Get Hi Def DVD Now with SuperBit

You don’t have to wait for HD DVD or BluRay to get high definition DVD with SuperBit DVD’s. A SuperBit DVD is encoded at double the normal bit rate of a standard DVD giving a higher quality image. This higher bit rate takes more space so a SuperBit DVD doesn’t have any extra features like deleted scenes and commentary. A SuperBit DVD plays in all video devices that can play a normal DVD.

The Superbit™ titles utilize a high bit rate digital transfer process which optimizes video quality while offering a choice of both DTS and 5.1 Dolby Digital audio. Superbit™ DVDs are encoded at about double their normal bit rate while maintaining full compatibility with the DVD-Video format. The result is picture quality that provides outstanding detail and is the closest to the original master available on DVD to date. Superbit™ DVDs play on current players and needs no additional DVD equipment.

You can get a SuperBit DVD for the same price as a normal DVD. Best Buy has a bunch of SuperBit DVD’s going for under 10 bucks.

Okay, so technically these SuperBit DVD’s are not high-definition – actually the resolution is the same. But with a higher bit rate (as all of you know who rip your own DVD’s) you have less compression, which means less loss, which means a better picture. CNET has a good summary:

In other words, the video is less compressed (MPEG-2 is the video compression algorithm for DVDs), which means more detail and better color in the resulting product, even though the resolution is the same.

And hi-fi writer breaks it all down:

The video on a DVD is compressed using MPEG2, a lossy system. This means it throws away some of the data.

MPEG2 is a highly efficient compression system. It not only compresses each video frame, it compresses across time by delivering just one out of twelve or fifteen original frames, and then providing information about how the rest differ from those frames. It is also a variable bit rate system so that sections of video that compress well can be squeezed into even smaller packages, while action sequences or parts with a lot of detail can be provided with more data.

PAL video on DVD, if it weren't compressed, would require over 80 megabits per second. The DVD specification allows a maximum of just 10 megabits per second, and a typical average bit rate for a DVD is around four or five megabits per second.

The idea behind Superbit is to leave virtually all extras off the disc so that all its capacity is available for video and audio. Even the menu is static and plain. All this permits a higher bit rate.

But the proof is in the pudding – is the video quality of a SuperBit DVD better? From most of the reviews that I have read the answer is yes but it seems the better your video setup (i.e. HDTV set, cables, etc) the better quality you will see. I did find an interesting review by a developer of a MPEG encoding/video editing software tool called MPressionist that compared a SuperBit DVD vs a standard DVD frame-by-frame:

Technically speaking, Superbit titles are encoded at approximately 1Mbs higher average bitrate than the corresponding widescreen edition.

…

Under slow-motion or still-frame scrutiny, the compressed picture is indeed of a higher quality. This increased quality is most evident in features shot on a grainy film stock: in Superbit-encoded titles, the grain of the film is much more visible than in the widescreen versions - suggesting that either the Widescreen versions were filtered before encoding, or that the low-pass characteristics of DCT quantization (employed by MPEG compression) was discarding the high-frequency grain structure least visible to the naked eye.

Even more compelling are the frame-difference comparisons for high-motion regions of these films. High-motion footage poses a greater challenge to video compression, and this is evident in comparing Superbit with non-Superbit titles. Typically, in standard widescreen versions, large frame differences can be observed during high-motion (and to a lesser extent, in highly textured) regions relative to the higher bitrate Superbit title.

This is the first I’ve heard of SuperBit so I don’t have one to compare but if you are a SuperBit DVD fan then let me know in the comments.