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Info Wanted: Superbit?

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I noticed they have the three prequels as well.

I've bought Superbit titles before and I honestly haven't noticed much of a difference. These, however, sound interesting. If it's legit, that is.

My question is, why only 250 copies?

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neat idea, if you're gonna flog a fake, do it with style. the funny thing will be after he sells 251 of these.

I do like the effort they've gone into making a good package though. digipak, good quality graphics etc.

but its a fake.
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I personally do like the superbit series, because if nothing else, it has DTS sound on them. I think there may be a slight improvement in picture quality, but not much.

But they don't have that many out, and definately not Star Wars. Its from Russia and I've seen the Indiana Jones trilogy on superbit out of there, also of very questionable authenticity.

But it says its real on the auction, so it has to be. lol
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Might be more pertinent to mention that Superbit is a trademark of Sony Pictures Entertainment and ergo only Sony and Colombia releases can ever be true Superbit releases.

Star Wars is CBS/FOX - therefore:

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They're a fake. No question whatsoever. Not only is the seller an obvious liar (promotional releases... lol), but as meedermow pointed out, Fox would not have the rights to use the Superbit series. Probably no better then ones you can get for free. Why on earth would you pay for these?

In any case, I definetely prefer Superbits to the original releases. I think there's a couple of them out there where I wouldn't bother upgrading (Leon is the only one I can think of at the moment). As far as the others I've seen (Lawrence of Arabia, Das Boot, Desperado, and The Fifth Element) the Superbit edition is far and away the better of the two.

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Should Sony be notified of this since someone is stealing their dvd standard and false advertising? I know it's a lost cause trying to fight pirates on ebay but they might listen to Sony. By the way, how does The Fifth Element superbit compare to the newest Ultimate Edition dvd?

But the packaging is awesome.

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Originally posted by: Knightmessenger
By the way, how does The Fifth Element superbit compare to the newest Ultimate Edition dvd?



Click here for disc comparision. The R1 Superbit has superb picture quality while the R2 Ultimate Edition has a full bit-rate DTS track, there's no mention of the Superbit having this.

I've been slowly trying to collect all the Superbit editions, but the R2 UE of The Fifth Element got my vote, mainly for the DTS track.

My next Superbit purchases will be the legit Japanese versions of the Ghostbusters twinpack and the Jurassic Park Trilogy, but these'll be a long way off for me as they were only produced in a limited quantity and sell for $100-$200 per disc on eBay.
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These are obviously fakes, which means they are bootlegs, which means I had to remove the link.

Star Wars in Superbit would be awesome though. But consider that Lucas has a thing about not including DTS on any of his releases, sighting how great the THX Doby Surround EX soundtracks are. But anyone who's had the chance to listen to the pod race sequence in DTS off the THX demo disc knows how vastly superior a 6.1 discreet channel DTS track would be.

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I think I paid $95 for the R2 Jurassic Park superbit but it is far superior to the R1 DVD in terms of video quality. The R2 Ghostbusters superbit DVD wasn't all that much better than the R1 release.
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I have the THX demo DVD and while better than the dolby digital DVD soundtrack, it still doesn't beat the laserdiscs dolby digital, which is 5.1 EX.
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Compression and bit rate are the reasons why. DD tracks on DVD can be up to 448kbps, while DTS can be up to 1.5Mbps. The AC3 track on the LD is an even higher bit rate I believe. Also, I'd be willing to bet the DTS audio on the THX demo disc is just a recompressed version of the Dolby master.

However, if you compare a soundtrack mastered by DTS to a soundtrack mastered by Dolby, there can be distict differences. If anyone out there has both a copy of the DD version of Jurassic Park and the DTS version, compare the audio of the opening credits. I used to demo this for people when I worked at Circuit City. There's a part in the opening credits of the film where the bass kicks in with a solid "boom". In the DTS version, the bass is tight and solid. On the DD version, the bass is very weak and sounds muddy. The chirps of the birds and wind instruments are also much clearer on the DTS version. Is this the same case with your Superbit DVD gl?

