superbit dvds: what happened?
 

i was wondering because i havent seen any new dvds.

The brown bunny and closer are both recent superbits

I'm guessing he meant re-releases. Maybe they're holding off for HD.

I think they've given up doing 3-4 new titles every 3 months and instead working on Ultimate Editions like what they're doing with The Mask of Zorro, Legends of the Fall, The Fifth Element, Leon and A River Runs Through It.

I think they just slapped the "Superbit" logo on Closer and The Brown Bunny. Of course they can call them Superbits because we have nothing to compare them to.

Saxon

superbit is dying.

You can only go so far selling (mostly) bad movies on barebones discs for $24.99.

Well said.... :thumbsup:

Blu-ray, baby... blu-ray

Yep, that about says it.

I believe Superbits are DEAD. Future Shop, an electronics store up here in Canada, just had a sale on them. 2 for $25! Great deal...

Sony is probably trying to clear them out before Blu-ray hits, hence the big 9.99 sale at BB. My guess is that many of the Superbit titles will be first out of the gate for BR.

:lol:

I love the few SB titles that I own, but... yeah, I was about the say the same thing.

Especially when you're selling things like Dark Crystal or Labyrinth that (a) lose really cool supplements and (b) are virtually indistiguishable visually/sonically from their cheaper/supplement-packed counterparts.

I don't know if you can see the difference between Superbit and regular DVD's on an HDTV but I know on my regular TV I couldn't tell any difference. Actually the Superbits tend to look granier and murky to me.

Would love to see Mary Shelly's Frankenstein on Superbit.

5th element and leon were ultimate editions and superbit as well...but thats not how they were marketed

A few of them offer much sharper transfers. The rest leave a lot to desire.

Are we going to have to upgrade to new DVD players to play these new Blue-Ray dvds???

Yep.

You will have to upgrade to a Blu-Ray player to play Blu-Ray discs. Blu-Ray is not DVD.

sucks about Superbit, but Columbia's catalogue wasn't too impressive. But I think we can really see that the average consumer (read: the majority) doesn't give a crap about image quality, so the Superbit death isn't anything for high-end fans to chuckle at. How warmly will the public embrace a new format like Blu-Ray which is only going to cost them more (new players and discs)? I really see this being the new niche format. More succesful than D-VHS perhaps, but it's doubtful it will even reach the popularity of LD. The next format craze is far more likely to be seriously expanded potential for digital cable pay-per-view. Once you order a film, instead of having a limited time, it can be stored on a hard drive or disc forever. Never have to enter the DVD store again and all titles will be instantly available everyone. Man, that would save a lot of hassle.

The issue is that a significant % of Superbits showed little to no improvement... even on high-end equipment. So, why should people pay $$$ for a bare bones edition of, say, The Dark Crystal. When they can get an edition of it, with deleted scenes, a fantastic 1-hour documentary, and other goodies for about ten bucks? An edition, I will add, that looks/sounds identical to the DTS "superbit".

I think that a lot of people can appreciate improved image quality -- and would pay more for it -- but you have to actually PRESENT them with improved quality, not just branding and hype. The Superbit concept was flawed from the start.

Plus, as mentioned, a large number of the titles that Columbia focused on... well, frankly, they suck. Not to threadcrap, but are people really clamoring for crystal-clear editions of Hollow Man, Anaconda, Cliffhanger, SWAT, and Vampires?

superbit happened

Snakes on a plane, man...

Yeah, I think that the improvement that Superbit could bring has kind of become less apparent. It was okay when it first came out, or would have been even better if it had started a few years earlier, but nowadays they're gotten so good at compression that using a higher bitrate yields little improvement.

Do you really think that's going to catch on?