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Apfhex · Dec 17, 2004, 03:59 PM

I must be out of the loop, I didn't know about the existence of this "Superbit Collection" of DVD's. I was looking at the Spider-Man 2 Widescreen Special Edition on Amazon when I noticed they had a Superbit edition... no extras, but it's widescreen with DTS and DD 5.1 audio (I personally like DTS, for no particular reason), and with double the video bitrate.

Anyone own any Superbit DVD's? How does their quality compare? Now, I don't own a HDTV, so I probably couldn't see any difference if I tried, but I'm always looking towards the future (plus I couldn't care less about the 20 commentary tracks, 72 hours of Making Of footage, etc. - the typical extras you get these days

).

ambush · Dec 17, 2004, 04:08 PM

so when are we going to see them on ********?

ajprice · Dec 17, 2004, 04:14 PM

A friend ordered a superbit DVD of Black Hawk Down, haven't seen it myself but it was apparently very impressive quality.

Mithras · Dec 17, 2004, 04:17 PM

Originally posted by ambush:
so when are we going to see them on ********?

Did you know that when you type your MacNN password, it automatically converts to asterixes? Look, here's my password: ********.

ambush · Dec 17, 2004, 04:21 PM

Originally posted by Mithras:
Did you know that when you type your MacNN password, it automatically converts to asterixes? Look, here's my password: ********.

omg here's mine: imhomoseuxalbutitsasecret.... wait it didn't work!

anyway, s u p r n o v a is censored

Dec 17, 2004, 04:22 PM

Originally posted by Apfhex:

Anyone own any Superbit DVD's? How does their quality compare? Now, I don't own a HDTV, so I probably couldn't see any difference if I tried, but I'm always looking towards the future (plus I couldn't care less about the 20 commentary tracks, 72 hours of Making Of footage, etc. - the typical extras you get these days ).

I have a few Superbit DVDs. You can see the difference in some scenes on even on regular TVs, - less banding in on stuff with subtle (or supposedly subtle) gradients, such as skyscapes, underwater, etc. But it is more noticeably on an HDTV.

Most superbit DVDs also give you a DTS soundtrack which some of the regular DVDs don't have. It supposedly sounds better than Dolby Digital, but I'm not certain. I think it just sounds "brighter".

I would always go for the Superbit version over the regular. I typically only look at the special features once, if that. The only special features I ever watch is director commentary and deleted scenes. I'll borrow a friend's DVD if I really want to see them.

fireside · Dec 17, 2004, 04:24 PM

Originally posted by Mithras:
Did you know that when you type your MacNN password, it automatically converts to asterixes? Look, here's my password: ********.

http://bash.org/?244321

Shaddim · Dec 17, 2004, 04:39 PM

Originally posted by fireside:
http://bash.org/?244321

damn...

demograph68 · Dec 17, 2004, 05:37 PM

Originally posted by ambush:
omg here's mine: imhomoseuxalbutitsasecret.... wait it didn't work!

You're awesome!

GoGoReggieXPowars · Dec 17, 2004, 06:29 PM

Originally posted by ambush:
so when are we going to see them on ********?

Because compressing them would eliminate the point of their existence.

nredman · Dec 17, 2004, 06:43 PM

i dont have any superbit dvds but it sounds cool. probably have to wait until hdtv's go down in price. i too like DTS... with my surround sound its pretty sweet. pop in gladiator and turn it up... : )

fireside · Dec 17, 2004, 07:37 PM

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:
Because compressing them would eliminate the point of their existence.

maybe he was wondering when we would see the images.

Oneota · Dec 17, 2004, 07:55 PM

Originally posted by fireside:
http://bash.org/?244321

That's sad...I had the exact same thought. I was just about to hop on bash.org to find the link.

I must find the strength to tear myself away from here.

Shaddim · Dec 17, 2004, 08:47 PM

Originally posted by Oneota:
That's sad...I had the exact same thought. I was just about to hop on bash.org to find the link.

I must find the strength to tear myself away from here.

Rabidplaybunny87: Okay, so my neighbors officially hate me
GarbageStan23: why?
Rabidplaybunny87: Well, me, david and andrew were having a bonfire in the backyard, and we were making s'mores and all... and suddenly we here sirens, and see a firetruck turn into the street in front of us.
Rabidplaybunny87: So we all went running to see what was up, and our neigbor's house was on fire!
GarbageStan23: oh ****!
Rabidplaybunny87: Yeah, and when we got there, the wife was crying into her husbands arms, and we were just kinda standing there, and then she saw us, and then like for 10 seconds, gave us the dirtiest look ever
Rabidplaybunny87: Turns out, we were still holding our sticks with marshmallows on it, watching the fire....
Rabidplaybunny87: talk about bad timing...

ambush · Dec 17, 2004, 09:00 PM

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:
Because compressing them would eliminate the point of their existence.

