-Newsletter est. 4/15/97- -Website est. 12/15/97-	page updated: 1/15/08 Advertise on The Digital Bits! Site HistoryTraffic & DemographicsAbout the StaffLink to The Bits Want to expose your product or service to over one million unique, tech-savvy consumers a month? Advertising on The Digital Bits is a great way to do it! We have terrific rates and numerous options, which can be tailored to your specific promotion needs. For more information on rates, advertising options and design services, please contact our advertising coordinator, Sarah Hunt: shunt@thedigitalbits.com Site History The Digital Bits began as an online newsletter in April of 1997, when site editor Bill Hunt discovered that there was a tremendous un-met need for accurate information about the DVD format among both consumers and individuals within the industry. Demand for the newsletter quickly grew, so The Digital Bits website was officially launched on December 15, 1997. The result has been steady, continued growth ever since. The Digital Bits is regarded by industry professionals as a leading source of reliable DVD information, and is currently the oldest remaining, continuously operating DVD information website on the Internet. The Bits is widely read within the major Hollywood studios and equipment manufacturers, and its readership includes hundreds of thousands of DVD consumers from around the world. The site and its editors were instrumental in the effort to oppose the Divx pay-per-view disc format (an early and now-defunct competitor to regular DVD), giving early adopters the very first published look at the technology. The Bits aggressively worked to promote DVD's anamorphic widescreen capabilities, championed a combined online effort to promote a single, united high-definition DVD format, and is now working to help bring about an end to the on-going high-def format war by supporting Blu-ray Disc, which has become the most widely supported of the two competing HD formats in Hollywood, in both the CE and computer industries, and with consumers overall. In October of 2003, site editors Bill Hunt and Todd Doogan released The Digital Bits: Insider's Guide to DVD in conjunction with publisher McGraw Hill. The 432-page book is designed to serve both as a beginner's guide to the DVD format, as well as a handy reference book for more experienced fans of the format. It explains the DVD format and all its features in simple and easy to understand terms, including such seemingly bewildering topics as film aspect ratios, surround sound and anamorphic widescreen. The book tells you how to build a good home theater on a budget, provides background on the history of the format and even looks ahead at the future of DVD technology. It also takes you "behind the scenes" on the making of 20th Century Fox's 9-disc Alien Quadrilogy, to show you just how much work really goes into the production of a DVD special edition. Finally, the book offers reviews of more than 100 of the best DVD special editions ever released. The Digital Bits: Insider's Guide to DVD has been well reviewed by both critics and consumers alike, and was ranked in Amazon's top 100 sales chart within a week of its debut. The Digital Bits has been referenced in such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post , Fortune, Wired, the USA Today and others, and has been profiled in the industry trade Video Store (now Home Media Retailing). In addition, the site has been quoted on G4's Attack of the Show, as well as CNN, ZDTV, MSNBC, ZDNet, TechWeb, in national ad campaigns from 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks, and by thousands of other newspapers and online sites. The Digital Bits was chosen as one of the Top 5 DVD sites in 1999 by E! Online. It ranks at the top of Yahoo's list of leading DVD websites, has been recommended by Project Cool and WebStar's Six Pack to Go, and was voted a Number One site in the Internet Top 100. The site was also recommended by PC World magazine as one of 50 Really Useful Websites for Really Busy People. Entertainment Weekly has also named The Digital Bits one of their 25 Favorite Online Entertainment Sites for 2006, alongside such other Internet faves as Ain't It Cool News, the IMDB and The Onion! The publication has posted their picks online, and you'll find them in the June 23rd 2006 print issue as well (see pages 38-40). By lucky chance, it's the Superman Returns issue, so lots of folks are sure to read it. We're certainly honored by this! It's nice to know that after TEN years of covering movies on disc, we're still holding on to our relevance and street cred. In addition to official studio DVD news and reviews, the site regularly publishes in-depth articles and