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Fellowship of the Ring - HD vs DVD quality comparison

cornbread.org — Wonder if the quality of HD is going to be much better than DVD? Check out these screenshots from "The Fellowship of the Ring" DVD transfer and rollover to compare them to their HD counterpart. The difference is amazing! The HD screencaps have been sampled down to DVD resolution, so be sure to click on them to get the full effect.

Who dugg this? Made popular Feb 26, 2006

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  • DKDiveDude, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Yes it looks great, but as I understand it, it is up to the individual studios to decide whether or not to allow full HD resolution over analog (component).

    I am NOT buying a SINGLE HD-DVD/Blue-ray movie that cannot be played in FULL resolution on my otherwise perfect RCA F38310 38 HD TV!!!

    I got 500+ DVD movies, bought not copies, which I had planned to replace with HD versions.
  • Sirocco, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Those DVD screencaps look a little too *****. I've seen far better than that.
  • davecrist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I'm inclined to agree with a previous poster. HD is great (I love it) but it isn't good enough to encourage me to purchase a DRM'd/crippled new version that someone else can use to decided how, when, and where I would like to view it.
  • Drood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8***** HD. I call shenanigans on that site. Fellowship does NOT look that bad on DVD. I've watched it (not to mention paused it) on my widescreen laptop and it looks better than that.

    I have no interest in HD whatsoever. Especially the current crippled DRM'ed to death HD. I've seen HD demonstrations and they look like ***** to me. Certainly not worth the upgrade. Plus I've seen DVD running on an HD display and it looked marvelous.

    DVD is fine for me. Anyone who goes HD in it's current format is a sucker, even without the format war. The jump from VHS to DVD was huge in quality. DVD to HD is much smaller. Barely noticeable in a lot of cases.

    Not dugg. Those alleged DVD shots look closer to VHS.
  • JackandCoke, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Yeah, no digg, cause the guy is going through resampling the picture, while the difference is noticable, the actual difference is much harder to tell, He's resizing and resampling the DVD image which is what mostly causes that fuzz, he shouldn't change anything all, keep the exact same size exact same resolution and everything to show the true difference.
  • Darth_tater, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7where did he get the HD version?
  • frank3000, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6but is that tiny smidge of quality worth a couple hundred bucks?

    no, its not
  • deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Not much of a difference really.. Definitely not worth buying a new player/disk for.
  • musicbear, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6There is a difference and it is slightly better, but it's NOT worth the current over priced alphabet soup jargon madness that is hd tv's and dvd's and monitors and graphic's cards and how will Vista support it etc etc. As DVD players have dropped into the $50 range for a basic player that plays pretty much all the formats, HD TV's and dvd players will do the same. The time to buy is when you can pull them off the shelf in Wal-Mart as commonly as you would cheetos. Until then you'd be kind of a sucker to shell out thousands of dollars in anticipation that what you're buying will be a standard sometime in the future.
  • mesostinky, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Impressive. I don't know what crack you people are smoking but the diference is amazing. You are looking at the fuller size shots right?

    http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/FOTR_Compare10_DVD.html

    vs

    http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/FOTR_Compare10_HD.html

    It's like putting on glasses. Say what you want about how overpriced it all is, I agree, and how ***** the DRM is, I also agree. But if you are not impressed with this then you need to get your eyes checked because something is wrog with them.
  • modsuperstar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The difference isn't a much as I would have figured. People make it out to be a huge leap, like comparing an NES to an Xbox, instead it's like the difference between Dreamcast and Xbox. There is more detail, but not enough to make me think I'm actually missing out on something.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"sweet... but the movie wasnet shot with hd cameras so will it be like when i watch the discovery channel the hd one...."

    Oh, geez. Idiot. "HD" cameras are when you're shooting DIGITAL FILM. Lord of the Rings was shot on traditional film, which is typically equivalent to 1920x1080 and higher (and usually scanned at an even higher resolution).

    I love Digg, but seriously, the user comments are even more misinformed than Slashdot's. "They didn't shoot on HD cameras." Hahahaha. Traditional film cameras ARE HD.
  • benspicer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3roll on and off of slide 3, you can make those nasty little hobbitses dance!
  • lambda, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Who cares in another 10 years there will be a new format with another 2x as much resolution and 20.1 sound channels
  • aznboi04k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3i am disappointed. i watch hdtv everyday and the hd quality of this movie isn't much improvement over the dvd but nonetheless, it still rocks. how did this guy even obtain and view hd lotr?
  • BassCadet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Anybody who thinks the difference between the two is anything less than amazing is COMPLETELY BLIND.

    Don't fuss about the colors, look at the details in hair or leaves. It's a TREMENDOUS difference.

