My Superbit and SB Deluxe 'appeciation' thread (1 Viewer)

[Bjoern Roy]

I disagree to a large extent with Peter's take on the superbit titles on DVDFile. Dan Ramer and I will try to get a counter article posted.
Note that this is from a videophile's perspective. I know that on most peoples setups, basically every DVD released today looks 'great'. On a setup like mine, thats sadly not the case.
My take on the superbits:
The technical side is well covered in my Fifth Element and Desperado reviews. I invite everyone to check them out on my site (link in signature).
But the marketing side is JUST AS GREAT. Why?
The ONE thing noone ever mentions, and that i think is THE most important part about the superbit titles: CONSISTENCY! Yes, other Studios also made a few reference titles. BUT, as we all know, its always HIT AND MISS with them! The Superbit label on a DVD is what THX should have been, but ISN'T
Every single superbit title that i have checked out was reference quality +/- 5 percent. For us videophiles the superbit label is a complete breakthrough. Noone is as picky as i am, but I can buy superbit titles without reading a review beforehand. As i said, thats what THX should have been all along.
Studio consistency overview:
Columbia: Superbit consistenly 'reference'; all others consistently 'good'; never a turd
Fox: X-Men 'reference', Moulin Rouge 'great'; TPM 'bad', DH3 'horrible'.
Paramount: Braveheart 'reference'; Forrest Gump 'good-mediocre'; Tomb Raider 'flat'.
New Line: Blade, Seven 'reference'; Rush Hour 2 'mediocre'.
Warner: The Pledge 'ultimate reference'; all others recently consistently 'great'.
Universal: Erin Brokovich, Pitch Black, U-571, Fast and the Furious 'reference'; American Pie 2 'good' (too dark, muddy); Jurassic Park 1+2 'mediocre'.
MGM: Hannibal 'great'; all latest dual WS/PS releases 'mediocre';
The studio that puts out the best transfers 'on average' is probably Warner. Fox also has lots of good ones and only a few Turds.
But Columbia is the ONLY studio where i now know EXACTLY what i get when i buy a title.
Their non-SB titles ALL look alike:
- a bit soft, because horizontal filtered
- a fair bit ringing/EE
- perfect black level, shadow delineation
- perfect color hues and saturation
Non of the non-SB titles are close to reference, but at least they are never bad.
And their new SB titles ALSO all look alike:
- very high detail, non-filtered
- a bit of aliasing because of teh above, a non-issue IMO because its a sign of ultra high detail
- still a bit EE, but much higher in frequency, really thin edge halos, so not that big a deal as well
- other aspects delineation and colors as good as non-SB
And now they even did what made the concept complete perfect. Superbit Delux, perfect movie presentation on disc 1, extras on disc 2. Yes, others are doing this for quite some time. But as i said, no other studio has a label that guarantees a great presentation. I mean Forrest Gump is also a 2-disc set. Yet, their Braveheart single DVD looks a LOT better.
There we go. End of rant
Regards
Bjoern

 

[MaxY]

Bjoern,

I happen to agree with you on the Superbit Titles. I think they look fantastic and anyone that says that it is just a marketing scheme is not looking carefully enough or does not have the equipment to tell the difference.

I do have one small problem with the superbit titles and that is the lack of extras. If as we are told an SB title uses all the space then why not just put in a second DVD with extras like so many SEs do now adays.

BUT

Given a Choice with a Superbit with no extras and a non super bit with lots of them I will go for the SB everytime because I prefer the movie in the highest quality form then extras anyday of the week.

Max

 

[Dan Brecher]

Is there still little argument that one needs a good display set up to apreciate the difference? Me with my humble 32" widescreen, I've yet to buy a single superbit title. I continue to save plans to purchase for my [dreaming]projector days[/dreaming]...
Dan
PS: Max, don' forget Sony now apparently have plans to Superbit Deluxe titles putting the extras on a 2nd disc. What this means for commentaries, I have no idea.

