given the long wait, by the time of the EE's making their hidef releases, who knows maybe the next generation of 4K players/monitor's will be out by then.

You people saying you will be "holding" out will be the first ones to jump on when Amazon sells all three of them for $50.

Care to make it interesting?

EDIT: I will say this - if there are new extras, especially in HD, that will be exclusive to these releases, I will buy them just for that. These are some of the few films I will buy for extras.

I don't see how anyone can accept that Saruman's fate is never addressed in the ROTK TE. That was the biggest mistake they made with any of the TE's. If he had been included in the TE I'd find it much more palatable.

IMO, the FOTR EE gives more of a sense of a "journey" to the hobbits' trek to Rivendell. In the TE it just seems like <zip>, they're there.

I'll wait for the Gold Box deal.

Agreed....thats why Ill stick with my EE DVDs until they release them on BD.

I'm actually glad to hear that this initial release will only be the theatrical cuts....that makes them so much easier for me to turn down!
I will wait for the extended editions.....as a couple others have stated, I would rather watch the extended cuts upconverted on DVD than the theatricals in HD!

Guess I'll be getting a blu-ray player when the Extended Editions are out. I was originally going to get one when the first Criterions were going to be released, but I was layed off recently. Glad to hear they're going to release both versions, though. I'm also glad they'll release the theatricals first because blu-ray players will be cheaper by the time the extendeds come out.

No, the biggest mistake was not addressing it in the TTT TE. The battle against Saruman and his minions is the main focus of that film, so he should have been dealt with at the end. It even feels out of place in the ROTK EE. Hey, let's wrap up the battle with a primary villain of the story at the beginning of a movie - great idea!

What happened with his face?

FOTR: TE has been available in HD (for rental only) on Apple TV for a little while.

Anyone checked it out??

The quality of other HD movies I've rented from iTunes is very good but not as good as Blu Ray.

I loved the movies but those are films I already upgraded once and haven't watched them in a very long time. They are very long and once I get started on "series" films I like to watch them all. So I need a week where I have several nights for 4 hour movies.

Can anybody tell me if there is a big difference between the 6 disc LOTR extended version trilogy box set and the 12 disc platinum edition?

The 12-disc set has each movie spread across 2 different discs, allowing for higher bit rates in the video, as well as DTS audio. There is also alot more bonus features included.

The 6 disc sets you speak of, are those the ones that include both theatrical and extended editions via seemless branching? If you want to know the big difference, it would have to be the amount of extras I would assume, that, and having both versions of the films available instead of just the EE's.

I agree on this and was really disappointed with TTT at the time when this wasn't resolved. I guess my point was, given TTT as it was, a year later it was another poor decision to leave it out of the TE of ROTK.

Yes, the 12 disc set is the one you want. The 6-disc set, I got all 3 for like $5 a piece on Amazon's Marketplace. They're good for the fly-on-the-wall doc's on the second disc but that's it. The video doesn't look even remotely as good. 'specially upconverted.

Thanks to all for the rapid feedback. I've read somewhere that there are 2 versions of the extended versions. I was hoping the 6 disc set would also be 2 discs per movie since I've already got the theatrical version on 3 single discs. My PS3 does a great job of up-converting but I can really spot the video artifacts in these movies. That would be a problem with any 3 hour movie compressed into a single DVD.

I’d like to wait for the Blu-Ray since I have seen them in HD via satellite (1080i) but they’ve been slipping the ship dates. Besides that, most speculate the extended versions won’t be released on Blu-Ray until well after the theatrical versions. Many complain about buying the movies twice, but myself and others will be forced to buy 3 times if we jump on the first Blu-Ray. Cost may be another factor. If the platinum versions are still well over $100, surely the Blu-Ray will cost even more. I'd like to buy the Blu-Ray just once. If I’m going to buy 3 times anyway, I may as well have a lower cost, good quality extended version while I wait.

If only I could find the 2 dics extended versions by themselves, I'd be happy.

http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-Pic...1086201&sr=8-5
These aren't hard to find. You can probably do even better with some digging. The $80 here is not too much more than these cost on release.

There were 3 different releases of the LOTR films on DVD:

1) Theatrical Edition (TE) 2 disc
2) Extended Edition (EE) 4 disc (movie on 2 discs)
3) Theatrical/Extended Limited Edition (LE) 2 disc (movie on both sides of disc 1)

The LE has both the theatrical and extended cuts viewable via seamless branching on one disc, but it's a double sided disc. You have to flip the disc in the middle of the film, regardless of what cut you're watching. Also, the LE dropped the DTS and commentary tracks. I'm not sure why they didn't just make it a 3 disc set, but I think there was some marketing appeal to having "both cuts on one disc!"

On top of that, it wasn't much cheaper than the EE, and now it's OOP.

Here's the link to the EE:
Here's a link to the LE:
http://www.amazon.com/Rings-Trilogy-...dp/B000GTLR2A/

Here's a review of the LE:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/23916...towers-le-the/

Personally, I'd go with the EE, since it has better audio and extras, and doesn't cost any more than the LE if you buy them individually.

This 6 disc box set at dvdsetsforless.com claims to be the Extended Editions. Are these the same movies that come in the Platinum Edition 12 disc set? For $59.00, I could do without the extra behind the scenes discs.

I can't post the actual url until I get to 15 posts

http://www.dvdsetsforless.com/lord-of-the-rings.html

This? Appear to be bootlegs to me. Buy the original Extended sets for less than these bootlegs. The extended editions are regularly $20 at DeepDiscount a piece. $60 for all three EE versions. 12 DVDs.

Yes, that site. I believe you are correct regarding the bootlegs but I have not seen the 12 disc set for less than $99.95 in stock.

Best Buy has the individual EEs for $20 each:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....&cp=1&id=62779
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....cp=1&id=371838
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....p=1&id=1357636

You'll have to go to a store to pick them up though.

You can buy the LE set here:
http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-28092...ku%3D202845611