As it was noted in the second post, Superbit is a Sony/Columbia brand. It's also nothing special in terms of technology; all they do is maximize bitrate (which isn't always the case anyway) and minimize the vertical filtering found on many DVDs that destroys detail (which they don't always do either). As someone else said, it's hit-or-miss. Some Superbits are consistently held up as reference quality (The Fifth Element), but some aren't.

Basically, it's a crock. There are plenty of studios releasing reference-quality DVDs without any special fanfare or silly marketing gimmicks like Superbit.

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Originally posted by: bad_karma24
What was wrong with the Royal Tanebaums?

Halos out the yingyang and, if memory serves, a very unnatural graininess--much worse than typical film grain. Both halos and excessive grain are often the consequences of excessive sharpening applied during the mastering process.

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Originally posted by: GundarkHunter
I suspect that Criterion didn't have much to do with the actual mastering of Tenebaums, as it was distributed by Touchstone and carried a Touchstone-level price point.

I didn't know it was a Touchstone job. That would explain things.