interviews with industry insiders, including such leading film directors as David Fincher, William Friedkin, John Landis and Baz Luhrmann, providing Bits readers with an invaluable, behind-the-scenes look at the DVD format. The site's Rumor Mill section allows consumers to stay in touch with the latest developments, and gives them a reliable look at titles in production for DVD release in the months ahead. The Bits also runs an extremely popular monthly Trivia Contest, giving readers the opportunity to win DVD players, movies and other prizes. The Digital Bits' own Bitsy Awards are highly regarded within the industry. And the site's scope has recently been expanded to cover the latest developments in high-resolution audio (DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD & DualDisc) and particularly the new HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc high-definition video formats. The editorial staff of The Digital Bits is key to the site's success. Editors Bill Hunt and Todd Doogan are well known within the industry for their work on The Bits, as well as their regular GeekBits column in Geek Monthly (and past work in such publications as Widescreen Review, Home Media Retailing and Computer Power User magazines). They've helped to bring several films to DVD, including Synapse's Six Days in Roswell and Triumph of the Will, and 20th Century Fox's Alien. Both Hunt and Doogan have served as judges for numerous industry awards, and they host an annual Digital Bits sponsored DVD Producers Panel event at San Diego Comic-Con, which is one of the largest gatherings of genre movie fans in the world. Hunt has also addressed the DVD Video Group on format-related subjects, and has hosted or participated in numerous industry panels on DVD and the high-definition formats. Regular Bits columnist Adam Jahnke is well known for his work with Troma, and has written two books for Troma's Lloyd Kauffman including Make Your Own Damn Movie! and The Toxic Avenger: The Novel. Another frequent Bits columnist, Barrie Maxwell, is a widely-regarded expert on classic Hollywood cinema. What's more, regular Bits columnist Robert A. Harris is one of the leading film preservation experts in the world, having personally restored such classics as Lawrence of Arabia, Vertigo and many others. Traffic & Demographics The Digital Bits regularly serves more than 16 million pages of content a month, a number which reflects more than a million unique readers - with an aggressive core of daily visitors (metric information is tallied by our own server software and is confirmed by third-party metrics tracking data). More than 80% of our audience are college graduates, with an average household income of over $50K per year. Men make up roughly 68% of our audience, and more than 70% of our readers are between the ages of 25 and 44. Many are computer, electronics and home theater/film enthusiasts by their very nature, and would be considered "early adopters" of new technology, as they have been among the very first consumers to embrace DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD, HD-DVD, Blu-ray Disc and HDTV. Better still, The Digital Bits attracts new readers every day, serving as a guide to an ever-changing landscape as new forms of digital entertainment find their way to the marketplace. About the Staff Bill Hunt is the Editor of The Digital Bits, and the co-author of The Digital Bits: Insider's Guide to DVD. Hunt is originally from Fargo, North Dakota, and studied film history and theory at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He began his career as a producer and director of industrial and educational video in Minneapolis, where he developed projects for 3M, Texaco, the NFL and the Minnesota Twins among other clients. After working behind-the-scenes in Hollywood on various TV and film productions, Hunt started The Digital Bits in 1997, during the very early days of DVD, with the goal of bringing together the Hollywood DVD community and movie fans from around the world, to promote the growth of the format. photo by Mark Robert Halper In addition to editing The Digital Bits, Hunt is a regular contributor to Geek Monthly magazine, and has served as the Inside DVD Contributing Editor to Widescreen Review magazine. He has also written on the subject of DVD and other industry issues for Video Store magazine (now Home Media Retailing), has served as a judge for a number of DVD industry awards, and has appeared to discuss DVD-related issues on G4's Attack of the Show TV program. In addition, Hunt and Digital Bits contributing editor Todd Doogan also write together under the auspices of their own company, mr-2 media. Hunt currently lives with his