I loved the Fellowship EE, but I have only been able to watch The Return of the King EE once since it came out. Its just too damn long.

I'm happy to be proved wrong, but I'll be surprised if the films debut in anything other than the Theatrical cuts. I'll bet a lot of people who say they wouldn't buy the Theatrical would cave if it was the only game in Blu town.

Then after a decent interval, they'll sell us the extended. It worked for them on DVD, and it'll work for them again on Blu. Why sell us a movie once rather than twice?

But I'll be happy to be wrong! :)

They were very up-front about their release plans re: theatrical and extended cuts on SD-DVD. I hope that continues through to the Blu-ray releases.

I'll wait for extended cuts.

I just hope that Warner will utilize the full extent of the technology for the LOTR trilogy. Both theatrical and extended with lossless audio. Throw in the already created, extensive amount of extras and we have a potential benchmark BD release.

As will I.

There is no need to rush or double dip on anything.

but it wont be DTS-MA HD (damn you Warners, New Line merging into Warner permanently axed DTS) :sad:

Exactly....this is all I want....if Paramount can do this for the Godfather films, and Warner themselves already did this with the Matrix films, than Warner needs to step up to the plate again with this New Line property and deliver the goods....

There is absolutely no difference in quality between Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

Really I thought MA was 7.1 and trueHD was 5.1(or maybe 6.1)? The only MA I have heard is Pan's Labyrinth and it's incredible! The TrueHD ones I have(I.E. Harry Potter series) don't sound as good. I am finding out that it comes down to the transfer of the movie that makes the biggest difference. Example Batman Begins,now that is a very nice transfer and almost rivals Pan's !

The sound format doesn't dictate the number of channels, at least when it comes to the lossless formats. It just so happens that New Line and Lionsgate have been using DTS-HD MA (though with Lionsgate sometimes it's PCM) for their 7.1 titles. TrueHD is capable of 7.1, but I don't know of any such titles offhand. There are many 5.1 DTS-HD MA mixes too.

"Nightmare Before Christmas"

Run Fatboy Run - states 7.1 without TrueHD or DTS for that matter, or is that a typo on the back?

And that is what probably led you to conclude that one is better than the other. The reality is that, aside from the specific mechanisms and data rates used for storing the compressed bits, DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD are functionally identical (at least with respect to the way they are used on Blu-ray discs). Given the same audio master as a source, both formats will produce the exact same uncompressed bitstream during playback.

There may be some difference in the way that metadata is supported and/or properly exploited by the formats, but I have never examined either in enough detail to know.

For anyone confused about what features TrueHD offers, here is a reasonably good explanation at Dolby's site. I couldn't find anything comparable at DTS for their format, but I know the information "is out there."

Duh, and that's a recent release too. I haven't bought it yet though.

Highly recommended. I really liked the Christopher Lee narrated original poem feature, in particular.

I seem to remember ol' P.J. himself talking about the eventual HDM releases of LOTR probably two years ago (around the time leading up to the "King Kong" HD DVD). It sounded then like they might have some really big plans for these releases. Staggering the releases seems an odd tactic, though; I'd think they'd release the trilogy in a boxset a la "The Matrix" and then maybe get 'round to individual releases (and/or re-releases) sometime later. Unlike with that trilogy, though, there's probably more chance that each of the LOTR films will still sell without having to be bundled all together. Same logic applies with "The Godfather", I'd imagine.

I admit it was extremely funny, but I still think those films are great epics.
I'll watch them over and over again, I just can't wait for Jackson to release it on Blu-Ray...

Cool thanks for the info. I still hope they put out LOTR trilogy in MA! I might buy it if it's in TrueHD but we will see :)

It's your money to do with as you please, so long as you realize that your logic makes absolutely no sense.

If:

Original studio master = 0101011010101111

Then:

Dolby TrueHD = 0101011010101111
DTS-HD Master Audio = 0101011010101111

What you're saying is that you prefer the third 0101011010101111 over the second 0101011010101111, which doesn't seem nearly as good to you.

It appears there are not enough 1's - no sale.

