All I can say is get it NOW! It is the new reference for picture and sound in my book. I am going to use it for a long time to show off my system.

Nice to hear from ya snippy!

The SM2 sounds cool, I'll have to check it out!

Cheers, Jag

which scene do u use to show off your system (I assume you don't play the whole movie everytime)? The train fighting scene?

my wife bought the spiderman2 dvd to give to my son for christmas. so, i cant watch it til he opens it. i did see the show at the theater, and i remember several scenes that i thought would sound great on my system. there were several LFE scenes when doc ock's 'plasma orb' was growing. cant wait to give it a listen, probably the afternoon of christmas day.

i dont know if its the superbit version though. i didnt ask her. she got it at target. ?

bigjohn

snip - how are you? How was/is England and that whole internship thing?

What is Superbit anyhow? Somewhere between a regular DVD and HD? Kind of a poor man's HD equivalent?

Where do you find the Superbit version? I've seen the superbit versions of the Fifth Element and Star Wars at a local shop and they seemed to be worth the money. Just curios where you would buy that at

Amazon has a large selection of Superbit. I have bought from them as well as Best Buy. The couple titles I have are better than the standard DVD versions in video and audio quality.

Scott

there is also a super-bit of 'panic room' with jodie foster.. my mom has it. there are some very interesting video sequences in that movie that would be best enjoyed on a high end TV(plasma, LCD, etc).

bigjohn

yeah...but too bad the movie sucked.

Snippy,

I have been meaning to ask you about your trip to England, are you there now? How are you enjoying not seeing the sun for months at a time?!

Stuart

Haven't seen it. I did see the HD trailer on HDNet. Probably one of the best movie trailers I've seen. The audio was FANTASTIC, especially when Doc Oc was creeping around. Makes those QS8's come alive.

We're getting the Spidy 2 DVD this year as part of our corporate holiday gifts from Sony. I didn't realize they were doing this flick in Superbit. Which now means I'll have to sell the free one to go buy the Superbit version instead.

I can't imagine what's going to happen next year when the Blu-Ray discs come out... there goes my whole DVD collection...

In reply to:

---

Blu-Ray discs come out

---

OK, that sparked my curiousity?

what is blu-ray?

bigjohn

Superbit movies are DVDs by Sony that have no special features so that they maximize the bit rate of the picture and sound. When there is less compression on the DVD, the picture is able to show more detail. All superbits also come with DTS sound, which is always a welcome upgrade in my book. I prefer to own the best version available, quality wise, so I try to buy the superbit and rent the special features from Netflix, since I only watch those once.

I bought the superbit version at Best Buy for $14.39. They also had the first movie in superbit for $11.99. I also picked up two more superbits because they had a buy one get one free deal. I got 4 superbit DVDs for $45. It was a damn good deal.

I have been back from England since mid-September. It was an amazing trip and my boss was incredible. She was also very inspirational to me about doing structural engineering projects that are really interesting (she did the structural engineering on the London Eye).

I have moved into a new house where I have been able to play my Axioms as loud as I want. My ex-girlfriend (who I lived with in my old apartment) also left town to move to New York City, which is very hard for me, but I get to play my music and movies without her yelling at me to turn it down. Hopefully, when I graduate in June (6 years baby!), I will be able to meet her there in New York.

Axiom needs to make some flat panel speakers for me by then so I can hang them next to a plasma when I move into an excruciatingly small apartment in New York City.

Blu-ray is a new protocol for 5 1/4 inch optical disks. It uses a blue laser, which allows it to store a hell of a lot more data. There is a competing standard (of course!!!) which still uses a red laser (I think) and is called HD-DVD. Basically, both will allow an HD program on a 5 1/4 inch disk.

Me, I'm waiting for it to all shake out, just like SACD/DVD-A. It's really irritating...

sell the girlfriend, forget the apartment, and get bigger speakers.

ken- thanks, i had never heard of that.. guess i will have to do some research on it at home tonight.

bigjohn

Thanks snip. Sorry to here about the ex.

Ya know as I reflect, we have had Betamax vs. VHS, SACD vs. DVD-A and now Blu-ray vs HD-DVD. All competing formats and all fostering aggravating, expensive, frustrating and unnecessary consumer abuse, confusion and expense. Not to mention the additional issue of companies spending lots of time and R&D money (eventually translating into more consumer expense) trying to get the competing stuff to work together in individual components. I give you SACD vs. DVD-A and the resulting universal players. These events are usually driven by Sony stepping back and saying - "Good idea, but I think I'll do my own format instead and make it proprietary".

I'm all for competition and technology improvements resulting from that competition, but it seems to be an expensive and frustrating way to go about it.