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I won't link to it, but I've seen there is also a "superbit" version of Star Wars Episode 3 on Ebay as well.

But as it is said earlier, the box is still impressive.

I have the Superbit versions of Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 and the DTS sounds better than the Dolby Digital 5.1 on the regular releases. I've seen the Jurrassic Park Superbit series on E-bay before, and wish they would come out with more R1 Superbits. They only seem to go to Japan. But do they really have that many more besides Jurrassic Park and a few others?
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Japan also has Ghostbusters and Dr. Strangelove I believe. Korea also got Black Hawk Down, Crouching Tiger and a few others. There was also a Region 2 release of Lawrence of Arabia which quite frankly dwarfed the R1 release in terms of picture quality.

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Originally posted by: zion
Compression and bit rate are the reasons why. DD tracks on DVD can be up to 448kbps, while DTS can be up to 1.5Mbps. The AC3 track on the LD is an even higher bit rate I believe. Also, I'd be willing to bet the DTS audio on the THX demo disc is just a recompressed version of the Dolby master.

However, if you compare a soundtrack mastered by DTS to a soundtrack mastered by Dolby, there can be distict differences. If anyone out there has both a copy of the DD version of Jurassic Park and the DTS version, compare the audio of the opening credits. I used to demo this for people when I worked at Circuit City. There's a part in the opening credits of the film where the bass kicks in with a solid "boom". In the DTS version, the bass is tight and solid. On the DD version, the bass is very weak and sounds muddy. The chirps of the birds and wind instruments are also much clearer on the DTS version. Is this the same case with your Superbit DVD gl?



Actually, Dolby digital, or AC-3 on laserdisc was at the rate of 384kbps. So in the case of laserdisc, even though the dolby has the lower bitrate, it still is better than both the DVD's dolby digital at 448kbps and the THX demo's 754kbps DTS track. In my opinion, bitrate doesn't tell the story. DD on laserdisc has the lowest bitrate of all at 384kbps and it is very often superior to DTS or DD tracks on DVD that are at higher bitrates. Another one is Saving Private Ryan. I had the DD DVD and the DTS DVD, and the DTS DVD was the clear winner. I then got the DD LD and it bested the DTS DVD. Video quality was of course another matter.

I always felt that ld basically used the theatrical mix whereas DVD's are often "remixed" for home theater. When comparing the Star Wars Episode I DD DVD (at 448kbps) to the DD on the LD (at 384kbps) it is no contest. The LD is far more agressive of a mix and faithfully represents the theatrical viewing experience that I had. The DVD sounds "dumbed down" so to speak.

I have not compared the DD to the DTS on the R2 Jurassic park superbit. I know that the DTS is only at a rate of 754kbps and does not use the full 1509kbps as some early DTS DVD's did. DTS laserdisc for reference used a bitrate of 1235kbps. I remeber that when the R1 Jurassic park came out, the DTS DVD was very very weak and was easily bested by the DD DVD. It was found that an encoding error occured on the DTS DVD and cut it's LFE channel by 4db. A repressed DTS DVD was made available that was said to be created from the DTS laserdisc master and it shows. I believe that the Jurassic park superbit DTS is this same mix as it sounds very similar to the DTS DVD.

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Originally posted by: Knightmessenger
By the way, how does The Fifth Element superbit compare to the newest Ultimate Edition dvd?


I believe the R1 DVD Ultimate Edition is a packaging of the Superbit disc along with a second disc of special features. If that is truly the case, then the Ultimate Edition is the way to go.

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Originally posted by: Number20
I won't link to it, but I've seen there is also a "superbit" version of Star Wars Episode 3 on Ebay as well.

But as it is said earlier, the box is still impressive.

I have the Superbit versions of Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 and the DTS sounds better than the Dolby Digital 5.1 on the regular releases. I've seen the Jurrassic Park Superbit series on E-bay before, and wish they would come out with more R1 Superbits. They only seem to go to Japan. But do they really have that many more besides Jurrassic Park and a few others?


