***Official LOTR: The Two Towers DVD Discussion Thread*** -- All Posts Here; NO EXCEPTIONS (1 Viewer)

[Dave-Q-H]

the trailers look good, however the TV spots are very poor quality - not a huge downer, but noteworthy because the TV spots on the Fellowship DVD looked amazing

the 40 minute docu is actually really good, though - not in the league of the EE materials, but still very entertaining

 

[Richard Travale]

Where are all of you getting these early releases?
I know you can't answer that but it's driving me crazy not having it in my grubby little paws.
Great review Simon, thanks.

 

[Ray_Gootz]

Richard-

Relax yourself. I actully paid 30 bucks to get it so early, when I could've easily got it for 15 on street date. Looking back with so many other DVDs to watch I probably should've waited. But that's a second part of my DVD addiction: Getting DVD'S way before street date just so I can say I have them. Last Thursday I bought the whole MGM Horror set and that's two weeks before street date. But those were actully cheap at 10 bucks a pop. Even the new Howling!

If you live in NYC it's very easy to break street date. I don't know about Bronx or Brookyln but I know many places in Queens and Manhattan that put titles out 2 to 3 weeks early.

 

[Tomoko Noguchi]

I just got my email from my retailer that my region 1 dvd is shipped. I should get mine by Thursday or Friday.

 

[Yumbo]

the power outage has halted mine in Ohio!

 

[Tomoko Noguchi]

Chris,

You have an email telling you where I got mine.

 

[Dave-Q-H]

I pre-ordered my copy with a great DVD E-tailer that is particular about stocking US, i.e. non bilingual DVDs, which is quite rare in the UK. that they got TTT on the 11th was just an added bonus!

They are likely to get TTT EE in early, and the Indiana Jones set is due on October 7th. I'll privately send the URL to anyone that is interested

 

[Tomoko Noguchi]

Go ahead and send me Dave. See if we are talking about the same place.

 

[SarahG]

I had borrowed a screener for a bit and was not too blown away with the picture quality, But I don't think Two Towers is as pretty and colorful as the earlier scenes in the first one. It was a DVD9 and had "for Your concideration" on it several times. It also had a DD 5.1 and a DTS 5.1 but the DTS had some bad popping sounds which made it unlistenable.

I have this too..but to be honest...it was a screener...and I expect that the quality will be MUCH better for the real thing...everyone here that has it already (lucky little jerks =)) says that its great and that all the sound aspects and video aspects are above par. I personally can't wait for next weeke to curl up with my own copy...

btw, thanks simon for you review...it was very nice to read and I can't wait to see both the ROTK preview and the EE preview.

 

[Bjoern Roy]

The real academy screener is a DVD-9, like mentioned by several others here. Its PQ is magnificent.

Sean,

Hope the official release matches up.

Sadly, this is not the case. The TT release is horizontally filtered in the same way as both FOTR NTSC releases and is thus considerbly less detailed than the TT screener. You need quite a good system to reveal this, though.

Think about the difference in horizontal detail as in Col/Tri's Superbit versions vs their non-Superbit siblings, where the 'real' difference is also the pre-filter and not the bitrate 'per se' as most seem to think.

Btw, the PAL R2/R4 releases of FOTR and FOTR:EE were NOT filtered horizontally. My long announced review revealing these issues is finally going to be posted any day now. I hope the PAL TT release is also unfiltered. Should be able to verify this soon.

The difference between the TT academy and the release DVD are only related to the prefilter and the bitrate.

The release DVD:
- has less detail and more ringing, due to the filter characteristic
- is a bit rougher/noisier, also due to the filter characteristic
- more compression artefacts (blocking, mosquito noise), DESPITE the fact this filter should achieve exactly the opposite!
- slightly different cropping of the frame, only a few pixels though

Apart from that, the versions are identical. Colors, shadow delineation, blacks, etc. Hm, I cannot confirm better blacks on the release DVD, David. What scene where you looking at? If anything the disc with the better compression (thus less quantization noise) is going to be 'perceived' as having deeper blacks.

I can understand Dave H's comment on the 'washed-out look' on the academy TT, though. This is the same on the release DVD, and is a combination of 2 things:
- the general look of the movie (have seen this in several theaters, from mediocre to sensational)
- the gamma characteristic chosen by the colorist for the transfer; gamma is a tad brighter than on the FOTR transfer, so darker scenes are improved in contrast (look at the descending Gollum, magnificent!), yet brighter scenes look a bit more pale.

I think overall, the gamma characteristic is chosen very well, though.

Too bad i cannot praise their repeated choice in pre-filtering, which is plain bad, outright scandalous. Especially since it doesn't achieve what its intended for, but rather the opposite! Thankfully, this will only be of concern to us nerd videophile's, and will likely go unnoticed by all DVD reviewing sites again, just as it did with both FOTR releases.

Regards
Bjoern

 

[Artur Meinild]

Got mine in the weekend, I watched most of the extras yesterday and I'm going to watch the movie and the documentaries tonight. The Return of the King and Two Towers extended previews are just great!

