You know you have a case of dementia--or videophilitis, as I like to call it--when you start comparing movies by their bit rates rather than their overall merits. It's not right, I tell you, but I've become addicted to the bit-rate meter on my DVD player.

What exactly are bit rates? Well, the video bit rate, measured in megabits, refers to how many data bits your DVD player is processing per second (Mbps). The bit rates of your average DVD run somewhere in the neighborhood of 5Mbps, though the rate will jump up and down from scene to scene, depending on the complexity of the picture. The best you can get today from the DVD format is 10Mbps.

Enter Superbit
In October of last year, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment took bit rates mainstream when it released its Superbit line of DVDs, which includes such titles as The Fifth Element; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Air Force One; and Desperado. The idea is pretty simple. Instead of including extras such as a director's commentary, trailers, deleted scenes, and additional language soundtracks, Superbit DVDs use the extra disc capacity for more video bits and DTS 5.1 sound. In other words, the video is less compressed (MPEG-2 is the video compression algorithm for DVDs), which means more detail and better color in the resulting product, even though the resolution is the same.

After the release of the initial batch of Superbit DVDs, there was some debate among videophiles as to whether Superbit DVDs were indeed superior to their non-Superbit counterparts and not just a marketing ploy. On the whole, the verdict is that they are better, although there are some exceptions, but we'll get to that in a minute.

Bring in the hardware
When I asked Joel Silver, the president and founder of the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF), to weigh in on the Superbit debate, he told me he'd run some side-by-side comparisons of both versions of the Fifth Element DVD using a couple of $40,000 Runco projectors with $20,000 video processors--basically, your top-of-the-line gear. The result: the Superbit version was clearly superior. However, Silver points out that at least one Superbit DVD, Desperado, was actually worse than the original because it was laden with edge-enhancement problems. "Even within the Superbit process, there's a human factor," explains Silver, implying that producing DVDs is an art form that requires a lot of TLC.

In my own tests with more modest gear (a $3,000 Samsung 65-inch rear-project set coupled with Toshiba's affordable SD-4700 progressive-scan DVD player), I too noticed a difference in the Fifth Element DVDs, most notably in the color saturation, and those subtle differences were reflected in my trusty bit-rate meter. Scenes that averaged 5 to 6Mbps in the original Fifth Element DVD averaged closer to 8Mbps in the Superbit version and topped 9.5 in a few instances. That's a feel-good moment if there ever was one.

Will you notice a difference if you have a lesser rig, say, an analog 27-inch TV coupled with an under-$150 DVD player? Well, that depends first on whether you have the DVD player hooked up to your set with an S-Video or component-video cable as opposed to the lowly composite video cables that are included with most DVD players. ("If you're not running at least S," says Silver, "you should be in therapy.") With a better connection, you should see better color saturation, though you'll have to look hard.

Jonesing for better video
If you think you're immune to bit-rate madness, just wait until you step up to your first HD-ready TV, which won't be long with the way prices for these guys are falling. By December, you'll be able to get a decent HDTV, plus a high-performance progressive-scan DVD player for about $2,000. A few calibrations later (unfortunately, it helps to have an ISF-trained technician tweak your set for best performance), you're on your way to becoming a video connoisseur and bit-rate meter monger.

Do all DVD players have bit-rate meters? No, so check the specs before you buy. Most Toshiba decks and all of Sony's have them, but surprisingly, they're absent from Panasonic's highly-rated RP91 and RP56. I'd be exaggerating to say that it's an essential feature, but when you start pushing 8.5Mbps, as I did recently with the pristine Training Day, you know that you're sampling a vintage DVD with Oscar-caliber image quality.