LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY 4K UHD BLU-RAY REVIEW - Bad 4K DNR and a 2K UPSCALE? Screencaps Comparison 

Note - some people have picked up on my referring to Super 35 as Super Cine. My apologies if that is incorrect. I've always used the two terms interchangeably. Please do not let this take away from the issues I'm presenting in this video. Thanks!

This is a brilliant review. Don’t apologize for being too detailed or that it may bother people. We come to you because these details ARE important to us and I appreciate all of your research. DNR has been crippling so many tv shows and films.

I feel that Peter Jackson's decision to make the 35mm transfers of TLOTR blend seamlessly with the digitally shot Hobbit have ruined the beauty of celluloid film. DNR has absolutely scrubbed away lovely grain, detail and depth. The benefit of these UHD discs over the Blu-ray's is high bit-rate and HDR - but they could have been so much better if the glorious 35mm had been allowed to breathe.

Apparently they added this processing to The Hobbit as well. As for "trying to make it look digital", you just can't do that. It's not actually possible. With film, detail is build FROM grain, so you take grain away, you take detail away. With digital, there's not as much grain, but you don't sacrifice detail to get there. It's just because the way they gather light causes less of a loss of accuracy. Although they often actually just shoot at a higher resolution and supersample it down to achieve the lower noise effect. The Hobbit for example shot on 5K and was edited in 2K.

The grain and warmer color tones is what I actually adored about these movies, it gives them that magical/surreal feeling, with this new 4K treatment they lost that special thing, they look blend for the majority of time, plus all of the effects become more visible, so much they make it hard for me to enjoy the movie, since you can actually see the majority of effects (you can see the difference in color of characters and backgrounds etc). In old version everything was blended so much better. If it is possible they should've just upscale the resolution and leave everything as it is.

I remember owning these movies on vhs...how far we have come.

Remember that there are the original theatrical blurays, which have the original colours as per the theatrical DVDs, lovely! Those are my default versions to watch. The extended versions were then giving the revised colour grading 'scheme', on purpose. Green, brown and blue respectively (the box art colours give a big clue). Jackson said it was intentional and I dont know why this has been forgotten. It drives me nuts that they keep effing around with colour grading on so many remasters.

Lord of the rings are my favourite films of all time, the smoothing and dnr is really disappointing. Fair play for going out of your way to cover it, in that much detail though.

Great review. As much as I enjoyed the films in 4k (and it does look much better in motion than in still frames), I also noticed DNR and it bothered me. HOWEVER, my impression is that the quality varies immensely from shot to shot. I suspect that much of the live-action footage was indeed scanned in 4k from the original camera negative with only slight DNR processing applied. However, all shots that include special effects (which might not be noticeable special effects, such as removal of airplane condensation stripes in the sky) were taken from the existing 2k DI and subjected to EE and DNR. Often even within the same scene, some shots look extremely digitally processed, while other shots look much more natural. This is especially noticeable in the aftermath of the Warg battle in TTT (when Legolas and Theoden discuss leaving the dead behind). In contrast to this, look at the detail in Gandalf's face in FOTR when giving encouragement to Frodo in Moria (after Frodo notices Gollum). To me, this does not look like a 2k upsample.

100% agree with everything said, I will be sticking with my extended edition blu-rays as the more natural, closest to film experience. I don’t mind the black crush here and there cuz it looks like the actual photography. Let me ask you this guys, if viewing art in a museum would you prefer to view the art in it’s original (or closest to) form, or through some instagram filter that plays to a modern audience? HDR, 4K, and the process of remastering should be used as a tool to restore not change, not add or take away. As good as the audio might be watching the video this way with DNR and unnatural HDR effect is took distracting. It’s too shiny and slick, and the Lord of the Rings never looks like that. I should know, I projected them on film myself when they came out.

Can we get a petition going for a non-DNR version?

This is incredibly informative, can't thank you enough!!

After watching the movies myself i completley agree with you. Even my friends who never watched a 4k-bluray before noticed the lack of filmgrain and how all the CGI-effects (like Gollum) look much worse than on the bluray. Sadly we have a massive problems with LotR: Bluray (Standard Version) from 2011: heavy use of DNR, low contrast, but the color grading was fine Bluray (Extended Version) from 2012: no heavy use of DNR, some edge enhancement but not offensive, great contrast, green tint in the first movie, other two look fine 4k Bluray: heavy use of DNR, loss of detail, edge enhancement, great color grading and impressive HDR-implementation So each version has its own strength and weaknesses. I prefer the Extended Bluray. I can live with the green tint in the first movie. Got used to it :P

I find it remarkable that, directly compared, the 1080p Bluray shows more detail than the 4k one. They didn't just mildly reduce noise. They completely smeared it. And what is all the "making it look digital" talk about? First of all it clearly harms the source material. And secondly why would you make two trilogies look more alike by using the inferior one as the reference?

