Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring will come out on DVD on Aug 6 (you can order it from Amazon starting April 12). That will be a 2 disc set. Then, later in the year, a special extended edition of the film will be released in a 4 disc set with extra footage in the film.
Of course, no fan would buy just the 2 disc set, but it's tough to wait an extra few months for the extended edition. Why aren't they coming out at the same time? The official explanation is that additional time is required to prepare the special extended edition. That sounds reasonable, at least more reasonable than the explanation for special edition DVDs for movies that have been out for years and are released more than a year after the original DVD comes out.
The other big news is that a special three minute preview of The Two Towers will be attached to prints of The Fellowship of the Ring starting this Friday. I'd love to see the preview, but again there are tradeoffs--you have to spare 3 hours of your time, or you could, I suppose, pay to see the movie and just walk in at the end.
There's no way around it, they're going to get their money from me somehow.