vax226

I have to ask this question here at the best form:

Superbits DVDs, I want to buy a few titles I do not have, in Superbits. Does anyone own some of the Superbits DVDs and have you compared them to a standard DVD? Is it a better picture/sound DVD on our HDTV/audio systems we all have to pursue the best picture possible???

I do not have Bad Boys. I cannot believe the Superbits DVD of MIB2 could look better, that plain old disk looks great. My Air Force One DVD is not anamorphic! I use the plane take-over scene as my system demo; just love the tinkle of brass hitting the floor…So are they worth an upgrade?

Thanks

__________________
Mitts 55909
Denon 3500
Poke Speakers

57U

See the following links.

http://www.hdtvoice.com/voice/showt...hlight=superbit

http://www.hdtvoice.com/voice/showt...hlight=superbit

Frankly, I think it comes down to production values more than the technology itself, however, to each his own.

__________________
57U - Toronto, Rogers Cable, SA8300HD, 500GB HDD & Hitachi 61UWX10B HDTV, Yamaha RX-V1 A/V Receiver, Martin Logan Speakers. Photos --> 57U's HT

SA8300HD, 250GB HDD & KDL40W3000 (Upstairs)

Please don't PM me with questions that can (and should) be asked in the forum, thanks. Personal Question? Fire away.

crazysaiyan

Nothing better than Superbit DVDs...near hi-def picture quality..dts audio..purely beautiful. Best one by far is the Fifth Element...congratulations you have a new reference disc

__________________
Whoever says money is the root of all evil....doesn't have any

mikehbkwm

Wouldnt say that all the time Superbit DVD's are the best but generally speaking the production co. took a little extra time cleaning up the picture and since there isnt any extras on disk 1 on superbit DVD's the bitrate is usually higher then your usual disk. again like 57 stated early in the thread it usually depends on the production value....................

__________________
"I'd pay REAL money if he'd shut up"

57U

I saw an interesting Superbit ad in the June Sound & Vision, Page 27. In it they no longer talk about "almost pegging" the DVD bitrate at close to 10 Mbps. They show a graph with the SB disk at 8 Mbps or so with a "standard" DVD at 4 or so. I haven't got a lot of DVDs (about 25), but many of them show bit rates significantly higher than 4. Maybe they're Superbit quality...

I checked a number of my "standard" DVDs. As soon as there was "motion" on the screen, the bitrate went to 8-10 and was typically above 6-7, hmmm

Don't believe me? - watch the first few minutes of Shrek, or anthing else with movement on the screen. The only time I've seen low bitrates is when there's a static, or close to static image on the screen where the bitrate doesn't matter because little "information" is changing.

Now, Superbit can still claim to make the best DVDs around - I have no problem with that. I just wonder how much better they really are... Certainly not twice as good as the graph and the "copy" seem to imply.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm all for better technology, especially when you can see or hear the difference. What I despise is hype.


PS. If any of you have the Shania Twain Platinum Collection DVD, I'm guessing it was made with "constant bitrate sampling" and the bitrate is "pegged" at 10.0 for almost the entire DVD.

__________________
57U - Toronto, Rogers Cable, SA8300HD, 500GB HDD & Hitachi 61UWX10B HDTV, Yamaha RX-V1 A/V Receiver, Martin Logan Speakers. Photos --> 57U's HT

SA8300HD, 250GB HDD & KDL40W3000 (Upstairs)

Please don't PM me with questions that can (and should) be asked in the forum, thanks. Personal Question? Fire away.

spaceman_spiff

How do you measure bitrates, do you use some special instruments or equipment, or your DVD player just displays it ?

57U

I hit the "display" button on my DVD player twice. First press gives one set of information (time, sound mode, etc), next press gives bitrate both graphically and numerically.

Don't know if/how other players do it. I have an "old" Toshiba that has many features not available on today's players.

__________________
57U - Toronto, Rogers Cable, SA8300HD, 500GB HDD & Hitachi 61UWX10B HDTV, Yamaha RX-V1 A/V Receiver, Martin Logan Speakers. Photos --> 57U's HT

SA8300HD, 250GB HDD & KDL40W3000 (Upstairs)

Please don't PM me with questions that can (and should) be asked in the forum, thanks. Personal Question? Fire away.

akthor

Do you not have a copy of "The Matrix"?

The lobby shootout has my vote as the scene to demo a system with, if you don't have it get it, talk about brass tinkling

__________________
Hitachi 51UWX20B
Samsung P231 DVD
Magnavox HI-FI VCR
Denon AVR-2802
6 Luxman M-120A Amps
Front Speakers: Altec Lansing Model 15's
Front Center: HTD Level 3's
Rear Speakers: Cerwin Vega 1215MKII's (15" floor loaded woofers used as LFE Subs)
Rear Center: HTD Level 3's

Hippie

My player only gives a graphical view of bitrate.. not numerical.
There are square blocks that go up in number (I think up to 10 blocks displayed)

Question.. I know this is bitrate, but what is this actually telling me?
in other words.. Why would I want to know the bitrate of the DVD I am watching?

__________________

Tosh. 57HX81 (Blessed by Eliab) / SA4200HD
Denon DVD-910 (DCDi by Faroudja)
Yamaha HTR-5590 - AVR, Yamaha NS-555 - Mains, Yamaha NS-C444 - Front & Rear Centers, Yamaha NS-A637 - Surrounds, Yamaha YST-SW315 - Sub.,
Philips ProntoNG TSU-3000 - Remote, ReplayTV, Xbox (Live Gametag: Hippie)

57U

The graphical display shows you megabits per second (1-10). 10 is the maximum available for DVDs. Some of this is taken up by audio, but most is video. The higher the number the more information is being transfered from the DVD to the DVD player.

