I have a handful of VCD's and the quality is actually pretty good. Someone bought me Buffy's "Once More With Feeling" which I'll happily part with in July when S6 is released. I also have VCD's of the Original Star Wars trilogy (not the SE & in the OAR) which I will also part with if Lucas ever decides to release them on DVD.

Since I lived in Asia, VCD is more popular than DVD. Before I buy DVD-ROM, I always watch VCD. Got tens of them. Including the original Star Wars Trilogy VCD. Needless to say, it's pan & scan.

People who are reporting poor video quality of professionally authored VCDs probably have DVD players that are not "tuned" for VCD playback. Cheapo APEX DVD Players advertised VCD playback, but the circuitry and firmware were not tuned for it.

When I was shopping for a DVD player, I wanted one that would offer high-quality VCD playback. My Pioneer DV-434 has dual laser pickups and tuned for VCD, SVCD, and DVD playback.

A side-by-side comparison between the Pioneer and Apex was quite telling. The Apex exhibited compression artifacts which degraded into a pixelated mosaic during high-motion scenes, whereas the Pioneer didn't display any artifacts at all.

I have lots of VCDs, mostly of Asian movies that I picked up in Chinatown. The quality varies widely, from practically unwatchable to to near DVD quality. Basically, what you're going to end up, quality wise, is a roll of the dice. On the plus side, they're a cheap and easy way to check out potential blind buys. By the way, most of the VCDs I own are letterboxed. It seems to be mostly just the western films that get the full frame treatment.

I have burned VCDs from tv shows I've recorded on my ReplayTV and my PC. It's very handy when a friend missed a show to be able to toss it on a cheap cd-r and know they most likely can watch it on their DVD player. I would never buy one

I'd agree with that. I picked up 5 a few weeks ago. Two were films not even available on VHS. The other three were of WS films not on DVD yet. Unfortunately the VCDs turned out to be P&S. I tossed them in the garbage.

I have a Terapin home VCD recorder and put many tv shows on VCD also-no worry about fast forwarding or rewinding a tape.

Re: Anybody ever bought a VCD?
 

I confess I didn't buy any singularly, but they came with my Sony DVD changers (except 875P) to change the jacket pictures.

I have 150+ VCDs, compared to 6 DVDs.

What the hell was I thinking when buying those famously known as low-quality things? Because in here, compared to DVDs, VCDs are a lot cheaper, easier to find with more variety of collections. And I've been buying VCDs since far before the local stores and rentals put DVDs on their stock list.

VCDs are still very popular in my country. People are looking for the movie and its story alone, at the minimum cost. But true, some of the people I know have decided not to touch anymore VCDs once they got hooked by DVDs. Censorship and the sound/picture clarity are the most critical issue for them (Pan & Scan doesn't really matter).

For me, as long as it is original, for the meantime I still in favour for VCDs. It's not that bad for me cause I'm already used to it and I enjoy watching it. Though all the quality and bonus of DVDs will be an advantage, I'd still be very selective in spending my limited account on it.






I'm in DVDTalk Forum .. what am I doing here? :o

Back in 1999, i bought 12 Monkeys VCD when i was in the Philippines. I played it on my PC and i initially wasn't very impressed - at the start of the movie there's a quote in small print which is difficult to make out with the mpeg compression. Once the movie got going it was nice and clear, the biggest difference from VHS is the crystal clear sound.

I have only a few VCDs that I purchased because the movies were not on DVD (Star Wars, Crying Freeman). I now have Crying Freeman on DVD and am still waiting for Star Wars. I have several MovieCDs which used to be sold in CompUSA and they were very close to VCDs.

I have a few of them. they are not bad,better then vhs is,and wont wear out. I use them as alternative if a film or music videos is not available on dvd, in which i wont buy on vhs, because after so many viewings it starts to degrade.

There's Star Wars VCDs in OAR?? Are these the ones with burnt in Asian subs?

Erm...VHS can have great stereo sound.

Yes. Although VHS has a great HiFi stereo track (in the helical scan area of the tape) the VCD audio spec is superior. Whether or not the actual material takes advantage of it is another issue.

Nope. There are some very noticable chapter stops but no burnt in subs.

And it won't degrade over time like VHS. I can't tell you how many tapes I've rented where I was looking forward to the great sound (MIB, has great hifi sound) only to have to turn the stereo function off on my VCR because the tape had warped a bit and while it still had a decenet enough picture the sound track was crap.

I'm curious as to what you mean by that. I have a couple of hundred VCDs, many with chapter stops. None of them have even slightly "noticable" chapter stops though.

Sounds like a poorly authored VCD.

You can author a VCD with chapter stops or you can author it as a sequence of MPEG files that are played consecutively....

When authored as a sequence of MPEG files, there's a slight stutter/pause as the next MPEG in sequence starts playing.

(I learned that while authoring my own VCDs. ;) )

I don't know anything about authoring VCD's so I'm willing to take sracer's explination of the chapter stops. I didn't author it myself, I just notice the pauses.