Been a while since I've visited TheOneRing.net, but just thought I'd drop by to see if there was any word on a release date for The Two Towers Complete Recordings yet. (There isn't unfortunately.)  There is, however, news of new "limited edition" DVD versions of all three films, set for an August 29th release:

http://lordoftherings.net/index_400_hv_limiteddvd.html

Each movie is a two-disc set, where the first disc features both theatrical and extended versions of that film, while the second disc has "never-before-seen" making of footage, and the raw documentary footage from behind-the-scenes filmmaker Costa Botes.

Will you be picking these up?  Big a fan as I am, I'm undecided at this point.  The new making-of footage sounds interesting, but as someone who already owns the theatrical and extended versions, I see little point in investing in the films yet again.

I'm just wondering how they'll be able to fit both theatrical and extended versions of the film on a single disc; especially The Two Towers and The Return of The King.  I suppose they'll be cutting out the director/cast/producer commentaries, but won't this still require, like, some mad compression?

Yup. As far as I know, they're removing the commentaries and heavily compressing the movies. Basically, this set just isn't worth it.

I'll be skipping these.  I don't want to sacrifice video quality for some additional features (not that I watched many of the features from the last six sets anyway).  I probably won't buy these films again until the HD format war is settled and then I'll get them for whichever is the winner.

According to The Digital Bits, it'll be through seamless branching. There'll still be a lot of compression, but I have a few DVDs that are ~3 hours long and the quality isn't too bad.

I already have the extended version of Fellowship of the Ring as well as the gift sets for Two Towers and Return of the King (which I actually regret getting). I've barely watched most of the extras, so forking up 20-30 bucks essentially just for more documentaries I won't watch doesn't sound too appealing.

The Digital Bits does bring up the subject of potential HD-DVD/Blu-Ray releases, saying that they're still a long way off. Still, will anyone be upgrading their LotR DVDs if/when the hi-def releases see the light of day?

Screw the movies (which, admittedly I still need to /see/), I just want the expanded TTT and ROTK soundtracks...

-Joshua

Hmmm, how much video quality is actually "sacrificed"?  Can anyone be specific?  If the compression is done right, I'm not sure there really needs to be any loss, but then again I'm not a techy...

cheers,

-avatar!

Sure, I'll do it, but not until after I have an HD set and a machine to play the HD discs on.  As of right now, it's probably likely they'll be released on an HD format well before I bother to upgrade.

Word is that the movies themselves will get both sides of a DVD all to themselves in the LE releases (not confirmed, but very heavily implied--there's no way you could possibly cram the four-hour The Return of the King: Extended Edition onto one side of a DVD without it looking like an episode of He-Man).  Having bought the gift-set EEs a while back, I'm not exactly eager to buy these just yet.

I expect this is how the hi-def releases will be, though: using seamless branching to get both versions onto the same discs.  Unless they literally released the theatrical versions right %#(%*&*!! now, nobody would be happy unless they could get both.