Anyone know if there are plans to produce more superbit DVDs? I think the choice that currently exists is pretty thin.
There are quite a few SB disks available. There are also a few new ones already announced. For more details check out http://www.sonypictures.com/cthe/superbit/. And, of course, you know disks can be great av transfers without bearing the SB brand name.
For fear of me doing any actual work or even entering "superbit" into google, can someone just break down what it is exactly? The only impression I've been under is that the film transfer is handled better so there are negligible artifacts. Can someone give me a more geeked-out explanation? Danke!
SuperBit discs devote more of the available data capacity for the actual picture and sound. Whereas a typical DVD may have deleted scenes, a making of documentary, trailers & other fluff peices, along with half a dozen soundtracks, SB releases typically have only the actual movie and a single soundtrack. For example, the SB version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon dispenses with the English soundtrack entirely- you get Chinese with English subtitles.
With less bandwidth devoted to extras, there's simply more room for "more bits" devoted to the actual film content. SB's are typically head & shoulders above a standard general release version.
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The first SuperBit release I bought was Gattaca. At first I thought it was a sales gimmick. After watching the movie I know better. Since then I have actively looked for superbit releases. Gattaca looks simply fabulous. I never look at all those extra scenes interviews or making's of. All I want is what was in the theatrical release. More SuperBit releases would be nice.
OK, so SB isn't just marketing fluff, there's real quality behind it? That's good to hear. I'm assuming that because SB is now a Sony trademark, only movies dispersed by Sony will have this feature. What DVDs from other vendors use a similar technique? The reviews of the Star Wars Trilogy and Alien Quadrilogy indicate that extremely high quality does not need the Superbit logo, but I guess we'll never see those DVDs wearing that moniker, so we'll never know.
I'm assuming all SB DVDs use DTS and are anamorphic?
That hits the nail on the head, Nick. I have some movies that have very minimal extras and extremely high quality. Every once in a while, I'll notice that if I'm backing up a DVD to DVD-R, some discs will require a surprising amount of compression to fit, even though they're well short of two hours and contain to extras.
Obviously you could have any disc released at the same technical level of an SB, but the problem is you'll never know unless you buy it. The SB label virtually guarentees a high level of technical quality, while another company might acheive a similarly high level but not make any note of it.
In short, I've never been disappointed with the picture or sound of any SB DVD, although of course I've bought them only to realize the movie itself wasn't as good as I heard/remembered. And I have scifi SB discs where the extra image clarity reveals some deficiencies of the special effects.
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You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. - Naguib Mahfouz
The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolution are of SB quality. There's nothing on the disc except the movie and the sound track. All the extras were on the 2nd disc. I wish they do the same for the matrix and I might double dip, just so that I can have all three in the same high quality.
I always look for 2-disc sets, or discs with fewer extras (like the SB issues), unless there's only one version of a movie that I just *have* to have. Then I put up with the compression artifacts and enjoy the content.
Even though the moniker "SuperBit" is a marketing tool, I applaud Sony/Columbia for marketing quality over quantity and I wouldn't mind a bit if the other labels followed suit. With HD on the (distant) horizon, I'd like to see them start to include technical information on the master...
Here's my ideal label:
Blu-Ray
MPEG-4 codec
4K resolution master
Maximum bit-rate 2-pass VBR encoding
7.1 DTS-ES soundtrack
I'd probably pay as much as 100% markup (for the right movies) to get that quality over the run-of-the-mill, packed-with-trailers-for-movies-you-don't-care-about issue.
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When will we get more superbits???
Linear Mode