I'd really like to see a "Department of Common Sense For Agreement on Standardizing Formats To Avoid Hosing Consumers" in charge of this kind of thing. Then these companies could all be more cost effective and sopend their time making things that are dependable, feature rich and more affordable.

Don't forget what is probably the most confusing thing in consumer electronics today: DVD-R vs. DVD+R. What the hell's the difference? Nothing as far as I can tell except a different format. It's really annoying to have to keep telling customers, "Yeah, you have to make sure you get the DVD dash R not the DVD plus R," and then having them look at me like I'm totally insane.

I read an article recently, both blu-ray and HD-dvd uses blue lazer. The difference is blue-way writes a thinner layer and would have a higher capacity disc. HD-DVD is backed by more than 15 hollywood producer and blu-ray is only backed by fox(fox is also supporting HD-DVD,too) and sony pictures. This is the same case hardware wise, almost all companies are supporting HD-DVD while Sony and one or two companies are pushing blu-ray.

This is very much like vhs vs beta war with the differences that Sony got Sony Pictures and PS3 to back up the technology

Don't know if you guys read this. Thought you might find it interesting. Here's another take on the same story.

Watched the Spidy 2 Superbit last night. The DTS mix has got to be one of the best mixes I've heard. The bass is killer an it's not boomy. The bass is also really tight and well controlled, and there's a lot of scenes where it needs to be controlled. The other thing that really makes the DTS mix stand out is how full and large the soundstage is. Most movies sound better in my home theater than they do in a real theater, but what most DVDs lack is that soundstage that makes you feel like your in a much larger room. This DTS mix gives the feeling of being in a much larger room. My HT is 13x24, but if sure felt like I was is a much larger space, the soundstage is very full and seems to go well beyond where my walls end and if you want surround and channel seperation then it's there too.

I wan't as impressed with the pic quality though. I use a Sanyo Z2 projector with a 104" screen and a Momitsu upconverting DVD player and the pic quality is good, but there is some noise and a little EE. It's a good transfer, but not as good as other Superbit titles like Bad Boys II.

Bigjohn,

There were two good articles in the USA TODAY this week; I believe the Tuesday and Wednesday editions. Both are on the second page of the Money section, (if I remember correctly.) This is what I can remember from both articles. Don’t quote me on any of this; I have slept since I read them. Here is the link –

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2004-12-01-dvd-qanda_x.htm

Short version (typed this before I looked for the link)

Both increase video and audio compression on the disk X 5. A disc would be able to hold 15 Gig of data on a single layer and there will be dual layer disc available. The players will be able to read both the new DVD and current DVD formats, players will cost between $995 and $2000.

HD-DVD (made by Toshiba) is mainly supported by the movie industry (NBC Universal, Warner Bros. Pictures, Paramount etc.)

Blue-Ray (made by Sony) is supported by the computer industry (Dell, Hewlett-Packard and of course Sony pictures). (None of the computer manufactures have supported HD-DVD to date.)

What all this means for the consumer in the near future? Basically, NADA, don’t expect to see the new players for another 12 months. Both parties are just creating a bunch of hype since there is some type of convention in January in which they will display these two formats.

Del

Incorrect! Microsoft has supported HD-DVD.

Just to add to kcarlile:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/HDVideo.aspx

I have watched HD-DVD Terminator 2 - EE and Step into liquid in HD on my HTPC setup and it is awesome. Lots more information in the screen....such as in the explosion on T2 the fire has many fork flame details while in the regular version you see more of a whole orange blob.

I watched the lowly non-SuperBit DD version of Spider-Man 2 last night.....it was fun!

Regular updates about the rising battle between HD-DVD and Blu-ray can be found at

http://www.thedigitalbits.com

HD-DVD has announced that they will have 60-70 titles out by the end of the year. Some impressive ones Matrix trilogy, Harry Potter, etc. Blu-ray is expected to release their initial catalog by early 2006. Both use blue laser technology and will be backwards compatible with DVD (thank goodness). A single layer of HD DVD can hold roughly 15GB of info (compared to 4.7GB for standard DVD), while Blu-ray can hold 25GB per layer. Blu ray has stated they have the technology to support 8(!) layered discs. Expect Blu ray to be more expensive than HD DVD because their lines must be changed dramatically for the switch. HD DVD should be cheaper but because of the smaller capacity will they look as good as Blu-ray? Fox is the only remaining major studio to not back either format. They have a pretty large catalog, so whichever they support might have the early advantage. As of now, the split from studios is about 50/50. Players that will play both formats will be available eventually, but probably not for awhile. Do expect a big battle with the consumers losing in the short run.

Sorry just some odds and ends off the top of my head.