Great review. I feel that far too few have reviewed this release with an actual eye for detail. The more people who talk about destructive film “remastering,” the better. It’s absurd that companies try and pass off poor releases to the public, knowing most people won’t be able to see what they’re doing wrong.

This is how a review should be. Talk about the fast stuff first and digg into details further into the vid(if your interested, you will follow) and yes this was so interesting and well put toghether as a reiview. Great vid and great job! I am an audio engineer and cant wait to hear the new atmos track for this 4k version. But im so dissapontied about the DNR and scrubbing of details u mentioned theyv done in this tho:( But a will have to watch it to conclude anything. Maybe this version actually suits a 4k HDR Tv over a bluray verision on a Full HD tv.

That shot of pippin in the distance having less detail kind of defeats the purpose of higher resolution doesn’t it?

Hey dude great analysis. I appreciate you showing screen shots to illustrate your point. This was the best breakdown of these transfers I have seen yet

The Hobbit has probably one of the worse use of edge enhancement I have seen on UHD so far... The 1080p blu-ray discs look better. LOTR UHD has a better treatment with a very good HDR grading, but a radical change from the original photography. Again, definition wise it's sometimes slighty better as the 1080p discs, but for most of the time it has no improvement whatsoever due to a massive use of DNR. 5/5 on blu-ray dot con... They clearly are blind or have been paid by Warner to give these discs such good ratings.

I keep reading reviews online: some love it, some hate it. But I really appreciate your review here. You go into great detail about how everything works and the costs of getting it "right". As well as providing screencaps to help show your point. Not to mention you have a soothing voice lol. I'm torn between the film grain of the blu-rays, and the HDR and Dolby Atmos of the 4Ks.

Nice in depth review! Not sure how I feel about the colour timing change. I've seen these each countless times and I feel the change in colour will be destracting. The audio you described sounds epic! Cheers

Finally someone who point out that this was not just a sunshine story as it seems all other reviews are saying. Thank you sir! I just saw the 4k extended version yesterday, did a whole marathon and I saw alot of the things your telling in the still pictures even without seeing this video first. The staff was one of them 😦

"Perhaps this is the best these movies will ever look" - Elliot Coen

Really appreciate the attention to detain in this review Elliot, I have been tempted by the 4K release for a while, but I'll stick to the Blu-ray versions which I love!

It's great to find a UK based 4k collector. Great in depth review. Thank you.

I've watched so many reviews of the 4k release and they were all super positive. I'm thankful for this video for being the only one that's actually noticed these problems. That Shadowfax one was particularly egregious

So glad to see this video doing well, keep up the good work, man!

Funny I've watched a bunch of reputable youtubers review this and none of them said anything like this. Interesting. But to be fair I've watched all of these 4k releases on my properly calibrated tv and my tv shows better imaging than these screenshots (side by side on the tv) great video

Peter Jackson wants Lord of the Rings to fit in with the Hobbit, not the Hobbit to fit with Lord of the Rings. Sad to say I am getting George Lucas vibes from him.

I got the 2010 Blu-ray versions of these. The picture on them is outstanding

Loved the review. Honestly, you have one of the best thorough reviews and I appreciate it. Wish it was a little longer. Hope to see your review of the Hobbit trilogy.

You saved me money with this review. I’ll wait till they address these issues, if they ever do. I don’t know why they’d want to remove the grain anyways, it makes it timeless.

Just wanted to say you are completely right in your assessment. I am all for re-scanning and increase detail and some noise reduction can be fine but this is far too much. I see it like this: Noise reduction is okay, as long as you can't make out the noise reduction. If I had to choose between visible noise reduction and visible noise I would choose noise every time. It's actually less distracting too, because it's uniform and randomly distributed.

I still miss the color timing of the original DVD I wish they would do the color temperatures of that release but with more subtlety and in 4k uhd

Thanks, very constructive review. Noise reduction is a tool that should be handled with caution, happens to me when treating photos I took in RAW format. I just hope that the box set they announced for next summer will tackle these issues

Great review. It's refreshing to hear an honest, and rare, review of this box set and it's many flaws. I'd lost faith in almost all film reviewers, as I'm sure you're aware, many reviews have claimed this to be one of the best 4k transfers ever! I'd love to know what you think about the Akira 4k uhd release, I've returned my copy after having learnt that HDR has been omitted.