 

[Allan Petersen]

Got mine on the 16th as well, Artur. I wonder if we got it from the same place.

 

[Artur Meinild]

That could very well be the case...

 

[Dan Brecher]

Regarding: Two Towers DVD9 screener vs Domestic and Fellowship NTSC vs PAL…etc

I've been fortunate enough to have seen the comparisons Bjoern speaks of on the previous page. The differences in the finer details in the RSDL screener versus the domestic R1 release are subtle, but definitely noticeable upon close inspection, and certainly obvious on a good display.

The findings are especially true in regard to the textures of clothing where the excessive filtering used on the Region 1 domestic release results in blurring of the finer details across the horizontal plane. Sadly, like Bjoern has said, this degrading filtering effect is present on both Region 1 releases of The Fellowship of the Ring, and now (obviously) the Region 1 theatrical edition release of The Two Towers. I’m compelled to believe that the extended edition of the Two Towers will suffer the same fate in November.

Does the domestic R1 Two Towers DVD look "bad"? I certainly do not believe so, and I must say the same for both Fellowship of the Ring releases. All deliver a very impressive image! However, the fact remains that the releases do not look as good as they could for reasons not as a result of compression, but the absolutely needless application of the horizontal filtering. This is really rather unforgivable in my mind as there is absolutely no excuse for it being added when, as Bjoern rightly says, it does precisely the reverse of what those who added it had thought it would do.

Given the importance of the films and the place they have assured themselves in history, as someone who’s main priority with a DVD is the image mastering and sound, it saddens me to see such a questionable and pointless process being implemented during the mastering process on these discs. When you can look at the PAL versions of Fellowship, and see their higher vertical AND horizontal detail, if you know your PAL and NTSC differences, you’d immediately note what’s wrong with that picture. One frankly has to wonder if the R1 Fellowship of the Ring release deserves these nominations and awards it’s received for its mastering.

Aside from this issue, the R1 Two Towers disc is pleasing all round. The addition of Sean Astin’s ‘The Long and the Short of it,’ plus its making of, made for some really charming and original supplements on disc two.

The audio is fine. As is typical from New Line, it's another Mi Casa job (I’ll admit I don’t really warm to their audio mastering), so those familiar with the way they go about things should know what to expect. Be sure to switch off your THX/Re-EQ processing if your components carry such an option.

Dan (UK)

 

[Brent M]

Dan,

My system has the THX Ultra2 feature. Please let me know why I should turn this off when watching TTT. Thanks.

 

[Simon Young]

I'm saddened to hear that the PAL releases of Fellowship and Towers carry that much more detail. I had heard that they also carried more compression artifacts, but perhaps this is not the case. However, the soundtracks on the PAL versions were all given pitch-correction via time-compression, which resulted in horrible audio glitches throughout.

Comparing the two, I'd much rather have a slightly less detailed picture and correct audio.

 

[Dan Brecher]

Brent,

I would switch it off if UltraII's movie mode still applies re-EQ to the entire set up, yes. Only Ultra 2 Music mode deactivates re-EQ for the front channels is that right? I've not had much first hand experience with Ultra II as I'd like I must admit.

Mi Casa basically add Re-EQ in the mastering process. Theres a whole big thing we could get into here regarding the X-Curve and whether the way Mi Casa go about mastering the audio for DVD is genuinely benificial or not, but that's the basics of it.

In theory then, you shouldn't need to activate THX Re-EQ on your system because Mi Casa is meant to do all that at source. Naturally, neither the box nor disc alerts users to this.

Simon,

However, the soundtracks on the PAL versions were all given pitch-correction via time-compression, which resulted in horrible audio glitches throughout.

I must say reports of any audio problems with the PAL release of the Extended Edition seem to differ from person to person. I should borrow my brother's copy and give a a whirl just to see out of interest. In my like to retain the intended running time though, I still wouldn't replace my NTSC version...

Dan (UK)

 

[Simon Young]

Reports may well differ - but the people who say it's not there are wrong. Trust me, I've heard it with my own ears. And before anyone suggests that perhaps two different versions exist...which is more likely? That two entirely different masters were used simultaneously, or that some people's ears just aren't that well trained?

Bottom line - the audio was pitch-corrected, it does contain glitches (how can it not, when time-compression is used?!) and it's like that on ALL the PAL versions, theatrical and extended.

 

[Joe Woj]

In case anyone is interested there's a DVD review up at Electronic Reality...


http://www.electronicreality.co.uk/r...two_towers.php

 

[Dave H]

Bjoern and Dan,

I have always sensed something wasn't quite right or "perfect" with Fellowship of the Ring (Extended). I couldn't place my finger on it exactly, but your comments clearly state the nature of the problem. Lack of detail - and even a slight smearing - is evident. Even though this DVD looked good - even very good - it still didn't match up to other reference quality DVDs I have.