I mean the full DVD... e.g. 5 gig or something.

there are a bunch of full dvds on bt

d4nth3m4n · Dec 17, 2004, 09:18 PM

<Xizer> Winzip is such a girl...
<Xizer> "Uh hey. 30 days are up could you stop using me? No? Well I'll just ask again tomorrow..."

tooki · Dec 17, 2004, 11:09 PM

Originally posted by Apfhex:
..., and with double the video bitrate.

Anyone own any Superbit DVD's? How does their quality compare? Now, I don't own a HDTV, so I probably couldn't see any difference if I tried,

On most DVDs, I can readily see compression artifacts on my standard-definition TV (and it's only a 21"). I'd love to see DVDs that use higher bitrates and show less blockiness and banding.

I've even started seeing digital artifacts on broadcast TV, as they use relatively-low-bitrate digital satellite to bring in shows.

tooki

CreepingDeth · Dec 17, 2004, 11:49 PM

Too bad there aren't any good movies on that list.

Twilly Spree · Dec 18, 2004, 12:30 AM

Superbit DVDs look ok, but not that great. I'll wait for HD-DVD

Shaddim · Dec 18, 2004, 12:40 AM

Originally posted by tooki:
On most DVDs, I can readily see compression artifacts on my standard-definition TV (and it's only a 21"). I'd love to see DVDs that use higher bitrates and show less blockiness and banding.

I've even started seeing digital artifacts on broadcast TV, as they use relatively-low-bitrate digital satellite to bring in shows.

tooki

How high do you have the Picture and Detail (if it's in your menu) settings? Have you used Avia or a similar disc to calibrate your set? Sometimes the artifacting can be countered by a few key adjustments and lowering those particular settings a bit. Plus, it will make your DVDs look a little softer and more "film like".

Disgruntled Head of C-3PO · Dec 18, 2004, 01:44 AM

I buy them over the normal disks, don't usually see any dif in picture quality but I do hear one in the DTS soundtrack, the Saving private Ryan DTS is like night and day on a good system.

demograph68 · Dec 18, 2004, 02:16 AM

Originally posted by tooki:
On most DVDs, I can readily see compression artifacts on my standard-definition TV (and it's only a 21"). I'd love to see DVDs that use higher bitrates and show less blockiness and banding.

I've even started seeing digital artifacts on broadcast TV, as they use relatively-low-bitrate digital satellite to bring in shows.

tooki

The quality problem could be related to MPEG-2 showing it's age. I'm waiting for the H.264 codec to become the new standard. I did a test of it with FFmpegX... it's better in quality than Xvid... the catch is it's slow encoding. It still needs a lot of optimization.

demograph68 · Dec 18, 2004, 02:18 AM

Originally posted by Disgruntled Head of C-3PO:
I buy them over the normal disks, don't usually see any dif in picture quality but I do hear one in the DTS soundtrack, the Saving private Ryan DTS is like night and day on a good system.

What makes it sound better? Is DTS lossless?

tooki · Dec 18, 2004, 02:50 AM

DTS uses about double the bitrate of Dolby Digital, so in theory it could sound better.

On the other hand, Dolby Digital has some handy features, like a compression factor built in, so that you can tell the decoder to automatically adjust volume for nighttime viewing. (It'll raise the volume of quiet passages and lower the volume of louder ones.) DTS has no such feature.

tooki

tooki · Dec 18, 2004, 02:52 AM

Originally posted by MacNStein:
How high do you have the Picture and Detail (if it's in your menu) settings? Have you used Avia or a similar disc to calibrate your set? Sometimes the artifacting can be countered by a few key adjustments and lowering those particular settings a bit. Plus, it will make your DVDs look a little softer and more "film like".

I've played around with settings, but nothing makes an appreciable difference.

tooki

Disgruntled Head of C-3PO · Dec 18, 2004, 02:55 AM

Originally posted by demograph68:
What makes it sound better? Is DTS lossless?

No just less compression.

tooki · Dec 18, 2004, 02:57 AM

Originally posted by demograph68:
The quality problem could be related to MPEG-2 showing it's age

There's nothing wrong with MPEG-2, per se. It's just that if it's not encoded well (the encoder quality is critical*) and with a sufficient bitrate, it's not gonna look good. But that's true of each and every encoder out there.

H.624 is subject to those same "laws". It'll just have the benefit of needing a lower bitrate for a given quality level, so perhaps if we get lucky they'll keep the bitrate the same and give us improved quality.

tooki

*Software encoders usually provide superior encoding quality, but since they take longer than hardware, the latter is often used.

Xeo · 06:21 AM

Originally posted by fireside:
http://bash.org/?244321

Bahhahahahahahahahahaha

Maybe it's because it's 4:19am, but these were hilarious.

http://www.bash.org/?211416
http://www.bash.org/?152737 <-- ok, mildly amusing rather than "hilarious"