This is the reason why I returned my 4K trilogy and kept the bluray. So much better.

Thanks for the information, Elliot. Glad I am waiting on these. Such a shame they didn't make them better.

Thanks for your very informative thoughts!! I’ll be definitely sticking with my old blu-ray set!!👍

Thank you for your time spend on this! Much appreciated.

Your suggestion that visual effects would have to be reapplied following a 4K rescan is incorrect. The visual effects shots were originally rendered out at 2k and then printed to film as individual shots. For this year's remaster these film outs were rescanned. Essentially what they did this year was reconform the film from the original negative and regrade it. Enjoying the channel. Keep up the good work 👍

Dang. Honestly I haven't picked up the set yet. This was a very interesting video and thank you for being honest as well. I am still planning to pick the set up and wait for the big boxset that will come out in 2021. Also I will keep the blu-ray extended edition boxset just because it is very nostalgic for me and it was my first box set I ever own in my collection. take care and have a good one. -Bernardo Cisneros

Great review, bud. what are you rocking for audio currently? I don't have a setup at all and am looking for any recommends on Atmos or even just a surround set up. Cheers!

I just finished the Fellowship. I loved it in so many ways but I did notice the inconsistency in the faces. There were times that there was a lot of detail in the face and other times I noticed the smoothing. The screen captures you used yes look bad but then at other times the detail is incredible. You can see individual blood vessels, spots and count the various beard hairs. Inconsistent. The sound really is the standout improvement. I marveled at the Rivendale sequences and how much detail there is and I am still on THX.

Just watched the 4K discs over the weekend on my Panasonic player and LG OLED and everything seemed fine to my naked eye. I was purposely looking for strange things to pop up like you referenced in this video - makes me curious what the person who captured the screen shots viewed on.

Will never sell my extended blurays :D

Thank you for taking the time and explaining everything so eloquently.

Highly thorough review, and not what I was expecting. I can only recommend one thing when watching these in 4K, considering the things you have now highlighted... drink more beer and the enjoyment will be there.

According to The Digital Bits, they did go back to the original negatives to generate true 4K scans, but where there were VFX included those composites had been finished digitally in 2K, so they had to upscale those shots to 4K.

Subscribed. Glad I discovered this channel :) Great video. :)

Great video. Thanks for doing the hard work on this.

Very ilustrative! I believe I can live with those little details. Thanks!

That was a good Gandalf Staff find. It's a shame tho. I guess I'll just hang on to my Blu-ray for now. Maybe in another few years they'll release a better restoration.

Awesome review. First I've seen that was honest

Great review and thank you. Can you offer an overall opinion of audio/video quality (your preference) between 4K Hobbit or 4K LOTR ?

Absolutely brilliant and intelligently and patiently explained. Very helfpul. Yes, it's a lot of technical detail but I felt he brings a great deal of authenticity. I used to read a lot of audio/videophile journalism, and this is amongst the most expert insight I could expect to read or hear. Great work.

There's an interview with Peter where he talks about the restoration process, it's indeed a 4K scan. And though I think the new color timing lacks some of the old personality, IMO they have gone for a more timeless palate.

Man, your voice is so soothing. Like there's not much emotion but maybe that's what makes it so calming. Great review! Now I'm gonna check out some of your other videos

Thanks for this in-depth review. It counter-balance the other four in-depth reviews I have watched the last week here on You Tube. Well, I have already bought the 4K set, and still looking forward to seeing this!

So which version is worth buying now? I bought the extended blu rays for christmas, is it better to buy the 4k or can i stick to my purchase?

I agree with virtually everything you are saying about each screenshot, but when actually watching the movies and not staring at screencaps, I personally like both versions. I could see myself watching the Blu-Rays whenever I want that more authentic, filmic look, and the 4Ks when I'm looking for the amazing audio and crisp picture (too crisp arguably, but still nice to watch for some people). And I think I will almost always go for the 4K when watching the Extended Editions, just because of the awful green-ish tint on the Blu.

I have the original extended DVD editions of LoTR trilogy and to-be-honest apart from the obvious resolution limitations. I rather watch them then any releases after as there the ones who (in my opinion) are more superior in-terms of colour grading and the intricate details such as the DVD menus and transitioning into other menus then the Blu-ray releases. Also, the countless memories of watching the DVD releases with friends and family, when they first came out add to the enjoyment of viewing them.

16:38 I was literally in the process of typing exactly what you said at this point!

