.

Funny because I would cut the Frodo/Sam/Woodelves Scene.

Later in the Movie Sam is so excited about going to Rivendell and seeing the elves. But it makes No Sense considering He has already Seen the elves.

I love how the Theatrical Cut slowly builds Up the introduction to other races.
The Hobbits don’t Encounter anything unusual until the First Nazgul arrives. And an innoncent mind who has never seen the Movies might think:
Its Just a Rider on a Horse. Whats so Special about that ?
But then you get the Feeling that something about the Black Rider is Strange and scary even though you cannot fully understand what it is.

When the Hobbits enter the town of Bree they meet the Men of Bree, but as a Viewer seeing the Race of Men is nothing special.
And the Hobbits even though they are far away from Home are Feeling welcomed because Bree is also a place that is used to hosting Hobbits. So its the Meeting Point between two Races that live peacefully together.

The elves are the weirdest and Most magical of all the races. Therefore I think its best to meet them Last.

I know that Gandalf mentioned the Elves to Frodo but hearing about them and seeing them in Person is just Not the same.
Concerning Gandalf:
Gandalf is a Wizard but to the Hobbits He is Just an old man who is good at Fireworks 😅
So He does Not Count as Well.

Staebs said:

Prodrummer1603 said:

I don’t find the extra scenes with Merry and Pippin that bad. They are not great but they don’t hurt either.
Find the scene with Eowyn and Aragorn (stew scene) more troubling.
And all the extra Army-of-Dead-Scenes in ROTK ruin the movie for me.
Thats why I Cut those.

This guy actually edited that scene with Eowyn and Aragorn in a way that cuts around the out of place stew joke and keeps the mention of Aragorn’s age. It’s not a bad edit at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdbV-97esNc

It’s funny, like half the EE scenes (while I loved them as a kid watching the movies), just don’t really justify themselves worth keeping. Army of the Dead scenes that remove all later suspense, the stew scene, drinking game scene, Merry and Pippin, Gandalf vs the Witch King (this is the worst). But of course it’s different for everyone. Hal9000’s extended edit of Kerr’s edit (while it does certain things I dislike to try and stay closer to the book) literally makes pelennor fields so much better by cutting it in a way that maintains tension and doesn’t let the dead army immediately win. I am nowhere near talented enough to do things like that on my own, so I hope someone can make a “less extended edition” of the 4K EE Dremasters when they’re all done.

First we would have to agree on which scenes to Cut and which to Leave because whoever makes the Edit has to know If its worth putting the extra time into a Project.
I doubt there will be someone who makes an Edit just for one single guy. There must be a larger interest into the Edit.

I’m fine with leaving scenes in the Movie if they don’t hurt. They don’t have to be Quality scenes.

The drinking scene is okay. Legolas and Gimli have no real character arcs anyway so the drinking Scene
cant destroy what is Not there 😅
Both characters are for Comic Relief and the drinking Scene Doubles down on that.

I agree that the Battle between Gandalf and the Witchking is poorly executed even though the Idea is fine. It happend in the book so I get why Peter Jackson created the scene. If you remove this Scene you also have to remove the scene between the Witchking and the General orc “What about the White Wizard?” “I will crush him”.

You really have to be careful in how you Edit the Scenes otherwise you have Plot holes.

Fullmetaled said:

Harmy said:

I just found out about this project and I couldn’t be more excited 😃 Finally somebody is doing what I thought might be the best chance to finally get the best of all worlds in terms of the LOTR, especially FOTR, official releases - each HD version of FOTR has it’s own flaws and it always annoyed me that whichever release I chose to watch, I had to choose between bad colors (EE BD), bad DNR (Theatrical BD, 4K BD), and/or bad resolution (Theatrical BD) - this project seems to be aiming to fix all of that and that’s amazing.

Now if someone could also edit out all the bad moments like with merry and pippin etc. it would be a perfect trilogy.

I would suggest you doing it yourself because you might hate scenes that others Like and vice versa.
Cut some scenes from the Extended Cut TTT and ROTK myself and it was easier than I thought it would be. Only Challenge is editing the music/sound.

I don’t find the extra scenes with Merry and Pippin that bad. They are not great but they don’t hurt either.
Find the scene with Eowyn and Aragorn (stew scene) more troubeling.
And all the extra Army-of-Dead-Scenes in ROTK ruin the movie for me.
Thats why I Cut those.

The Theatrical BluRay is soft and has plenty of DNR in it.
DrDre already did an 4k-Upscale of the Theatrical Bluray. The Results are okayish imo. But it cannot compete with this 4k-Upscale of the Extended Cut.

I did a comparison of the 4k-Bluray and 4k-Dremaster. There are many shots where the Version from DrDre Looks sharper and more detailed, the rest is a tie imo. But I don’t think there is any benefit of using the 4k-Bluray as source.
The Main reason for the Remaster of the Extended BluRay is because the official 4k Release was dissapointing to say the least.

The Colorgrading is Personal preference.
The 4k-Bluray might look more neutral but I prefer the colors from DrDre’s release which as far as I understand is how people saw the movie in Cinema. Some scenes have stronger color tints but it all fits the narrative.
Especially the Shire scenes have a warmth and colorfulness that is not present in the official 4k Release.
And the Shire should be exactly that:
A place of comfort and warmth.

No, it was a new link. Don’t know what’s causing the issue.