I've always kinda liked the DTS logos better than the DD ones . . .:)

Yes you might be right be of what I've heard on my system it sounds better(IE: compared Batman Begins)........But I do kind agree with of some of it........ but I think alot has to do with the transfer.........for example IMO I am hard-pressed to find a movie tranfer better than LOTR Trilogy especially Fellowship of the Rings(in DTS of course :) ) also I think Titanic is a reference disc also....The audio and video transfer on these are excellent! Fellowship will rival any TrueHD I have :) ...only way to compare is if they come out with it in TrueHD or MA then I could compare :)......
Well for me there aren't many movies I would re-buy on BD especially at the prices they sell them for now!
I haven't even bought a BD player yet. There is no movie I have to see that bad to pay $299! for a player(stand alone for me). I am looking to try to take advantage of the Sony CC offer($150 off) and get the 350 for $150 :) That I can handle :)
To each their own.........I like the audio portion of these movies and would love to here LOTR in 7.1 :) (true 7.1)

Batman Begins is not available with a DTS-HD MA track, so how would you do a comparison?

If you really want to compare, get Close Encounters, one of the few titles with both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA.

no not in MA in TrueHD :) Do they Have it on HD DVD? or is it just on BD?

I thought you were saying that you had used Batman Begins to compare TrueHD to DTS-HD MA.

Close Encounters is BD only; it's from Sony.

You can't compare soundtracks of completely different movies and draw conclusions about the quality of their audio compression codecs.

TrueHD and DTS Master Audio are both lossless compression formats. Lossless = No loss. They're like ZIP files for audio. What you put in is exactly what you get out. If you ZIP a Word document and then unZIP it later, do you lose any letters or words in the process? Of course not. The data is lossessly compressed and then restored upon decoding.

Maybe you just don't like the Batman Begins audio mix. That tells you nothing about whether TrueHD is inferior or superior to DTS-HD Master Audio.

Yes I know I meant DD to TrueHD..........and the transfer on Batman Begins is good :) .............. I want to compare TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio to Regular DTS since people were saying all three were identical

Well, any DTS-HD MA track has a DTS "core" which is full-bitrate (but lossy) DTS. However, it's selected automatically based on what the equipment supports, so you can't do a quick comparison using the audio button.

I guess you could connect both optical/coaxial and HDMI audio. That should allow you to swap between the core and the MA track.

DTS is not identical to TrueHD or DTS-HD MA. You may be thinking of PCM, which should be identical in output to TrueHD and DTS-HD MA, given the same mix.

It's highly unlikely any BD would ever have all three lossless audio formats. You can get a disc that has two of the three though. For example, the Close Encounters disc Drexl mentioned has both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. The newer Superman Returns BD has both TrueHD and PCM.

The Hong Kong Blu-ray of Red Cliff has all three with 7.1 mixes and is playable on Region A players. Sounds perfect for the kind of comparison SUPERMANROB wants.

This is what confuses me. This isn't a subjective debate where one can agree or disagree. It is simple fact. You can, of course, choose to accept or not accept the facts as presented, but that doesn't make them any less factual. You seem hung up on the fact that you heard a DTS-HD MA audio track that impressed you, and you are now convinced that what made it impressive is the audio codec used.

The logic used to arrive at that conclusion is faulty. The same audio track encoded with Dolby TrueHD would sound exactly the same as the DTS-HD MA version you heard. No difference. Similarly, any Dolby TrueHD audio track you may have heard that did NOT impress you would have been just as unimpressive had it been encoded with DTS-HD MA. Again, NO DIFFERENCE.

So are you saying all movies are transfered to the same quality and there is no difference in sound quality from one movie to the other?

I don't think so. I believe what Robodad trying to say is given the same master source, if you encode it in TrueHD and DTS MA, it should be identical. If not, then I'm sure Robodad will be by to clarify.

He's saying the audio track for a given movie will have the exact same quality, whether encoded with TrueHD, DTS-HD MA or PCM, if sourced from the same master.

The audio quality of two different movies will of course vary, but it is dependent on the quality of the audio mix itself (which is in the master), not on which lossless format is used for encoding.

Exactly. When dealing with TrueHD, DTS-HD MA and PCM, aside from their physical footprints on the disc, and the processing necessary to extract/decode them, they are all identical. I don't know how many ways it can be said. DTS-HD MA is no better (or worse) at representing any particular audio track than TrueHD or PCM, in any way imaginable.

Ok I think I got it now :)..........Ok one thing I want to clarify and the whole reason this all got started is? :) ........... Could (or will) there be a difference in sound quality between the DTS version of the LOTR trilogy I have now and IF they come out with a TrueHD or DTS-HD/MA version on BD?

Yes, DTS (without "-HD MA" attached) is a lossy format, even in its "full"-bitrate form. Personally, I think DTS should have made this more clear in the naming. There's actually a "DTS-HD" (no MA) that is yet another lossy format, but better than "standard" DTS.

guys thanks for the clarification

You probably aren't wrong

I'll netflix the theatrical BDs and hold out for the eventual EE box set.

Sounds like a good plan to me, too.