wife, Sarah, in Irvine, California. You can contact him online at billhunt@thedigitalbits.com Todd Doogan has written about film and DVD for The Digital Bits since coming aboard in 1998, and now serves as a Contributing Editor of the site. He is also the co-author of The Digital Bits: Insider's Guide to DVD. Prior to his work on The Bits, Doogan was the featured video reviewer and celebrity interviewer for TNT's Rough Cut website. photo by accident In addition to his work on The Bits, Doogan is a regular contributor to Geek Monthly magazine. His writing has also appeared in Video Store (now Home Media Retailing) and Computer Power User magazines, on Playboy.com and within the ever expanding Troma Universe. Doogan is also a film archivist for Turner Broadcasting System, caring for the vast library of legal research pertaining to the MGM, RKO, Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera libraries. When not locked away in his Turner office or reviewing classic samurai flicks for The Digital Bits, Doogan and Bits editor Bill Hunt also write together under the auspices of their own company, mr-2 media. Doogan currently lives in Atlanta, GA. Drop him a line at todddoogan@thedigitalbits.com photo by Mark Robert Halper Sarah Hunt is the co-owner of The Digital Bits as well as our official staff photographer. In addition, she creates and posts the weekly contests and coordinates all the advertising and promotions for the site. She is also a graphic designer and creates many of the banners that you see on our pages. In August of 2003, Sarah had the idea to develop the The Digital Bits Artist of the Month program to help artists gain Internet exposure and to bring a little art into the lives of Bits readers. She has a degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Radio, Television and Film, with a minor in Journalism/Advertising. Hunt is originally from St. Paul Minnesota and currently lives with her husband, Bill, in Irvine, California. You can contact her online at thedigitalbits@aol.com. photo by Tisha Dr. Adam Jahnke joined The Bits in 2000. In addition to his The Bottom Shelf (which focuses on cult, foreign and unsung film and TV releases on DVD) and Jahnke's Electric Theatre (reviews of the latest theatrical releases), Jahnke has interviewed such filmmakers as John Landis and Francis Ford Coppola and reviewed everything from A.I. to Y Tu Mama Tambien (he regrets that he has not yet reviewed a title that begins with "Z"... an oversight he plans to rectify very soon). Outside of The Bits, Adam has worked for legendary independent film studio Troma Entertainment for five years, where he wrote the 20-episode comedy series Troma's Edge TV for Channel 4 in the UK, and worked in a wide variety of capacities on a number of feature films (including Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV). More recently, Adam's turned his attentions to the book world, having written the widely-acclaimed Make Your Own Damn Movie! and The Toxic Avenger: The Novel for Troma president Lloyd Kaufman. Adam lives with with The McGuffin deep in the heart of L.A. You can contact him online at ajahnke@thedigitalbits.com. Barrie Maxwell is a freelance writer who has written about classic films and DVD for The Digital Bits since 2002 when his Classic Coming Attractions column first appeared. Prior to joining The Bits, Barrie contributed reviews and a regular classics column to the DVD Verdict review site. His writing on film has also appeared in the Australian Kino Cinema Quarterly magazine. Over the past few years, he has also authored reviews of currrent films on Blu-ray both as stand-alone items and in his High Definition Matters column. Barrie's film background includes university study of film history and theory as well as over 50 years of enthusiastic film watching. In the past, Barrie's had a lengthy career in Arctic climatology, heading up Canada's national climate applications program for the federal government as well as representing Canada in international Arctic climate research activities. After a period of consulting work in the same field, he now focuses his energies on writing about film on DVD and Blu-ray. He is also involved as an on-air host on radio station CanoeFM (canoefm.com) in Haliburton, Ontario - a town located in Ontario's lake country north of Toronto - where he recently moved with his wife Sue. He can be contacted online at barriemaxwell@thedigitalbits.com. Link to The Bits Websites wishing to link to The Digital Bits are always welcome to do so. We ask that all links be directed to the home page if possible. Feel free to use any of the graphics below on your sites when linking.
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