On the audio side of things, Warner’s new 4K UHD release also includes a brand new English Dolby Atmos mix (that’s 7.1 Dolby TrueHD compatible). And the most important thing you need to know is that, is that it’s—hands down—a reference quality cinema surround sound experience. For one thing, the soundstage is absolutely huge, and not just across the front—this is a truly complete and hemispheric sonic environment. Every channel is active at once, including the overheads, uniformly engaged in creating a sense of whatever space is being depicted on screen at that moment. Dialogue is crystal clear and naturally-positioned. Panning is so smooth as to seem effortless. And the dynamics! There are moments so soft and subtle they’ll take your breath away with tiny little environmental sound effects filtering in around you—burbling water, bird calls, insects at night. And then, in the middle of the action, the full sturm und drang of battle assaults you from all sides, as if to shake the very foundation of your house. Swords scrape, clash, and ring sharply, their sounds lingering in the air. The orc drums in the depths of Moria, the roar of the Balrog, Boromir’s horn of Gondor—you can practically feel the low end in your chest. One of the scenes that surprised me most with this mix was Gandalf and Saruman’s first confrontation in Orthanc—just listen to the surround panning and bass as Gandalf is being thrown around the room! It’s marvelous. And topping it all off, Howard Shore’s score has simply never sounded better, presented here in lossless fidelity. Additional audio options on the 4K EXTENDED EDITION discs include French 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and German, Italian, and Castilian Spanish in 6.1 DTS-HD MA, with optional subtitles in English for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, French, German for the Hearing Impaired, Italian for the Deaf, Castilian Spanish, Dutch, Simplified Chinese, Cantonese, Korean, Latin Spanish, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, and Thai. Additional audio options on the 4K THEATRICAL CUT disc include French 5.1 DTS-HD MA, German and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, Italian 6.1 DTS-HD MA, and Spanish 2.0 Dolby Digital, with optional subtitles in English for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, French, German for the Hearing Impaired, Italian for the Deaf, Dutch, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Latin Spanish, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, and Thai. split between two discs apiece. An even more lavish trilogy collection -- with the possibility of brand-new extras -- is planned for release One thing that I can assure you of here is that you will feel like you’re being completely encompassed by the sound mixes for the three films themselves on a level that has never been possible. It’s something out of this world. I love the pans from the right to left or left to right you’ll hear across the front and/or rear channels during some action scenes. I also love the pans from front to rear you’ll hear such as during the first film when a fireworks display involving a dragon feels to be coming right at you and those in said scene. It’s effective stuff like that and then the height channels add this really unique sound of it towering above that one cannot help but truly admire about this trilogy of films in the Dolby Atmos sound format. The amount of bass here, especially low-end bass, that you’ll feel via the subwoofer is downright tremendous. To say these mixes can get intense would become an understatement as I’m learning when writing this. For separate evaluations of each film's new Dolby Atmos audio mix, please see their individual listings. Also note that each movie's available In addition, there will be further releases during 2021 including a 4K UHD “Middle-earth” Ultimate Collectors’ Edition featuring the theatrical and extended versions of all six films, along with new bonus content, previously released Blu-ray discs of The Hobbit Trilogy and remastered Blu-ray discs of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. This is scheduled for release in the summer of 2021.

So, DNR has been applied to the new 4K DI (digital intermediate) new masters for each film, and it would seem was intended by the director himself. However, I personally don’t see that to be a dealbreaker of an issue. This still manages to hold a light amount of film grain, as I’ve seen with some other Super 35 source material when it comes to 4K. Furthermore, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy featuring remastered Blu-ray discs of the theatrical and extended versions of the 3 films will also be released in the fourth quarter 2021, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The dialogue is primarily driven from the center channel but there are a lot of occasions where you’ll hear dialogue carry over into the other channels such as rears, to set the atmosphere of a room or psychologically give you a bit of a treat. The dialogue never manages once to have any issues or be drowned out by any of the extremely intense action or music. These are perfect Dolby Atmos mixes by all means. The height channels make excellent use of sound effects and music and will totally leave your room filled, making you feel fully immersed in the listening experience. The mixes themselves are just so amazingly well-balanced between the front (left & right) channels, and the rear channels (2 or 4 depending on your setup), along with the extremely effective addition of the height channels (2 or 4 depending on setup).

Speaking of color, the previous green tint found on Blu-ray versions of these films is not at all an issue this time around. I was immediately asked about this by some readers. I can safely say that no green tint is at all present here, with things looking perfectly balanced in terms of color and the tones now seem natural. In fact, as briefly mentioned, the color timing here feels to have been heavily corrected on a level, in comparison to the original Blu-ray releases, that adds so much more to the presentation. Still, it’s not a 100% perfect visual presentation in 4K. Sure, each is an impressive improvement over the HD versions of these films but they come with some issues that I’ll discuss a bit below. The average consumer is likely to not even really care about these problems, in all due honesty but it’s something a home theater enthusiast will most certainly notice.