R2 got quite a few that R1 did not have. The reason is that in R2 Sony has the rights to films that they do not have in the states. R2 also had Gladiator superbit, the Mummy Returns, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Bridge on the River Kwai, and Taxi Driver, plus the Ghostbusters and Jurassic park movies as already noted. These are the ones I myself have and there are more that were R2 superbits not available in the US. For a list you can go to the CD japan website and search for superbit and it will show you the still available R2 superbits.

Just to note, the Jurassic Park superbit sets on ebay are bootlegs. AS noted earlier, you will pay dearly for the geniune Jurassic park alone, let alone all three films.

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Originally posted by: gltaylor74
I always felt that ld basically used the theatrical mix whereas DVD's are often "remixed" for home theater. When comparing the Star Wars Episode I DD DVD (at 448kbps) to the DD on the LD (at 384kbps) it is no contest. The LD is far more agressive of a mix and faithfully represents the theatrical viewing experience that I had. The DVD sounds "dumbed down" so to speak.

I have not compared the DD to the DTS on the R2 Jurassic park superbit. I know that the DTS is only at a rate of 754kbps and does not use the full 1509kbps as some early DTS DVD's did. DTS laserdisc for reference used a bitrate of 1235kbps. I remeber that when the R1 Jurassic park came out, the DTS DVD was very very weak and was easily bested by the DD DVD. It was found that an encoding error occured on the DTS DVD and cut it's LFE channel by 4db. A repressed DTS DVD was made available that was said to be created from the DTS laserdisc master and it shows. I believe that the Jurassic park superbit DTS is this same mix as it sounds very similar to the DTS DVD.


I must've had the repressed DTS version then because it sounded amazing. Someone stole the disc out of my disc wallet though.

I wonder if it's an increased dynamic range that makes the LD sound so good?

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Originally posted by: zion
Originally posted by: gltaylor74
I always felt that ld basically used the theatrical mix whereas DVD's are often "remixed" for home theater. When comparing the Star Wars Episode I DD DVD (at 448kbps) to the DD on the LD (at 384kbps) it is no contest. The LD is far more agressive of a mix and faithfully represents the theatrical viewing experience that I had. The DVD sounds "dumbed down" so to speak.

I have not compared the DD to the DTS on the R2 Jurassic park superbit. I know that the DTS is only at a rate of 754kbps and does not use the full 1509kbps as some early DTS DVD's did. DTS laserdisc for reference used a bitrate of 1235kbps. I remeber that when the R1 Jurassic park came out, the DTS DVD was very very weak and was easily bested by the DD DVD. It was found that an encoding error occured on the DTS DVD and cut it's LFE channel by 4db. A repressed DTS DVD was made available that was said to be created from the DTS laserdisc master and it shows. I believe that the Jurassic park superbit DTS is this same mix as it sounds very similar to the DTS DVD.


I must've had the repressed DTS version then because it sounded amazing. Someone stole the disc out of my disc wallet though.

I wonder if it's an increased dynamic range that makes the LD sound so good?



Laserdiscs aren't compressed AT ALL. That's what makes them sound great.
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Originally posted by: gltaylor74


Just to note, the Jurassic Park superbit sets on ebay are bootlegs. AS noted earlier, you will pay dearly for the geniune Jurassic park alone, let alone all three films.


The Jurassic Park Superbits that I looked at certainly weren't bootlegs, hence the price I mentioned.

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Originally posted by: Boomstick
Originally posted by: gltaylor74


Just to note, the Jurassic Park superbit sets on ebay are bootlegs. AS noted earlier, you will pay dearly for the geniune Jurassic park alone, let alone all three films.


The Jurassic Park Superbits that I looked at certainly weren't bootlegs, hence the price I mentioned.


Yeah, the Jurassic Park Superbits probably aren't bootlegs.

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The bulk of the Superbit DVDs are released in the U.S. and Europe, the only reason Jurassic Park got a Superbit disc was while in the U.S and Europe it's distributed by Universal/ Amblin, in Japan Sony/ Columbia have the deal for distribution, hense the Superbit release there. Why they can't put produce GhostBusters Superbit as Columbia have the Worldwide right to it, I don't know, but it's fucking annoying.