Chapter 1

• Gladiator Stunning surround audio with brilliantly mixed orchestration.
• O Brother, Where Art Thou Beautiful color and incredible detail
(check out facial stubble) with well-rendered shadows.
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Ultimate Edition) Great video for
shadows and reds, with highly dimensional audio.
• Toy Story 2 The perfect all-digital transfer results in sharp, rich
images; the sound effects are nicely staged.
• U-571 Its earthshaking bass makes it a great subwoofer demo.
Films on Disc has a list of ISF DVD citations, examples of the best of the
craft.
What Do Sensormatic and Checkpoint Mean?
Sensormatic and Checkpoint are two point-of-sale security systems. The
names refer to the little metal tags inserted into DVD packaging to set off an
alarm if you go through the sensors at the store entrance without having the
tags deactivated during checkout. The tags are placed in the packages at
the replication plant so that it doesn’t have to be done at the store. This is
called source tagging.
What Are Superbit, Infinifilm, and Other Variations
of DVD?
General DVD 61
One single DVD-Video standard exists, but within the DVD-Video format is
a great deal of flexibility in the way discs can be created. Different studios
have come up with brand names for their particular implementations of
advanced features. Nothing is extraordinary about any particular variation,
other than a studio spending a lot of time and effort making it work well and
promoting it. These kinds of advanced DVDs should play on most players
but may reveal more player bugs than standard discs (see “Why Doesn’t
Disc X Work in Player Y?”).
Superbit DVDs, from Columbia TriStar, use a high data rate for the video
to improve picture quality. Additional language tracks and other extras are
left off the disc to make room for more video data and for a DTS audio track.
In most cases, the difference is subtle, but it does improve the experience
on high-end players and progressive-scan displays. See superbitdvd.com
for marketing info.