For the past 15 years or so, many horror fans around the world have enjoyed the workings of a then little known New Zealand fella going by the name of Peter Jackson.  Back in 1987 he (with the help of partner Fran Walsh) made his mark in the horror genre with "Bad Taste" (Aliens from out of space who mince up the poor folk of a New Zealand town for food).  This was followed up a few years in 1989 later with "Meet the Feebles" (let's just call it a raunchy adult version of the Muppets..on speed!).  Third on the horror/gore maestro's list is "Brain Dead" 1992 stupidly known as Dead/Alive in the USA (due to legal issues), which in my opinion has to be the GORIEST AND FUNNIEST film ever made (ironically this film was released UNCUT in Australia and the UK, when 11 minutes had to be cut to get an R Rating in the USA!!!).
After 3 moderately successful very offbeat films, Mr Jackson next tackled Heavenly Creatures in  1994 .  The first of his films to be nominated for an Academy Award.  H.C. was based on a true story where 2 girls utterly obsessed with one another, and set out to kill the mother of one.
H.C. caught the eyes of many and pretty soon Mr Jackson was hot property in Hollywood.   Then in 1996 came The Frighteners.  Sadly this highly underrated film didn't fair all that well in cinemas (I'm sure it'd be a totally different story today :)
Six years would pass before we'd see the beginning of one of the biggest gambles in filmic history with the 3 film release of J.R Tolkien's Lord Of the Rings.  AND it would be helmed by none other than New Zealand's master of gore!

VIDEO
Running just shy of 3 hours!  This Epic has made it to DVD sporting a 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen Transfer.
While very pleasing to the eye, it's not perfect but given the nature of the beast (with an exceptionally busy/active picture), has bared very well indeed.
As a brand new film release, the print is near pristine and on offer is a very clean and clear transfer. 
The most obvious problem with this transfer is the sharpness.  Even though there is copious amounts of detail, it is none the less softer than it should be.  It's certainly of an acceptable/passable level, but is non the less lacking the finest of crispness. 
MPEG artifacting is noticeable at times, though it's not blatantly obvious (unlike what I witnessed with the recent release of Farscape season 1...eek!)  Walls in the background, skylines and large areas of a particular textures are really the only areas that show light signs of artifacting.   (check out the ceilings of Bilbo's home)
Colour Saturation is uniformly excellent as is black level (which gives us very nice shadow detail).

AUDIO
Ah, I love New Line Cinema.  Next to USA's Anchor Bay Entertainment, New Line have cranked out the most DVDs with Dolby 5.1 Surround EX, and like A.B.E gone one further by often including DTS-ES 6.1 Discrete.
While the Superduper 4 disc set of LOTR:FOTR (due in November 2002) will sport a DTS-ES track, we at the very least still get a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX track on this DVD (as was the case with the Theatrical release, AND will be the case with the following 2 "Rings" Movies).  This DVD also contains a Dolby 2.0 Surround mix, and is in its own right is excellent.

Though I anticipate the upcoming DTS-ES track to leave this Dolby EX track for dead, it's still a wonderful and generally satisfying sound mix.

As you may have heard around the region 4 web, at the insistence of Mr Jackson, this DVD (as well as the extended version) has been pitch corrected to compensate for the frequency increase to said audio that occurs from audio speed-up for PAL playback .   This has resulted in a very slight degradation to the quality of the sound, in that on occasions you may hear slight wavers/blips/flubs/whateveryouwanttocallthem to the soundtrack.  Having played back this movie a few times I have noticed that this problem is really only noticeable during musical sequences where there are only a few music instruments playing (particularly those which themselves have a sweeter higher pitched sound).  Two good examples of this are during Chapter 16 (as the butterfly approaches Gandolf on the top of the tower) and ch 28 at around 1:16.

Other than this pitch correction problem, you'll be treated to a stunning "6.1" mix.  The Front sound stage is first rate with it's depth, clarity and detail. Centre Channel dialogue remains well anchored and is in most cases highly intelligible (there is some slight audio sync issues, but are far from irritating).

For best effect this really does need to be played at reference level as the dynamics are so extreme from one minute to the next, and will give your sound system a full workout.

LFE and bass attack are very good but I did expect a wee bit more thud.  (but fear not, I'm sure your neighbours will still be driven up the wall...or through it :))
Surround usage is also very good and the integration from front to back is seamless.   Though you will find some very nice sound placements across all 3 surround channels, this is really more of your ambient surround mix.  I found this really helped bring the front soundstage to life by adding greatly to the sidewall imaging. 
The Surround Back channel does work pretty hard at times, but doesn't function quite as independently as you'll find in other EX mixes.  (I suspect the upcoming DTS-ES mix will reveal much more in the Surround Back channel of this sound mix, in the same way it did for the very atmospheric sounding Se7en)

EXTRAS

My god!  With what's on this 2 disc DVD, I'm scared to thing what's on the 4!