In terms of audio quality, “The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy” comes with some of the most impressive Dolby Atmos object-based surround sound mixes that I have ever heard. Each one of these three films, in either their theatrical or extended version, proves to be pure “demo material” from start to finish. To say these mixes can get intense would be a bit of an understatement. Each film will leave you feeling so much more immersed in the motion picture experience now thanks to the benefits of height channel speakers. The 6.1 surround sound mixes found on the previous Blu-ray releases of these films were pretty impressive themselves but now with Dolby Atmos, these films are able to be presented to you in an audio presentation that feels nothing short of otherworldly. Each one of these mixes earns a perfect 5 rating for audio quality, with enough “oomph” to leave this reviewer extremely pleased. But here’s the thing: I’ve been reviewing Blu-ray and DVD quality professionally now for twenty-three years on The Digital Bits, and 4K Ultra HD quality for the last four of those years. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 4K remaster that made quite this much of a difference over a previous Blu-ray release before. Let me get really, really, really technical, for a bit longer than usual here as I’ll be spanning across 9 discs, in regards to the 4K UHD Blu-ray Discs themselves here for this set. The first film, “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” in its theatrical cut is using a BD-100 (100 gigabytes) disc, 85.41 gigabytes total and 84.0 gigabytes for that theatrical cut itself. The second film, “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” in its theatrical cut is using a BD-100 (100 gigabytes) disc, 87.35 gigabytes total and 86.0 gigabytes for that theatrical cut itself. The third film, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in its theatrical cut is using a BD-100 (100 gigabytes) disc, 89.46 gigabytes total and 88.1 gigabytes for that theatrical cut itself. Warner’s new 4K Ultra HD release includes both the Theatrical Cuts and Extended Editions of each film, the former contained on a single UHD disc for each film while the latter are split over two UHD discs each. So let’s take a look at the A/V quality of each remastered film one by one…Due to the extensive nature of the Trilogy we’ll be updating this review with further moments from the two sequels.) The Movie Is this one to rule them all? That depends on if you’re asking if it is 100% perfect or if it’s one very impressive experience. No, it’s not 100% perfect in terms of video quality, but it is one very unforgettable experience in 4K and most especially in Dolby Atmos. The sound mixes are truly perfect and the most impressive part of this 4K UHD Blu-ray release. That’s not to say that the video quality doesn’t come with some excellent color correction in comparison to the Blu-ray and all, but at the same time it does come with the use of DNR (digital noise reduction). Still, these films have never looked better unless you have them on 35mm and a professional projector nearby. In the sea of streaming services, sometimes it is easy to get lost on where to watch what content. In this article, you will find all the information needed for watching all of The Lord of the Ring films and Hobbit films, on streaming services and digitally. Here you will find everything you need for organizing a Lord of the Rings marathon or simply to prepare for the upcoming The Rings of Power series. Is Lord of the Rings on HBO Max in 4K? Perhaps there also may have been a light use of some edge enhancement (EE) to sharpen things up here. Things can feel a tad bit different in terms of clarity in some scenes more than others, feeling sharper than others that feel softer. The CG visual effects, the makeup, costumes, miniatures, in-camera effects and all look impressive here and rarely show off many flaws. Still, one should keep in mind that these films were made almost 20 years ago and that CG effects and blue screen techniques have greatly improved since then in newer films. That said, they manage to definitely hold up visually in 4K and at times can feel impressive. However, this trilogy feels like it could have looked just slightly better somehow if they perhaps hadn’t applied so much DNR and left the original film grain and detail as sharp as it should have been. I just believe it could have looked a great deal better, but it’s almost enough to somewhat do these incredible motion pictures the visual justice they deserve. I still think that the average consumer will be pretty much happy with the 4K presentation, as I had mentioned, but some will find things that weren’t done correctly and prevent it from looking perfect. One of the things we found, which we weren’t really expecting, once we converted The Lord of the Rings films to 4K and HDR is the imperfections of the visual effects started to show.”

Editor’s Note: This review is now complete. A similar review of The Hobbit Trilogy in 4K Ultra HD is also now available here on The Digital Bits.]The result of all of Park Road’s hard work is a 4K image that’s not just massively better than the previous Blu-ray, but better than the very best theatrical experiences during the film’s original release. Watching Fellowship of the Ring now via this new 4K master with HDR is like seeing the film for the first time again. It’s not quite perfect, but it’s so much better looking than you’ve ever seen it before, that it’s a truly thrilling visual experience. In the second film the sound of the wind, early on, can be heard practically coming from the entire speaker configuration, and most especially via the height and rear channel speakers. The sound of horses galloping in large groups is something that will fill your room with a loud thunderous bit each time a scene comes up involving such. There’s a lot of oomph behind the sounds of horses galloping and even their neigh reactions. Things can truly get intense during the large battle scenes, especially when swords start swinging and orcs or humans in armies are present. The sounds in the forest, especially that of a tree (fairly early in) are downright monstrous in terms of bass and the amount of height and rear channel usage. The music here, now presented in Atmos, can go from softer to a level of intensity that’ll leave you blown away. Low-end bass drops for sound effects also are something you’ll feel a whole lot of in the second film and it is downright incredible. The audio presentations found here on all these films in the trilogy, and their two versions for each, are nothing short of amazing.