I knew Superbit was done when Bestbuy marked all their SB titles down to $9.99 a year or two ago. I don't think there where any major SB titles released after that, except for maybe Leon, The Fifth Element, and Silverado Special Editions, and those don't even really count.

Some of those SB titles are hardly even worth the $10 though. I bought Heavy Metal, and that one was awful. Same terrible picture quality, same mediocre sound, and all the great special features from the original DVD were gone.

i picked up quite a few during the best buy 9.99 sale. the sb dracula, airforce one and lawrence of arabia kicked ass in av quality over their non sb brethren. it may have been viewed as a "marketing ploy" by some but the bitrate was higher in each instance (i checked lol) otherwise it would have been false advertising

The only Superbit title I have is Bram Stoker's Dracula. And I only got it because it was $9.99 at Best Buy and the original release didn't have any extras on it anyway.

And I was really unimpressed with the picture quality. I don't know how the original release looks, but the SB picture didn't look any better than most of the DVDs I own. I even thought that the color looked sort of dull and the picture a bit soft compared to a lot of other discs. Even though it was probably encoded at a higher bit rate, the transfer they used didn't seem all that great to begin with.

No wonder they were on sale. Here in Canada, Future Shop had them today on sale for $6.99. Some of the titles that I remembered were:
- Lawrence of Arabia
- Bram Stoker's Dracula
- XXX
- Air Force One
- Men In Black
- Once Upon A Time In Mexico
- Guns of Navarone
- Cliffhanger
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
- Resident Evil
- S.W.A.T.
- Desperado

I picked up Lawrence of Arabia and Dracula. Any other ones that are worthwhile from the list above?

Desperado
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Air Force One

the DTS soundtracks are kick-ass.

I have a few Superbit DVDs.

I waited for Zorro (the 1st movie) to come out on DVD before I bought it. The video and sound were much better than the original.

The next Superbit I picked up was "The 5th Element", once again better than the original. This is the "Live Action" DVD that I put in my player to show off my HDTV picture - Truely amazing picture and sound on this DVD.

Whatever you want to say about Superbit, they were better quality than the original.

I thought it died like 3 years ago.

Superbit doesn't die until Sony says it does.

I have LOA, Das Boot, and Tommy. LOA and Das Boot I got for the improved video (Das Boot added anamorphic as well) and all three for the DTS tracks. In the case of LOA and Das Boot I kept the standard releases with the extras. Other than those three, I saw no reason to particiapte in yet another in a long line of poor execution of concepts Sony tried marketing down people's throats.

LOA was the best value and best for any collection due to it having the color timing fixed over the regular dvd.

Thank you.

Yes, DTS is always good to have, and if it's not on the regular version, they can keep making SUPERBITs for as long as they want (although it's easier to just put the damn DTS soundtrack on the regular version).

Panic Room sounds great in DTS and the transfer is noticeably better than on the SE.

I own a handful of SuperBits and, as much as I like bells and whistles, it's nice to pop a DVD in and just hit "Play".

When I was running my Sony CRT front projector, I always thought the Superbit DVds looked great.
The DTS was always top notch as well (for half-bit rate), I liked the Spidey 2 mix.
oh well, RIP

Actually, it's not. The Superbit suffers from some pretty noticeable halos and is not as sharp. The DTS is impressive, though.

I've seen a screen-by-screen comparison, and I would choose the Superbit because of increased detail.

Does this hold true for other regions as well .. or just region 1?

Only have Adaptation and Tommy here. None of the other titles were of much interest to me, so I'm not too broked up.

Maybe so, but really Gattaca was not in that catagory.

Yeah I have them both, there are no halos on the SB.

Air Force One and The Patriot are great to have just for the DTS tracks and the fact that their other releases didn't have a ton of extra stuff, even The Patriot EE. Got them for 10 apiece at BB but couldn't find any other titles to buy, which looks to be the norm for this board.

I wish they had made the SB Jurassic Park DVDs available in R1. Japan has them, and I can play them, but they are OOP and sell at a huge premium.

I have but two Superbit titles - Silverado (Special Edition), and Adaptation.

See ya, Superbit...you pretty much sucked anyway.

= J

Coincidentally, I got a SB Patriot for Christmas. I already had the original DVD, and the SB, even though it was a 2 discer, added no new special features, just the upgraded sound and video.

I decided to return it unopened, as if I ever switch over to a video/audio guy, I'll get the HD disc. But for now, I live in SD world and do my best to never watch HD (so I don't really now what I'm missing).