Panic Room - Is it Truely Superbit (1 Viewer)

[Sam Hatch]

Robert's on the money. I was impressed from the word go -- the opening credits are packed with detail. Cityscapes usually look nasty and crawly on my non-HD Sony 43", but this disc shines.

I tend to notice compression artifacts on solid, monochromatic objects - and considering the fact that the house in the film is undecorated, all of the blank walls throughout should be a noisy mess. Over and again I was impressed by their solidity and lack of noticeable pixelization.

And this was indeed a dark film in the theater. In fact I chuckled out loud when Jodie Foster's daughter complained about her room being too dark. Of course it is, she's in a Fincher film!

But despite the intentional murk (which does make sense since they haven't set up all of their personal belongings yet -- including enough lamps to light a huge Townstone), there is always plenty of depth and detail to the frame. The darkness is never impenetrable.

The DTS track is another delight. Some of the dialogue in the beginning of the film sounds a bit chesty, but it did in the theaters as well. The directional surround effects were mostly of my favorite sort -- ambient effects, weather noises and a creaky old house.

It may have too many audio tracks to qualify as a true-blue Superbit title, but it's a masterful transfer nonetheless and most definitely does justice to the theatrical presentation.

Contrary to popular belief, the folks at Widescreen Review were spot on with this review!

 

[Scott Wong]

I don't know enough about the whole Superbit part of it, but as mentioned earlier, if it *were* a true Superbit title, there wouldn't be that many audio tracks... and there are. Still, on my modest set-up (Sony KV36XBR and Toshiba SD6200 with Monster Cable Z-series component cable interconnects) the picture was damn good. I've nothing to complain about whatsoever. There are a few DVDs out there that do look a *little* better and God knows many more that look much, much worse. I'm only disappointed by the fact that the DVD was marketed, advertised, and labelled incorrectly as a Superbit...

Scott.

 

[LennyP]

All of the Superbit titles, including Panic Room, are about 6gb, with 3 gigs wasted on a dual layered DVD. There are "regular" titles from other studios which movie's fileset is bigger, so Superbit is all a bunch of lies and deception.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Yeah, Robert, but what do you know? :p)
The stuff that gets questioned around here sometimes... I just don't get it.
BTW, I did pass on it, but only cause I'm holding out for an SE version. I love Fincher, loved this film, but I have will-power (and a hella lot of other discs to watch in the meantime ).

 

[James Reader]

It doesn't matter how good the transfer is (something I will put my hand up right now and admit I know nothing about, not having seen the film or the DVD). What the bulk of this thread is about is the 'Superbit' branding.
There is no way the transfer that is on this disc was ever intended to be a 'Superbit' transfer. As I have stated a few posts up, the title includes two additional audio tracks - something Sony were adamant that 'Superbit' titles would never include. Even the Superbit Deluxe titles have had their DD 2.0 commentaries snipped.
Also only approx 2/3 of the available disc space is used by the film. Now, I may not know much, but I know that that space could have been used for over 1 hours worth of supplements or to increase the average bit rate of the movie substantially (I don't know, perhaps giving it a 'super bitrate'?)
Again I know very little about MPEG compression, my only experience of lousy compression being JPEG images. The funny thing is, on every JPEG image I have ever saved, the lower the compression the better the image. So, wouldn't increasing the average bit-rate on this title from 6.5/7 to, say an 8 or 9, improve the image still further? I don't see why not, but if anyone knows better and would like to explain why this would lead to diminishing returns I would certainly he happy to learn.
Look, the fact of the matter is this; Most of my Paramount titles have a higher bit-rate than the reported numbers on this DVD. Hell, my Peanuts Holiday specials are reported to be hovering around the 9.4 to 9.8 mark almost constantly by my player. Does this also make them 'Superbit' titles? Are they superior to 'Superbit' titles because they don't feature a DTS track?
I can accept that the overall final presentation of a movie is more than the final bit-rate - the source elements and encoding are just as important. It's just that in this case the 'Superbit' branding has obviously been abused.
PS. I've checked out the specs on a couple of region 2 DVD sites for the upcoming UK R2 copy of the title on some e-tailer's websites. According to the specs I can see this title only features a DD 5.1 soundtrack (although I'll admit this is far from conclusive). [edit: According to Play the R2 disc will also include a DTS track] Yet the R2 release is NOT branded as 'Superbit' despite the fact that other R2 'Superbit' titles are now available on general retail (previously being only available to purchase on the Sony website).
Addition: Apparently the R1 Panic Room also features a trailer, again something Sony were adamant that Superbit titles would not feature any extras at all (unless 'Deluxe' titles, but that's another can or worms I don't want to open )

 

[Robert Crawford]

Last night, out of curiosity, I too watched my copy of "Panic Room" and I thought this dark film looked pretty damn good on my Pro-710. Now, I'm not going to get into the argument on whether this dvd is a true superbit dvd or not, but I'm please with this dvd presentation.



Crawdaddy

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

I'll have to get this DVD now! :b I gotta see this transfer for myself!
I'll say one thing, and it's in relation to darkly lit movies with smoke and fog called, err... The Fog and I always thought that it looked bad on TV and video. But the DVD transfer of The Fog looks great - to my green eyes and I think that the DVD handles the dark foggy scenes superbly. I'm a big fan of John Carpenter and Dean Cundey and I can't wait to see MGM's Special Edition of Escape From New York next year!
Gordy

 

[Robert Harris]

Please note that Panic Room is a 112 minute film.