Great review, I currently have the DVD extended edition. From this video I suspect that I'd be better getting the BR version and letting my player upscale to 4k

Fantastic review of the 4K Blu-Ray. Unfortunately I'll have to sit this one out, and enjoy my 1080 version. Shame I won't have the Atmos track, but the visual differences are a deal breaker for me.

So, I would need to buy FHD and UHD versions, rip both, an combine FHD image with UHD sound. Nice!

What you think is the result of noise reduction is, I think, more of the result of the upscaling process. i'm using a famous denoiser everyday since years, and you can fine tune it to be non intrusive. What I see is more of a local contrast il some shot, like what you can obtain with the MD (midtone) in Davinci Resolve for example, BUT in this case the default is more likely produced in my opinion by the upscaling process. And for the noise with the oliphant for example, I'm pretty sure there is not a lot noise in the original shots, it's been added in post to fit the format, so the smallest the format, the biggest the grain size will appear, and in 4K the grain will appear smaller. So the process of adding grain is not the same in small format vs 4K, the result can be different, even if they add the choice to maintain a big grain in some shot if they have wanted to. Just my opinion.

You saved me money. So weird that they wanted to get LOTR to match the Hobbit movies, but not vice versa. This is some George Lucas level crap. And I understand why, to be fair, the technology changes sure. But to me the bigger issue is that these films were made for the cinema, not the small screen. Things like grain or whatever play different on a massive screen. The cinema does not pause or go in slow motion at the click of a button either. It really is a different medium.

Weird how at first glance the 4K discs look grainy to me in my Samsung Q80T (HDR10)

Great review, thanks!

Wow, good job. My takeaway from this, had ATMOS audio not been added, your final comments might have been to pass on this version. It seems the audio upgrade may have ‘saved’ this 4K release ???

My word you're good at this. Never seen someone be so thorough! Things like pointing out Shadowfax and his wandering ear is amazing. I'll stick with my blu rays (tbh I bought those for like £5 each as well, not £75!). You're like the Digital Foundry of movies lol. Top stuff.

I wish they made the 4K version with the look of the 2010 release.

Sorry I’m late to the show : love the review Elliot. What would say is the best edition of the theatrical and extended cuts of Lots of the Rings Trilogy to purchase ? Is blu ray better in this case ?? I have dvd copies from the original home. Video release period, and had been interested in upgrading to 4K or a newer / better blu ray remaster ?? Thanks

It’s absolutely insane that Peter Jackson wants to make Lotr look like the hobbit and not the reverse, and especially through using so much DNR. I’ve just seen a cinema screening of the 4K version and it looked atrocious.

Jeff at “Films at Home” said “Lord of the Ring Trilogy” 4K is the best & greatest picture quality ever! 😖

Well... that's quite a different take than Films at Home had.

Very instructive review. I will stick to my extended version Bluray since we do not have Dolby Atmos in French language.

I appreciate your honesty and your research. I do think it is a little nitpicky seeing as how most of what you mentioned would really only be seen if you stopped the movies and watched frame by frame which would never happen in a normal viewing of the films so it will most likely be missed. I don’t yet have a full opinion of LOTR on 4K since I’ve only finished Fellowship but what I saw and especially heard I liked. Something that stood out the most in Fellowship, for me, was the detail on the Balrog. You could see more embers and detail in the fire. Mix that with HDR to further the contrast between the fire and the shadow! However sometimes the HDR can be pretty intense. I noticed that you couldn’t really see the Balrogs hoof as it starts to walk across the bridge because the blacks of the shadow are so intense it covers up the detail on the hoof. Just a very minor nitpick I noticed and in no way hurts the viewing experience. I finished The Hobbit and I was especially impressed with it on 4K. You could really tell Peter Jackson had the 4K experience in mind when filming The Hobbit. The CGI was a lot less distracting on 4K than on the Blu-Ray. The CGI felt a little too smooth on Blu-Ray but they added a bit more detail on the 4K release and it just felt a tad more lifelike but of course that is just my opinion. I noticed a lot more detail on Bolg, the Goblin King, Gollum and especially Smaug. Gollum and Smaug already looked great but the detail on them on 4K, every shot of them was just breathtaking. A lot more colors and detail in Smaug’s scales and eyes and gold coins stuck on him throughout his body which I never noticed on the Blu-Ray!

The correction to the color timing and Dolby Atmos tracks make me want to grab this, but I can't help but feel disappointed from the 4k transfer as a whole. I'll wait for a price drop before I consider buying it.

Your critique of this 4K conversion seems to be utterly genuine and spot-on .. Great stuff.