If there's not a lot of movement on the screen, the numbers can be lower due to compression, however, since you have "headroom" available, why not put more "information" on the DVD for "better resolution".

Sometimes low bitrate can mean low quality, but it could simply mean there's not much movement on the screen since movement requires more information.

By utilizing more of the "headroom" superbit supposedly provides a better picture quality, but I've found that most DVDs already use 8-10 Mb/sec as soon as there's a fair bit of motion on the screen, so how much better is Superbit really? I leave that up to the purchasers.

__________________
57U - Toronto, Rogers Cable, SA8300HD, 500GB HDD & Hitachi 61UWX10B HDTV, Yamaha RX-V1 A/V Receiver, Martin Logan Speakers. Photos --> 57U's HT

SA8300HD, 250GB HDD & KDL40W3000 (Upstairs)

Please don't PM me with questions that can (and should) be asked in the forum, thanks. Personal Question? Fire away.

Hippie

Why would I as the end user want to be able to press a button on my DVD remote to see the bitrate?

__________________

Tosh. 57HX81 (Blessed by Eliab) / SA4200HD
Denon DVD-910 (DCDi by Faroudja)
Yamaha HTR-5590 - AVR, Yamaha NS-555 - Mains, Yamaha NS-C444 - Front & Rear Centers, Yamaha NS-A637 - Surrounds, Yamaha YST-SW315 - Sub.,
Philips ProntoNG TSU-3000 - Remote, ReplayTV, Xbox (Live Gametag: Hippie)

57U

...Most end users probably have no use for this information. I guess if the quality is really bad and you see a low bitrate, then that may indicate why. Otherwise, I guess it may give you some indication of the "quality" of the information encoded on the DVD?

__________________
57U - Toronto, Rogers Cable, SA8300HD, 500GB HDD & Hitachi 61UWX10B HDTV, Yamaha RX-V1 A/V Receiver, Martin Logan Speakers. Photos --> 57U's HT

SA8300HD, 250GB HDD & KDL40W3000 (Upstairs)

Please don't PM me with questions that can (and should) be asked in the forum, thanks. Personal Question? Fire away.

cdnscg

vax226,,

Back to your original question, I have compared several titles, and in my opinion the Superbit additions look better. Maybe not 50%, but enough that I am willing to pay the extra cash for the Superbit. If you have the chance, take a look at Starship Troopers Superbit. The outer space scenes are amazing.

sto22

The Superbit version of "Charlies Angels" is at Wal-Mart of all places.

On the bargain rack ($14.88) at our local store.

Go figure.

sto22

__________________
Sony KF60XBR800
Sony DVPNS999ES
Sony STRDA5000ES
Sony SAT-HD300 (for OTA)
Charter HD-DVR (Motorola MOXI)
Athena AS-F2, AS-C1, AS-P400, AS-R1

Hippie

Charlies Angels being on Superbit is a bit of a question mark for me..
I thought that movies that made superbit were supposed to be quality films, the best of the best...

__________________

Tosh. 57HX81 (Blessed by Eliab) / SA4200HD
Denon DVD-910 (DCDi by Faroudja)
Yamaha HTR-5590 - AVR, Yamaha NS-555 - Mains, Yamaha NS-C444 - Front & Rear Centers, Yamaha NS-A637 - Surrounds, Yamaha YST-SW315 - Sub.,
Philips ProntoNG TSU-3000 - Remote, ReplayTV, Xbox (Live Gametag: Hippie)

sto22

They have a few classics and a few "not so classic".

I'll avoid bashing someone's favorite movie and let you browse through them yourself.

Superbit

sto22

__________________
Sony KF60XBR800
Sony DVPNS999ES
Sony STRDA5000ES
Sony SAT-HD300 (for OTA)
Charter HD-DVR (Motorola MOXI)
Athena AS-F2, AS-C1, AS-P400, AS-R1

Hippie

Yah.. I know.. why?
Didn't start out like that..
Oh well...

__________________

Tosh. 57HX81 (Blessed by Eliab) / SA4200HD
Denon DVD-910 (DCDi by Faroudja)
Yamaha HTR-5590 - AVR, Yamaha NS-555 - Mains, Yamaha NS-C444 - Front & Rear Centers, Yamaha NS-A637 - Surrounds, Yamaha YST-SW315 - Sub.,
Philips ProntoNG TSU-3000 - Remote, ReplayTV, Xbox (Live Gametag: Hippie)

Ic3man

To be honest, Superbits aren't always worked up to what they're supposed to be. Sometimes gimmicky.

DVDS such as Spider Man, Desperado, and Leon: The Professional, and Starship Troopers SE are only minorly improved upon Superbit release and IMO have no reason to be ported in the first place. However, others such The Fifth Element look amazing.

And then there are the few that are released directly to Superbit IE: Panic Room.

lizzyh

I have the Fifth Element on a Superbit disc. This is the only one I have seen and I was quite dissapointed in any perceived increase in resolution when you compare it to the increased cost of a Superbit disc. I have a Sony NS999ES player which delivers a stunning picture on movies with good production values. U.S. Marshalls, on a regular DVD delivers a picture equal to or better than the Fifth Element Superbit disc.

__________________
fjh