Last try:
https://we.tl/t-9DdiVjpAQV

!!! DELETED POST !!!

https://we.tl/t-9DdiVjpAQV

Comparison between Bluray (2011), 4k Bluray and 4k-Dremastered.
Some shots don’t align. But it should still be possible
to compare the overall picture quality.

NOTE:
Since taking SDR-screenshots of HDR-content (in the case of the 4k Bluray) does not really work,
I used a little trick in VLC-Media-Player to convert from HDR to SDR. Its not perfect so please take the 4k Bluray screenshots with a grain of salt.

!!! OLD POST !!!
NEW POST BELOW

alastair said:

This sounds great! Looking forward to the full extended releases!

Would be helpful to see Screenshot Comparisons, so its easier to directly compare the versions. Since without context, it’s hard to know if it looks different.

I could try to do a comparison between the Extended Bluray (2011) vs 4k Dremastered.
But not until Friday.

ConstipatedSpidey said:

Prodrummer1603 said:

frasderp said:

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?

Level of Detail is as good if not better than the 4k-Release (Mainly because there is no DNR applied). You might say that the 4k-Bluray looks sharper but that’s only because PJ and his team added digital sharpness on the official release. The Version from DrDre looks more natural imo.

Color grading comes down to taste. The 4k-Bluray might be more neutral but I don’t know if you even want that in a fantasy movie ^^ Either way: This Upscale my favorite version of the Movie and the one I will keep on watching.

I might be editing the movies and remove some scenes from the extended cut which I don’t like.

I personally would love to see to see the theatrical version with the Elves leaving Rivendell and Gabriel’s gift giving scene kept in.

DrDre announced that he wanted to upscale the Extended Edition of TTT and ROTK as well.
But my guess is that this will take maybe a year so I decided to take the Extended Blurays of these movies (which do not suffer from that green tint like the first movie) and delete some scenes which I don’t like.

TTT:
I deleted the scene where Eowyn offers Aragorn a stew of her own making. I don’t like this scene at all. It makes fun of Eowyn’s cooking skills (Why do we need to see that ?). And the conversation about Aragorn’s age is pointless and boring.

ROTK:
I deleted all the extra Army-of-The-Dead-Scenes. Most of them are cheesy and can’t hold their own in terms of quality against the rest of the movie. Plus: I like how the Theatrical Cut leaves it open if Aragorn has succeeded in convincing the King of the Dead to join the fight.

frasderp said:

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?

Level of Detail is as good if not better than the 4k-Release (Mainly because there is no DNR applied). You might say that the 4k-Bluray looks sharper but that’s only because PJ and his team added digital sharpness on the official release. The Version from DrDre looks more natural imo.

Color grading comes down to taste. The 4k-Bluray might be more neutral but I don’t know if you even want that in a fantasy movie ^^ Either way: This Upscale my favorite version of the Movie and the one I will keep on watching.

I might be editing the movies and remove some scenes from the extended cut which I don’t like.

dwarferagon said:

Thanks for the work, where can I download it?

Just PM DrDre. He will send you a link.

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

THIS IS THE WAY 😄

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 ?

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.

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 ^^

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.

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.

Jay said:

Compelling results across all three films, especially in the scenes that suffer the most from DNR in the 4K release. It’s sad we see superior results from a compressed 1080p source upscaled with AI compared to what the creator and studio produced with access to the best available materials.

I also like the new HDR grades overall (TTT not so much, doesn’t fit the tone), just sad about the scrubbed detail.

Yeah, I would be ashamed if I were Peter Jackson, but my guess is that he is really pleased with the way the 4k-Bluray turned out so he does not care.

One major problem is that the 2k-DI, which all releases are based on, already has some horrible DNR applied so you cannot get rid of it unless you rescan the camera negatives. My dreams would come true if someone decides to rescan the original camera negatives and VFX-negatives in 4k.

Overall the Extended Cut has problems with contrast. There are so many scenes where you can spot black crush or overblown highlights. Part 1 (The Fellowship of the Ring - Extended) has this horrible green tint. Part 2 (The Two Towers - Extended) has the green tint removed for the most part, but still pushes green a little bit more than the Theatrical Cut. Part 3 (The Return of the King - Extended) has basically the same color grading as the Theatrical Cut.

The main benefit of the Extended Cut:
It is the sharpest and more detailed release, with a better encoding and less DNR applied. There are still some DNR-scenes but they exist in all released versions.

The Theatrical Cut is also a mixed bag. Out of the older Blurays it has by far the best and most consistent color grading. But Part 1 (The Fellowship of the Ring) is a blurry mess, full of DNR. Part 2 and 3 look much sharper and almost reach the level of the extended cut (the difference might be due to the different encodings).

The 4k-Bluray-Version made huge changes to the color grading. Some people love it, others hate it. But for me it has the best color grading and contrasts of all releases. The main problem of course is with the overall usage of DNR.
Some scenes are filtered to death and look horrible and worse than on the older Bluray-Releases. All the scenes with CGI-Characters (Gollum, Fellbeasts of the Nazgul or the Mûmakil) look fake to me. In the older Blurays Peter Jackson decided to apply “Fake-Grain” onto these CGI-Elements to make them look more real and imperfect and it worked quiet well. For the 4k-Version they decided to remove this added Grain again. Now the CGI-Elements stick out like a sore thumb. The added Grain at least gave Gollum and Co some texture. The Rest of the movie looks okay, but I could not spot any noticeable upgrade in terms of sharpness and details.

I would say:
Using the Theatrical Cut is the best overall choice for an 4k-Remaster, even though the first movie had not much detail in it to take advantage of the upscaling.