VCD INFO

What are Video CD discs (VCD)?

A Video CD, or VCD, is a kind of CD. It looks the same as a music CD or a CD-ROM, except that instead of music or software, it holds movies, using compressed MPEG-1 video. A single disc can only hold 70+ minutes of video, so for a typical movie, you need two discs, packaged in a single CD case. You can play VCDs back on a TV with a Video CD player, or on a fast PC with a CD-ROM drive and on a Macintosh PowerPC with a CD-ROM with QuickTime MPEG Extension, MPEG Dropper and player. Since few movies are available on DVD formats, VCD has found popularity among movie buffs for its vast selection of titles and especially most DVD players are able to play VCDs as well.

What is the quality of VCD like ?

One of the objectives of the MPEG-1 standard was to get quality comparable to S-VHS. In practice, picture quality when using a VCD player may somehow be almost as good as laser disc, depending on the encoding. VCDs also have no incompatibility problem caused by different formats such as PAL, NTSC and SECAM, and do not have lock-out codes for different regions.


VCDs Can Be Played On...

DEVICE	REQUIREMENTS
Personal Computers (PC)	- Playable on all Pentium PCs (minimum Pentium 166 and above with a CD-Rom  drive, video card and MPEG decoder. - Windows NT/95/98 are fitted with   Activemovie as a plug-in in Internet Explorer or download Xing MPEG.
Power Macintosh	- Download Quicktime (3.x or higher is recommended) or MPEG Dropper
Philips CDi	- VCDs is playable on your CDi player if it has an additional video catridge.
3DO	- You can play VCDs on your 3DO machine if you have the required video cartridge.
SONY Playstation	- Convert or buy an additional "video hardware" from a third party manufacturer.  Please note that neither of these methods are approved by SONY, and getting a  conversion done on your Playstation will invalidate any warranty you might have.  Due to this, the conversion and "video hardware" are hard to come by.
SEGA Saturn	- Add on official "movie card" which is widely available to play VCDs on your  SEGA Saturn.
Nintendo 64	- Add on Doctor V64 into your Nintendo 64. However this unofficial hardware will  invalidate your warranty.