i keep seeing movies packaged as "Super-Bit" is this a dvd, if so is the quality better or worse that a normal dvd. is this just marketing hype? will these play in a normal dvd drive?

Google is your friend:
http://www.ezydvd.com.au/superbit.zml

Basically, a Superbit DVD has no extra features (like documentaries, trailers, behind the scenes, etc.), and the resulting space savings are used to increase the bitrate.

I never tried a Superbit DVD myself, but they should be fully compatible with a standard DVD player.

The DVD's themselves are fully spec compliant and should play in all DVD players. The quality is extremely good if you're watching it on a HD Display or a Monitor. It's particularly noticeable on longer movies where you may get the odd macroblock. I doubt you would notice a difference on an analogue display however. I personally wouldn't trade the extra features for it though.

lmao, how about sliping 2 dvd's into that box rather, so that 'added value' can stay in the separate disk (as usual)

offtopic: still a problem in firefox 0.9 when the lines wont break sometimes when writting text into an input box ?!

There are several wrong informations floating around about Superbit DVDs. You can often read (right from a press release, i assume) that they use double the bitrate of normal DVDs ("By reallocating space on the disc normally used for value-added content, Superbit DVDs can be encoded at double their normal bit rate"). That's wrong. Superbit DVDs use 7 to 7.5 MBit/s. Most normal DVDs use 4 to 6 MBit/s, some even 7 and above, and those aren't even advertized as "Superbit". Maximum in DVD specs is 9.8 MBit/s.

Also, some extras would often fit on the Superbit DVD too. Sometimes there are 1 or 2 GB left on it. So they still don't use the full potential of the DVD specs.

And the Superbit DVDs are only better because the normal DVDs use an insufficient bitrate for the movie to fit all the extras. If they would use 2 DVDs for the releases, one for the movie, one for the extras, you wouldn't ever need a Superbit DVD. To top it off, Superbit DVDs are overpriced.

Sorry to contradict you, but I do believe bit rate can make a difference.

An example: "A beautiful mind", opening scene (in-doors). I was stunned by the details and clearness as camera swept over the wooden panels. Curiosity led me to fiddle with the remote, and I found that bitrate was above 8 all the time, peeking above 10.

This was a "standard" disc and no blind test. But I dare to say that on my analogue kit (Pioneer DV565A, RGB out via decent Scart to Loewe Vitros 28") I can clearly recognize good material from the dubbed-soundtracks-occupying-extra-space-but-still-we-press-it-on-DVD5 discs we suffer here in Spain.

My point is that we should really care for quality, it matters. And I think the price we pay for standard DVDs is enough to justify that it is given to us. The extras are often marketing stuff, so why not demand that it is delivered on a free extra disc?

the quality depends a lot on the source as well (telecine + different sharpening filters may look good on a low-quality display, but can turn out kinda cheap when viewed on some better monitor), also dvd max bitrate can be low for some problematic sources anyway (think interlaced stuff), so there are case by case solutions required imho.

Yes, source is important. But I suppose superbit concerns major Hollywood productions, rightfully expected to keep certain standards.

BTW, how big is the extra charge for these superbit editions over there? (Haven't seen any here in Spain so far.)

iam guessing that everything depends on the 'final viewing device', so 'superbit' would require a different telecine/postprocessing as well as higher bitrate, now if they really do that, then there might be a really improved experience on a better/bigger output device.
(but i guess that 720x576 pixels (pal example) are a final limit anyway..., i mean, how much can you blow that up anyway?)

Well, judging from file sizes when I bring uncompressed DV down to to MPEG2, compression is typically 3:1. So I doubt MPEG2 can be regarded as lossless.

The question is then whether a decreased compression rate is perceivable or not, and in which media. With no "superbit" edition at hand, I limit myself to say that among standard discs there are good ones and bad ones, and that this makes a difference on a regular TV set. A part from the given example, this opinion has evolved while watching 50+ movies since buying the DV565A. This player has 27MHz/10 bits chip (that's MPEG2 x1 ). On my former player, which I suspect was 27MHz/8 bit, I never noticed it though.

Anyway, since topic was to be "superbit", it would be very interesting to know if anybody has made a blind (oopsy daises) test comparision between suberbit and standard editions?

Yup, it definitely depends on the source. But for most Hollywood movies you would definitely expect them to be progressive of course. And their source is usually very good.

However unfortunately, most big movies tend to cram as much stuff as possible on a disc, like lots of audio tracks, commentary, special features, and behind the scenes etc etc. For someone like myself, I just want to see the video. I really couldn't care about all that other stuff. In fact I am surprised that anybody actually watches these sorts of things. Unless, of course if it is just your absolute favourite movie. Maybe I am wrong though there must be some people that really eat these sort of things up.

As for blind testing, I have not done any since I do not own two copies of any dvd. However, if anybody does have a superbit dvd and a dvd, feel free to post a couple hundred frames. Of course in some cases it may be hard to tell the difference. But some dvds come to mind recently that could have used some extra bitrate. Think the fight scene at the end of Matrix Revolutions. Blocks everywhere. Dunno, what the actually bitrate of that sequence was but I suspect that more could have made a difference .

I'm one of those people who enjoy watching all those extra features.


Like what has been said previously, the source material makes a difference. Also the DVD you're comparing it to makes a huge difference. If you are comparing a DVD-5 with 6 soundtracks, and two hours of extras, vs. a DVD-9 SuperBit, then you are probably going to notice a difference. However, (at least where I live) most DVD's are DVD-9 and usually have quite good quality, and I would still doubt that in general you would not notice the difference on an analog Television (only on Computer Monitors, Digital Plasma Screens, Digital Projectors, etc.).

uhmm, DV is quite compressed really (about 5:1), mpeg2-dvd is very far from lossless...
http://www.dvcollections.com/support_dvcompress.html
They say that the sweet spot is between 4-8 mbits/s for a typical mpeg2-dvd encoder, now that is generalization of course and that claim wont hold without some serious 'blind' tests, in any case iam pretty sure 'bitrate/percived quality' is not a linear function. (that is the video twice the bitrate wont look two times better...)

btw: i dont remember seeing a single 'dvd-5 with film' here - region2/pal, all are dvd-9. (only dvds with demo videos or some video tuts that i have are dvd-5)

edit: bitrates:
http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/reframe.php...o_mpeg2_dvd.htm

I can imagine it would be possible to use a very bad encoder, run it at high bitrate CBR to fill the DVD, and label the result "super bit". A carefully encoded release using multi-pass VBR on a good encoder, averaging half the bitrate, could look better, and have space for extras.

I'm not suggesting that's what they do, but it's a possibility.

Cheers,
David.

Thanks for this very interesting link. Figures of course in line with my filesizes, 13 GB down to 4+ GB per hour, coded with Nero or Pinnacle.

Regarding the quality on discs here in Spain, full price editions are often DVD9 with 6-7 GB on'em. But some discs out there in budget version, or being the monthly Hollywood love story my wife appreciates so much, or even as supplement to Sunday paper, are downsized.

Why? I can see at least two possibilities:

1) Traditional marketing trick, price discrimination. Just as a travel agency charges different prices for the same trip, depending on time left to liftoff.

2) Production costs. Pressing many many discs, you would perchance start to realize that every minute to process and every pit to press has a price.

Cheers
FA