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Columbia/Tristar is releasing 'Superbit' DVDs. They use lower MPEG2 compression and lower audio compression to improve picture quality. They all have DD 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks.

Supposedly, they work in all DVD players. My guess is that they have tweaked the compression tools to use the max bitrate for the DVD video and audio spec. If they do indeed look better, this will be great for people with HD equipment. Since the industry cannot agree on an HD DVD spec (there are already two floating around), this might be a good comprimise. A good video scaler should make a better picture with the extra data.

The downside is no extra features. That doesn't bother me, because I ususally watch the extra stuff once, if ever. The movie is what I go back to watch again.

Current releases:
The Fifth Element
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Air Force One
Johnny Mnemonic
Desperado

Oh, and I think the MSRP is $20! Not too bad for an improved DVD.

I noticed that the other day when I was wandering around Fry's Electronics. I almost picked up the 5th Element so I could compare the picture/sound quality with my roomate's version.

Yeah, I own the 5th element, and the DVD is not very good. The video is ok, but the audio is lacking. I have noticed that it sounds compressed (not digitally, but dynamically). I am thinking about getting the superbit version.

Loud voices and some other sounds really distort in certain scenes. (I have watched it with 3 different CC's and 2 different recievers/DD decoders)

Yeah, Ive seen a couple of those in my local video stores. Hopefully more studios will adopt a similar format to this, since DVD's definitely could use less compression (mpeg2 pixellation is a problem in scenes with lots of action). I really hope they come out with HD-DVD's soon, since my 55" Mitsubishi HDTV is waiting for some luv! Hehe, progressive scanned DVD's certainly look awesome, but they only have 1/2 the resolution of real HD broadcasts. Strangely enough, my first progressive player, a panasonic model 91-something, had really obvious motion artifacts in DVD's. I switched it to a Pioneer Elite DV-37 (awesome unit!), and all is well! I'm not holding my breath for HD-DVD's though...I'd estimate at least 3-6 years until something like that becomes available :-/