I picked up the trilogy from BB today, had a few hours and threw in Fellowship. I agree with the blu-ray.com review, overall I'd say the image was inconsistent. Some scenes looked quite good and really "popped", while others had an unnatural "softness" to them. I don't know what obvious DNR is supposed to look like, but maybe this is what I was seeing. I have to say it looked better than standard def discs, but is not what it could have been. I'm looking forward to the last two in the trilogy though, it sounds like some of the video issues have been fixed.
Ok, before I begin sharing my neophyte hypothesis, I just want you to know that I still am a video neophyte. For instance, when I watched
Public Enemies, there were scenes where the actors had this alien halo around them. I figured it must have been some really horrible EE, but after browsing around, it seems the consensus is that it's something else besides EE, as bad as it is.
This is what
obvious DNR looks like. You'll see the 2nd of 3 caps labeled as "Pattonized", as
Patton, at least for a long time, was considered the greatest offender as far as DNR. Unfortunately,
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is a pretty big offender as well.
Ok, so as I've described how I can't even always recognize EE, I wonder what things exist to make something look like excessive DNR. This said, if I was to make a far fetched assumption that DNR is the main thing going on, the most offensive scene to me was at the House of Elron, during the scene where the Fellowship was created. The faces were as waxy/pasty as I might have ever seen in a movie.
Why was this, though? The first part of my hypothesis for the usage of DNR is maybe it helps blend in the great amount of CGI. I think of a flick like
Transformers, where the CGI look super clean, and the live action stuff is grainier, particularly in dark scenes, less clean, and just doesn't "pop" as much as the CGI. IOW: would using less DNR make it so that the scenes were even less consistent than what you perceived? Personally, I didn't think the inconsistency was to an offensive level, but again, I'm a neophyte. Also, with
Transformers, at least the inconsistency between CGI and live action was segregated, well, between the two. With LOTR, there is SO MUCH CGI mixed in
with live action, in so many scenes, that . . . well . . . I dunno. A movie with greater inconsistency is probably
Shinobi, that j garcia gave a mini on here.
Now, to the topic of inconsistency, and your hope that the rest of the trilogy will look better, I have read this: all of the filming was done together, in a span of a bit more than a year IIRC, however, the post production processes were improved with successive releases, and that would be the reason that the latter movies would possibly look better.
Back to mixing with CGI, I will tell you that watching LOTR for me, on DVD, is rather painful. You can PLAINLY see the border around characters sometimes, for instance right before a character puts on the ring. It is clear as day that that the actor is just pasted right on there. How much DNR is necessary to aid the blending of blue screen acting? I really don't know. Perhaps none is needed whatsoever, but who knows, because I don't. How much better has CGI become in the last 8 years, or whatever it is. I don't know.
MidnightSensi has posted very interesting thoughts regarding CGI:
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=706929&postcount=10
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=707356&postcount=22
My nutshell:
IF the offending scenes were due to being all or almost all DNR, there better have been a damn good reason for it, or I'm pissed too. But, I really wouldn't be surprised if there was a reason, as I'm telling you the DVD is simply unwatchable in my theater, period. Inconsistency was not to a level that it bothered
me.
It is great to watch LOTR again, after these years.
I did have some minor audio issues, I'm not sure if they're because I'm using an htpc. I don't recall having this issue with any other movies, but every once in a while there was a slight "glitch" with the sound, an almost unnoticeable skip or pop in the audio. I heard it maybe a handful of times throughout the movie. Lately I've been watching most of my movies with headphones, I'm not sure if I would have noticed this without them. My htpc is more than powerful enough to play HD content without any problems. Blu-ray.com gave the audio 5/5, aside from my minor issue I have to agree, I cranked it up and really gave my Sennheiser 485's a workout.
I heard no pops, at all, but I know headphones can be extremely revealing. The surrounds were VERY engaged. While I was seated left of center, I was suspicious if the left side was running hotter. I have to get to checking this before tomorrow night's showing of TTT. I also have to admit that the every-once-in-a-while occurrence of me desiring multiple beefy subs happened again at least at one point during the movie.
