these rumours have been circulating the movie websites for a couple of weeks now. here is IGN's response - usually very reliable.
Crazy Lord of the Rings Rumors
There are some crazy rumors floating around about 2002's biggest DVD, and just about none of them are true...
2002-01-15
As bad as Alien 3 was, it did give us one great movie line: "This is rumor control; here are the facts." That line springs to mind tonight as rumors about the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring DVD are spreading like wildfire, with almost all of them being totally false.
The first one springs from a reported bit of news that allegedly came from CNN. It states that the DVD will be over 4 ½ hours long. I find that difficult to believe. When the film premiered down in New Zealand the filmmakers did a series of interviews, and they gave up quite a bit of information about the DVD was revealed. Aussie movie site Dark Horizons was one of many sites who picked up on the press interviews back in December.
During the interviews, it was revealed that the rough cut of The Fellowship of the Ring was about three and a half hours long as opposed to the final running time of 2:58. That leaves thirty to forty minutes of additional footage that will be included as additional scenes on the DVD, not an hour and a half.
The other big rumor that sprung up tonight states that the entire Old Forest sequence including Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Wrights would be included on the DVD. Sorry, but again that isn't happening.
The 30 to 40 minutes of footage that was cut from the film includes more character building within the fellowship (most likely between Legolas and Gimli), the scenes of the fellowship each receiving their gifts in Lothlorien (you can see them receiving the elven cloaks in the trailers), as well as the scene of Gimli dropping to his knees in awe of Galadriel.
Finally two other rumors popped up tonight, and I wager they probably stewed in some chat room before being reported on the 'net. Each one places the Fellowship of the Ring DVD release in April or May of this year. Sorry, try again.
Despite the fact that Rolf Mittweg, president for worldwide distribution and marketing at New Line, stated August 2002 as the VHS/DVD release, the film will also still be in theaters come April. Around March or April (no specific date has been given yet), New Line plans to replace the final reel of the film with a new one that includes a trailer for The Two Towers after the end credits.