    I own the EE DVD collection and that is how good those DVD's look. Of course they look terrible on our computer monitors because we are used to watching them on ***** standard definition TV's from 8 feet away.

    HDTV content is coming on disc soon, folks. You can't sit and hide forever. I stopped adding to my (100+ disc) DVD collection about a year and a half ago after I saw HDTV. DVDs simply look like garbage on HDTV sets, even if they're upconverted. Once you see 1080i/720p, DVDs look like movies shown in crayola....fat, smudgy strokes.
  • mcryptic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Those screen shots are not from HD-DVD or blu-ray its a capture from a hdtv broadcast, thats why it looks bad, the bitrate is about half of what it should be.
  • mcryptic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I also forgot to mention that this is a 1080i capture so you get in interlacing
  • Anth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3In the first few scenes you can tell how much better the color is in HDTV vs NTSC. NTSC has horrible color reproduction, whereas with HD its far far far better.
  • zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Ok, I have bought the DVD's of these already, I'm NOT buying them again. DVD is simply good enough for me.
  • MalaysianMafia, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3where did he get an HD copy of the LOTR movies?
  • Salvo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The Improved Quality is amazing, but is anyone really going to appreciate the difference when it's zooming past at 24 frames per second?
    Yes they are better, but can I justify the increased prices and restrictions? Not for me just yet.
  • dragonflight, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm pleasantly surprised, because when I was watching RotK on HBOHD, it seemed just a tad more vivid than the DVD.

    Wonder if Progressive-Scan and Upconverting DVD players will affect this comparison?
  • gamekid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's a shame it'll be downsampled, DRMed and overpriced by the HD-DDT and Blu-Rry cartels.

    Digg for the hobbitses though.
  • domokunt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2guys remember the hd screens are DOWNSAMPLED. which means hes just comparing the quality of dvd/HD encoding/decoding
  • Snowbeam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The Strange thing is that in some of those shots I liked the DVD version more than the HD version. I guess each format has it's own usefulness...
  • xioner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2one nice thing about not being able to afford these nice HD toys is that by the time it gets cheep enough for me, most of the format wars will be over :-P ;-)
  • TechyLah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is a MORE than fair comparison. The DVD version was being UP-sampled by a very sophisticated method (bicubic interep in Photoshop).
    HD, especially 1080i, is TRULY AWESOME AND BREATHTAKING. It blows away current DVD lower resolutions. I'm only a moderate sports fan but am already HD spoiled. I'll watch almost any sport in HD and LOVE it (even a bit of boring golf). I'll practically NEVER watch even my favorite sports if they're NOT HD. Its about the total experience. I have a 23" 16:9 1920 x1200 computer monitor that doubles as an awesome set for my Comcast HD box.
    The monitor is a Samsung 244T, and yes, it's dvi IS HDCP compliant but, believe it or not, the component video path has better color and the same sharpness so that is what I use, and leave the DVI for the PC only.
    EVERY pixel transmitted at 1080i makes it to my screen - the same can not be said for the majority of Plasma/LCD or whatever huge TV's rather than computer monitors.
    I've become an HD evangelist - no one can tell me there's hardly any difference - I KNOW the truth!
  • gamabunta, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I remember seeing this right around when ROTK was in theatres. This is what sold me on high def formats.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2n/m click for fullsize image
  • kriegs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2still not sold on it, not enough to re-stock my dvd collection with hd-dvds anyways. but cool find.
  • Xiata, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not interested despite the fact that these have hd quality video. Why? I have no hardware that is capable of HD. Why? Because it is overpriced. While you people continually argue that HD is the holy grail of entertainment and worth every dime you paid for it, I find that it is better to deal with actual content of the movie and whatever.

    I am stating this because HD is going to force hollywood into focusing more on details on how the movie looks (actors, effects) instead of what the story is about. Granted, the average movie coming from hollywood these days is crap anyhow, I can foresee that more $ for the movie is going to visuals instead of content (since there is a finite amount of money a production company will be willing to spend). I'd rather see better content before better visuals. LOTR and a few other movies are an exception to the general rule.

    Case in point: Xbox360 games, while they may look fantastic, they are often as boring as the Fox News network. Nintendo, often having far inferior graphics (come on you can't deny it), tends to have fun games despite the childish feel to it.