For those who do not have a background in image compression, it should be pointed out that the compression is contstantly changing based upon the "needs" of the individual frames/shots.

The SB titles have a higher overall bit rate, with generally higher highs and higher lows in comparison to the non SB titles.

Panic Room is a two layered disc with each layer intended to carry 135 minutes of regularly compressed "entertainement."

RAH

 

[James Reader]

I'm sorry Mr Harris - this is not intended an insult although it may look that way over the in-personal nature of the Internet - but it is a real request for information.
I really do want to know if there is any difference between a Superbit disc and an ordinary Paramount disc, such as - say - Vanilla Sky.
Why is (allegedly) only 2/3 of the disc used for the Panic Room title? Despite the marketing of 'Superbit' titles, doesn't that leave room for about an hours worth of extra's (if encoded at a lower bitrate) despite the fact Columbia insist that there is no room for extras on any of their 'Superbit' titles.
Shouldn't the bitrate be as high as possible at all times?
I have DVDs where the bitrate seems to be above 8.2 at all times. If there is a law of diminishing returns please could you explain it?
Why do Paramount release discs which seem to use more data and seem to have a higher bitrate? They do this with no publicity fanfare too. Fox's two disc sets appear to be the same too, from what I have seen.
I'm not disputing that the Panic Room transfer is any less than reference - I can't do that because I have not seen the movie in any shape or form.
Also, I'm sure that it's true and the transfer is reference.
What I have a problem with is the whole Superbit marketing. Why not just release 2 disc sets for movies and do away with the whole 'Superbit' branding. The fact that Panic Room has 2 additional soundtracks (English and French 2.0) shows that - again despite what Columbia say - they could put commentaries on the films if they wanted to.
I'm sure that the quality of the original elements, and clever encoding are just as important as how much space a title physically takes up on the disc - but wouldn't it be best to have all three? Good elements, clever encoding and maximum capacity? Especially if that is what your marketing is selling?

 

[Dave Morton]

I got my copy over the weekend. Now I don't have all the fancy high tech items. Just a regular pioneer dvd player using s-video output to my 40" mitsubishi tube tv and I thought the film was great. Kept me watching in suspense for the entire length of the film. The dts audio sounded great in my humble rotel preamp/power amp with my B&W speakers. Everything looked crisp and clear to me.

Bottom line - I couldn't care less about the bitrate as long as it looks good to me on my system. I couldn't care less about extras. This is a great disk to own if you like the movie and don't care about supplemental material.

 

[Brian Perry]

The thread has to be the most contradictory I've seen in a while. From "horrid" to "superb." Based on RAH's reviews, I'll give it a spin.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Nevermind!

Roseanne Rosannadana.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Nevermind!

Roseanne Rosannadana.

Sony is 'fudging' on this title being a SB.
Multi DD tracks & trailers.
Solid transfer.
However, not a 'true' SB.

 

[Craig W]

Now I am not a fan of the superbit label, but many DVD experts say that amping up the bitrate in many instances does not really increase the quality of the final product. If this title was on a single layer and they slapped superbit on it then I would be a little more upset. The fact is that this a 112 minute movie that is given 6GB of disc space. Granted they put an extra 2-channel French track on it, but that only takes up approximately 150 MB, so us anal retentive enthusiasts can cry that this is not a true superbit title. I have only watched a couple minutes of this DVD but what I saw in those few minutes looked well above average.

 

[Ruz-El]

I checked out a bit of a friends copy and agree that it is a nice transfer. My question is (and maybe Mr. Harris can verify this): Is a high bit rate neccessary to create a solid "film like transfer", or is the mastering (by this I mean the visual equevalent to sound remixing) more important? I previously mentioned that a bad sound mix is a bad sound mix, irregardless of how you record it onto a disc. Is this not true visualy as well? If so, then I don't think there is a reason for a Superbit brand, as it should be EVERY STUDIOS RESPONSABILITY TO THE CONSUMER TO RELEASE THE BEST PRODUCT THEY CAN THE FIRST TIME AROUND!

 

[Mathias Klemme]

All this got me thinking: is there a bitrate limit, i.e. a point where your usual DVD player would not be able to handle the amount of data? Just curious...

-Mathias

 

[Elliott Willschick]

I thought the DVD looked fantastic and that was on my ISF calibrated Toshiba 40H80. I actually watched it a few days before I got it calibrated as well as after. The difference was astounding.

If you don't like the transfer of a DVD, could you please post what your equipment is and if your television is ISF calibrated? That way everyone would have an idea if the problem was in the display or the DVD.

 

[James Reader]

All this got me thinking: is there a bitrate limit, i.e. a point where your usual DVD player would not be able to handle the amount of data? Just curious...

I think its 10 (actually I think it's a fraction over 10).

 

[Craig W]

Yes the maximum data rate that can be processed according to the DVD standard is just slightly over 10Mbits/sec.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Yes the maximum data rate that can be processed according to the DVD standard is just slightly over 10Mbits/sec.

Which includes both video and all audio tracks.
M.