Columbia Tri-Star Home Entertainment developed the SuperBit DVD format to appeal to collectors and owners of home theater systems who wanted the best possible sound and picture from their DVDs.  In order to obtain the best picture and sound Columbia banished all extras from the first wave of SuperBit DVDS, which are encoded at roughly twice the bit rate of DVDs that do have extras on the same disk (see 'Columbia Aims Superbit DVDs At Collectors').  But the same collectors who want the best possible picture also love all the extras, so Columbia received plenty of complaints about the first wave of SuperBit DVDs.  Columbia's solution was to issue its latest group of SuperBit DVDs (including The Patriot and Hollow Man) as two-disk sets with one disk employed exclusively to provide the best possible image and sound, while the other disk is given over to extra features including trailers,  'making of' featurettes, deleted footage, etc.

 

The profit margins on DVDs are high enough that Columbia was able to price its two-disk SuperBit DVDs at roughly the same price of the first wave of single disk DVDs ($28.95).  The one drawback of Columbia's solution is the fact that audio commentaries from directors, stars, and technicians can't be included in the SuperBit disk of the film since all the room is taken up by the expanded picture and sound information.  New generations of disks that can hold more information are in the works, but they may require new hardware, whereas SuperBit DVDs work (and look great) with current DVD players.