    So once again: Content > visuals. For now, and forever.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Best Ad I've seen for HD yet.
  • drjenk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You obviously have not seen HD, as you say it is "barely" noticable. One viewing and you will be hooked, trust me.
  • Arramol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Looks cool, but not cool enough to justify a new vid card/monitor or TV.
  • eisa01, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2What's the point comparing these shots when the DVD ones are upsampled? The comparison is flawed, and I'm quite sure I've seen better DVD-rips than these upsampled images with loads of jpeg artifacts.
  • tempusrob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think everyone's forgetting the fact that the difference is much more obvious in full motion on an HDTV rather than a single resized screenshot on a computer monitor...
  • DeckardRep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1For the record, these are NOT from an HD DVD or a Blu-Ray disc. This is a version shown on TV that he has a recording of.
  • rodbibeau, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2the roll o/off part didnt seem too impressive. it appeared to have a brightness difference. but when you compare the full sized images, its clear....i need a HD tv and HD DVD's....dugg...
  • drjenk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes, it is
  • Agret, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1lol this site is *****, the pictures are the VHS version compared to the DVD version. He doesn't even have any HDTV pics cause no way in hell those "DVD" pictures are from the DVD, i've watched it on my monitor and it looks the same as his alleged HDTV pics
  • jesusfresh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Miyazaki-
    Is he using the theatrical release DVDs, or the EE DVDs?

    i think it is the theatrical release...look at the colors of the shire, you can see the difference, the EE had the same much deeper colors of the HD version.

    anyone want to take a shot of the EE? i would but by the time i get it up the story will be off the front page...
  • cyberfelon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I just recently picked up a 50" HD plasma with a res of 1366x768 and for a tech-head like me it is well worth it. I find it quite surprising that a tech community like Digg can be so full of people who can't tell the difference. The fact is that DVD was designed for use on regular old televisions, and when you stretch that low-res picture to 50" it doesn't look so hot anymore. It looks good, don't get me wrong, but nowhere near as good as an HD picture.

    I get the hint that a lot of you are justifying your lack of an HDTV by lying to yourselves. I'm not going to gloat about having an HDTV while others don't because spending thousands on a home theater setup might sound like overkill to some, but other people will just as quickly spend that on a cheap second car or something like that. If you have a full-time job and really want an HDTV it is not at all difficult to get one. You don't have to be one of the lucky few to have a plasma TV like it was 4-5 years ago, so this isn't an issue about the rich vs. the poor. I figure that with the amount of time the average person spends in front of their TV they might as well spend a few thousand dollars and get a really nice setup. If your HDTV has HDMI then it is not going to be obsolete any time soon.

    Movies have been HD for decades, it's only now that televisions are starting to catch up. Some people here are reacting like HD is some newfangled thing that will tear Hollywood apart. You should be excited that you'll finally be able to watch Star Wars with all the cinematic details intact. If you think that it won't benefit from all that extra resolution then try wearing somebody else's glasses at the cinema and see if the movie is just as good to you.
  • gamekid, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"but is that tiny smidge of quality worth a couple hundred bucks?

    no, its not"

    I second that. Anyone who does is a shhtupid fat hobbit.
  • lordsandwich, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The comparison is indeed impressive, but...

    Apart from high-profile, CGI-laden franchises such as LOTR, will Hollywood even bother to remaster all of the titles that have already been released on DVD? Or will they simply upsample the vast majority of existing DVD content and try to pass that off as "HD"?

    I'm willing to bet the latter.
  • snypa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the difference is okay, nothing to go crazy over, and i dont see the hype with all this HD *****, im sticking wih DVD for a while, HD is way overpriced and the difference isnt even that much, and im watching a film for the film not for the tiny miniscule differences that are shown.
  • GlenL22, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"keep the exact same size exact same resolution and everything to show the true difference." - jackandcoke

    Not sure if you understand enough about DVD vs HD to make a post here. They have different resolutions, so if you won't have the same "exact" resolutions. You'll end up with one pic that's much bigger than the other. Upconverting is what HDtvs do to display 480p DVDs on the 720p and 1080i screens.
  • gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think DVD is good enough for what I already have. I really don't see a reason to run out and replace all of my DVD's with HD-DVD's... That would just be stupid.
  • jesusfresh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1porn in HD would be awful. those actresses are not attractive up close (if at all), and the men are even worse...

    so...anyone know of a torrent site that has the HD versions?
    ...
  • Cerberus047, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"For all those people saying those DVD shots were crappy:

    LINK US TO YOUR DVD SCREENSHOT THAT LOOKS BETTER.

    DVD is TEN YEAR OLD TECHNOLOGY, FOLKS!

    And that guy above me who said the jump from VHS to DVD is bigger than the jump from DVD to HDTV is an idiot.

    The comments in this thread make me believe many of you are nothing but a bunch of broke-ass whiners complaining about technology you can't afford. Have you been to Best Buy lately? At least half the TV's they sell now are HDTV. Standard tv's are going away quickly."

    I have do disagree the jump from big tapes to cds were bigger than cds to bigger cds..... i think you take it up the ass from sony and microsoft... why else would you support this drm infested horror that is the hddvd and blue ray mess... holywood really fumbled the ball on this one!
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