Site created 12/15/97.	page created: 3/7/05 Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to The 6th Annual Digital Bits Bitsy Awards. They're just like the Oscars except we don't have to shut down Hollywood Boulevard for a week to hand them out (although this year Doogan and Jahnke HAD planned to do a lavish "Proud Mary" production number - it was cut when they couldn't decide which one of them would be Rob Lowe and which would be Snow White). 2004 was, in many ways, the year we'd all been waiting for since the DVD format was launched. The DVD industry is now just that... an industry. The product is now fairly consistent. Video and sound quality, for the most part, is so predictably good that most of us are bored writing about it. Extra features now seem more like standard issue than bonuses. Where once only the most cinema-obsessed nerd knew what an audio commentary was, now they're punch lines on The Simpsons. The downside to all this is that it's now very easy for all of us to take this for granted. And the minute we start doing that is the minute the quality starts to go downhill. If the studios think we're not paying attention to video and audio issues anymore, they might feel they can start cutting corners. And just because a DVD is jam-packed with commentaries, featurettes, and other assorted ephemera doesn't necessarily mean that any of them are worth sitting through. Quality still outweighs quantity, and it's still the exception and not the rule in terms of bonus material, no matter how many discs the studios fill or how many times they re-issue an existing DVD as "The Super Supremo Deluxe Ultimate Edition With Cheese". Selecting this year's award winners was a daunting task. When the discs were good, they were amazing. There were more ties this year than we've ever had before - not so much because we couldn't decide on a single winner, but because we genuinely felt it important to recognize the quality of more than one title in several categories. We had no shortage of contenders for the Worst categories, either. When a DVD let us down, it let us down hard. One other note about these awards - each of the titles listed herein can be pre-ordered directly from Amazon.com by clicking on the cover art or the links provided. Doing so helps to support our work here on such things as The Bitsys, so we do appreciate it. At any rate, we've got a wagon-load of awards to distribute. So make yourselves comfortable, pour a nice tall glass of water and get ready to take the red pill. 'Cause it's time for... The 6th Annual Digital Bits Bitsy Awards - The Bitsys Reloaded! Bill Hunt, Todd Doogan and Adam Jahnke (your ever humble hosts)* The Digital Bits *with special contributions by Barrie Maxwell and Robert A. Harris, as well as Matt Rowe, George Bennett and Lindsay Planer of MusicTAP. Editors' Top 10 Choices Outstanding Achievements in DVD for 2004 Other DVD Awards for 2004
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