Excellent review. New subscriber for sure. Thank you!

FANTASTIC review! I applaud your review, attention to detail, and excellent examples. Elliot, your dedication for this comparison is greatly appreciated.

I totally agree with Elliot with basically everything he said about this 4K release.

Thank you so much for watching! Have you bought the Lord of the Rings Trilogy on 4K already? If so, have you found any issues with it at all? Are you pleased with the HDR Dolby Vision on these discs?

Excellent review and loving your channel, as a film lover and film collector, it's a treat!

Thanks for this video! I watched Lord of the Rings in the theatre multiple times when it was first released. It's absolutely one of my favourite movies so I've been watched so many times on DVD, Blu-ray as well. I was so excited for 4K release and while I was watching it, I just knew that picture was somewhat strange. I didn't know exactly what was wrong, I just noticed it looks like weirdly fake digitally-filmed. Now I know what was really wrong. To me this 4K release removes real nostalgic cinematic feelings for the Lord of the Rings movies. I love the Dolby Atmos sound but I still prefer 1080p Blu-Ray release. It's more original to me. Again, thanks for the video and what an amazing channel!

this is so in-depth. That part where Gandalf loses his staff also shows part of the horse's ear before it turns its head.

Thanks for the review! Finally somebody is addressing the flaws these UHDs have!

Great observations and honest review!

I'm glad you've pointed out the things like the erased staff and the weird ghosting effect with the horse. Not worth the full price for sure for an unfinished product.

I actually hate DNR and love film grain. 🎥 🎞

Really appreciate your honesty. Some U.S. reviewers have hyped this up.

Thank you! I will check it out. Which screen size were you watching on?

Thank you for this review. I was afraid that this 4K was actually 2K, and I was well aware of issues regarding the DNR. I'm not opposed to a light sprinkling of DNR as it's helped with some restorations in the past when done with more mild algorithms, but they cranked it up to max and it shows here. The edge enhancement? That wouldn't have been needed at all if they'd gone through the work of recapturing from the film at 8K or 16K and then downsampled that to 4K (I suggest doing that so that in the future when they do another transfer they can make an 8K release). Edge enhancement as far as I can tell was done as a "cover" to hide it being a transfer. I'm not personally opposed to a new color grading. The movies should at least match each other in that sense as a trilogy, ignoring the Hobbit of course. I am opposed to that cheesy dream effect tacked on though. All in all, while this isn't anywhere near what happened with the Star Wars movies, some of the choices in this transfer seem more like a director imposing a vision post-hoc rather than being satisfied that he made some of the best movies of all time and making that original trilogy be the best version of itself possible. I'd love to see a new version of this done derived from a proper future-proof 16K digital transfer from the original film, a VERY mild touch of DNR, no edge enhancement, and an approach to color timing that simply made the first movie match up better with the other two without any weird choices like making the dream sequence more stereotypically dreamy.

In the comparisons that I've seen, I think the coloring of the 4K discs looks MUCH better than the Blu Rays. I'm glad they corrected that horrible green tint in Fellowship for instance, although the black and white in the "vision" is a bit strange. I can see the DNR in comparisons though, and that is a major shame and I wish they hadn't done that, but I still think the 4K looks better than the Blu Ray overall from what I see so far. (Admittedly I haven't been able to watch the actual discs myself yet, though, because the person who wants to watch them with me is unavailable for a short while so I have to wait for them)

According to TheDigitalBits.com, they did go back to the original camera negatives to do a full 4k scan. In addition, they also went back to the original VFX reels and scanned those in 4K. The only up scaling that occurred were the visual effects because those were originally rendered in 2K. The original camera negatives are natively 4K. They then created a new 4K digital intermediate to create these discs. They’re as close to natively 4K as they’re going to get short of spending the time and money to completely redo the VFX shots. thedigitalbits.com/item/lord-of-the-rings-trilogy-2020-4k-uhd

VLC player has a pretty cool feature where you can adjust the sharpness of an image and also add noise, it helps when watching blurry 720P and less on a 4K TV, It would probably help on these 4k releases too

Great review and analysis Elliot!

I have these and thay looked amazing to me on 4k. But i was only watching them to enjoy not to review so i wasn't pauseing or zooming in the films. Plus this trilogy is about 10 hours long so i wouldn't worry about a few wee things like the top of Gadalfs staff disappearing for a few frames as u wont notice it as your watching the film. Plus its definitely worth buying the 4k LOTR for the new Dolby Atmos soundtrack alone. Omg so much better then the blurays DTS hd soundtrack. i love these films, could be my favourite movie trilogy.