 

[Carlo_M]

I can clearly see the difference on my 47" Panny HD ready set (RP91 player).

I agree with the statement that if there's a SB banner, so far that has equaled excellent audio and video quality, something that THX used to mean but no longer does.

 

[Steve_AA]

My video system: Tosh 50HX81 16:9 HDTV + old Sony S360 interlaced DVD player, Silver Serpent component cables.

The only SB title I have is 5th Element and it looks great, but I never had the non-SB version. Would I expect to see much difference on my system between these two versions? Or are we talking Front Projector/100" screen systems? Maybe 5th Element isn't the best example. I understand 5th Element probably benefited the LEAST from the SB treatment since the 1st version was also well done.

Would a progressive DVD player be a significant benefit?

Maybe I should just bite the bullet and buy the other version and make my own comparison. Just looking for any input with anyone who has a similar system to mine. I'm willing to pay more for obvious improvement with SB titles.

 

[MaxY]

Steve,

I have a 73" RPTV and can clearly see the improvments.

I have heard those with 65"s and 55"s say the same thing, so I don't think you need a projector to see the improvements.

I do think that a widescreen helps as then you are not looking at problems with anamorphic downconversion.

I think a good Pro Scan player would likely hep too.

My guess is you would see an improvement on your 55" Tosh even with a non PS player.

Max

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I own three SB titles -- The Fifth Element, Bram Stroker's Dracula and Air Force One. The first two of these titles were upgrades from the standard release, while AFO was a new title. On the two replacements, I noticed a greater level of detail and clarity to the picture over the original releases. The improvement was subtle, but noticable. For me, picture and sound quality are much more important than supplemental material, so I like the Superbit idea.

FYI, my video setup includes an ISF-calibrated Toshiba 56H80 TV with a Panasonic RP-91 player, connected with a Bettercables component video cable.

 

[Dave H]

Bjoern,

I generally agree with your post. However, do you really consider Phantom Menace a "bad" release??!! Sure there's ringing in it and a little grain here and there, but is it so extreme that you consider it a "bad" release? I realize we all have different equipment, etc. (I own a 61" 4X3 Sony that is ISF'd.) but still. I thought it looked very good, overall (maybe B+).

 

[Carlo_M]

I would consider TPM a "bad" release because of the stature of the film and its recentness.

If this were a restored 40 year old transfer that they used EE (or whatever caused the ringing) to "sharpen" it up and hide imperfections, that would be one thing. But for a Lucasfilm Megaproduction that is scarcely three years old and lived in the digital domain for most of its life? They HAD to have done better than this.

It's kind of like getting a B grade from a student that should be scoring straight A's. Sure a B isn't the end of the world, but they could have, and should have done better.

 

[Larry P]

Has a Superbit Deluxe title been announced yet?

 

[James D]

Larry- 'The Patriot' will be a Superbit Deluxe title and will street May 28th for a list price of $28.95.

 

[Hakan Powers]

As will Hollow Man SB Deluxe, according to dvdfile.com today.

 

[Sutjahjo Ngaserin]

Bjoern, Right On!

Yes, I prefer Superbit over normal issue.

More power to Superbit Deluxe!

 

[Sam Hatch]

Yeah, rock on!
Everytime I see a thread on Superbits, the general assumption is that you need a 90 inch FPTV to notice a difference in picture quality.
I've got a 43" Sony non-HD RPTV and quite frankly, The Fifth Element left me stunned. The old disc was one that I constantly used for demo material, so granted -- my eyes were very used to seeing the same things. But once I popped in the Superbit disc, the details just killed me.
I instantly started noticing that my eyes were being drawn to things I had never even noticed before. The backgrounds had much more depth, and the city scenes were simply staggering. It wasn't as drastic as when I first moved from LD to DVD, but it wasn't that far off either.
I also have Desperado and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon . I had previously owned the former on LD, so I was obviously blown away. Likewise with the latter, which I had previously owned on region 3 DVD.
Perhaps I'm crazy, but these discs look damned fantastic. Better than Moulin Rouge IMHO, one disc which is constantly referenced as being of 'Superbit quality' but without the hooplah.
Bram Stoker's Dracula and Gattaca are next up for me. I must also thank Columbia for putting out some of my favorite films during the first few Superbit waves.

