The Lighting of the Beacons | The Return of the King 4K Blu-Ray (2020) vs Blu-Ray (2011)

More Lord of the Rings comparisons:

Finally, here's a comparison for one of the most legendary scenes in film. As usual, there are color changes (the majority of which I don't like) and a general uptick in sharpness. You can really see in this scene what removing film grain does to the 4K version. I personally don't think removing most of the film grain from these films was a good idea, but there are times when the grain almost looks too harsh - for example, right after Pippin lights the beacon, you can see how much clearer the fire is without the film grain in the Blu-Ray version. And in this scene, which has a lot of very small CG beacons, they are much more clear (I remember barely being able to make them out when watching the films on DVD).

Audio-wise, the mixes are slightly different for the music, which is central to this scene. The Blu-Ray audio crescendos to the impact (when the horns play the Gondor theme) rather naturally, but the 4K version seems to compress the music more overall, which lessens the impact a little bit, and is something you might notice when the transitions happen there. Not sure how I feel about it.

The 4K HDR version has been converted to SDR for ease of viewing.

I have done nothing with the videos except to resize the 1080p version to overlap with the 4K version.

I kicked up the levels of the 4K version's audio to be consistent with the audio of the 1080p version (which is about 3dB.) The audio changes when the video does!

I own no rights to this content, and it's already been claimed.

[sharksbean]

I’m watching this clip on a 1080p iPad screen, and I’m still noticing (albeit slightly) the higher detail and color quality of the 4K picture. Looks way more cinematic!