 

[Michel_Hafner]

Hi,

[QUOTE}

very single superbit title that i have checked out was reference quality +/- 5 percent. For us

videophiles the superbit label is a complete breakthrough. Noone is as picky as i am, but I can buy

superbit titles without reading a review beforehand. As i said, thats what THX should have been all along.

[/quote]

Have you seen "Gattaca"?

I have seen two superbits in detail so far. Dracula and

Gattaca. Dracula is pretty much reference quality. Gattaca

is not, as far as I'm concerned. The original DVD was

already below average for Columbia and the new superbit

does not fix the problems. It's a bit sharper and better

compressed. But basically the transfer was made from a

grainy master and should be redone. There is distracting

grain in some shots, there are overenhanced edges at times

and ringing and there are also noise reduction artifacts

because they tried to remove some grain digitally. Overall

still a good looking DVD, but neither reference nor

excellent.

Michel Hafner

 

[Bjoern Roy]

Michel,

hmmmm.

Gattaca is one of my favorite movies. I have seen it close to 10 times in the theater. Due to the stylistic and 'available light' cinematography, the movie has a LOT of grain. Given the fact that the transfer is exceptionally detailed, it becomes obvious that the correct representation of the grain is a task of mammoth proportions with the limited bitrate that plagues DVDs. This is no easy task like The Fifth Element.

They could have chosen the route of DNR'ing the hell out of the transfer, that would have killed the grain. I am happy they didn't. The choice of filtering seems appropriate to me, given the task.

I have seen better displayal of film grain on several titles. But non of them had the same level of detail at the same time. Hm, maybe you have one in mind?

I think the EE only pops out more on Gattaca because of the many dark object before bright background scenes in the movie. The characteristic is the same as on all SBs i tested. Same frequency, same amplitude. Obviously it might not be as bothersome in Dracula, as dark a transfer as that is.

The huge amount of grain, yet high amount of unfiltered detail makes one area really deficient on this title: bitrate. We would need a Ultrabit transfer of this title to handle the grain and detail properly. It could easily use 15MBit or more. The one flaw i see in this transfer (apart from the high freq. EE) is the mosquito noise in many scenes. A sign of bitrate starvation.

Anyway, calling Gattaca 'reference' is a mood point. Its much more difficult to compress and as a result, i have more respect for the achievement in Gattaca, then for the one in Fifth Element. Only in that light, yes, i would call it 'excellent'.

Regards

Bjoen

 

[Michel_Hafner]

They could have chosen the route of DNR'ing the hell out of the transfer, that would have killed the

grain. I am happy they didn't. The choice of filtering seems appropriate to me, given the task.

They have been careless at times.

Two examples:

- ~16 minutes into the film: the glass wall looks quite

unnatural because of the filtering

- 27:21 into the film: the metal gear on the legs flickers

noticeably due to filtering

I'm sure a transfer from the original negative would solve

the grain problem pretty much. A new transfer is required

for a reference quality DVD.

Watching the opening credits also shows that current MPEG

encoders are still very 'dumb'. The mosquitoe noise around

the letters could be easily avoided if the operator had the

option to draw a window around a region of the image and

tell the system to compress losslessly in the window. This

would not exceed the bit budget in such cases and use bits

where they are most needed.

cheers

Michel Hafner

 

[Bjoern Roy]

Will check out those scenes you mentioned.

 

[Andy Kim]

Another vote for Superbit here!

I have Crouching Tiger and I picked up Gattaca recently.

I hope they start releasing better titles in the future though.

 

[Bill J]

My only problem with Superbit DVDs is that all of the titles are awful. I would love to see a Black Hawk Down Superbit.