Anybody ever bought a VCD?
 

Since all our players can play them I was wondering why I never see them here. Is the quality any good?

The quality is good and perhaps a tad better than VHS.
I almost bought the Back to the Future VCD set before the DVD set was annnounced.

And of course the Original Star Wars Trilogy is available as a VCD set.

I'm pretty sure it's the SEs only, and they're pan and scan, so be warned.

I got a couple in a trade. I was underwhelmed. I would not say the quality was better than VHS, about the same.

The one I received were freebies, and I didn't realise they were VCDs when I popped them in. I was shocked at how bad the picture was. I won't be getting any more.

-Videophile

I don't have them but have seen them at some mall chain in Danbury. I'm waiting for their eventual arrival on DVD.

I have purchased VCD set's of certain cartoons (Batman: The Animated series & Spiderman). The quality varies, some is better than VHS and some is worse, so be warned.

With that said - I'll rebuy and am in the process of rebuying those series on DVD. Namely the Batman:TAS DVD's.

I have a lot of vcd's which I bough in San Francisco Chinatown and there's a lot of them there. Usually you can get them @ 3 for $10, mostly asian movies.

Quality wise, they fare no better than a quality vhs tape. Especially during fast action scenes, the images tend to blur together.

I would stay far away from them unless these movies are not on DVD and you don't want that hulking vhs tape.

This isn't VCD Talk, girls and boys! This is DVD Talk!! So death to VCD and VHS! And, um, Laserdisc too! Or something. ;)

I have never even seen a VCD, though I have heard of 'em. It's still kinda cool that my DVD player can play them. The damn thing can't even play burned CDs. Time for new one... soon enough...

K

I've gotten a few Asian VCDs of some music videos that are unattainable in Region 1 DVDs. For me, they're a tad better than VHS, if only for their durability. Fast motion pictures tend to blur (not too important in a concert video), and there is quite noticeable pixellization in certain darker shades. I find the overall picture a tad sharper than VHS is capable of, and as I said, there's no wear and tear. The pan-and-scan nature of movies would be a turn-off for me, no matter what the title.

Still, give me a DVD anyday!

Harry

I have Paul McCartney Unplugged on VCD. The quality is crap and I would gladly replace it if the DVD was ever released.

I have the Dexter's Laboratory movie Ego Trip on vcd since Warner Brother didn't see fit to release this on DVD, I wonder about them sometimes. The quality is like a vhs tape and I'm still hoping to see a DVD release. It boggles the mind that a studio that produces such great cartoons, just sits on them and not put out dvd sets.

SVCD's can be very, very comparable if authored right. It just depends on what type of master you're using to make a video cd, super video cd's are better though, they can hold up to two audio tracks. and if you are wanting to copy a dvd and dont want to bother with a dvd burner, you can encode it to svcd, and get just about the same quality. If i were to do a prestine close up of a dvd, and an svcd copy, i think that you might only loose about 10 percent quality. It also depends on what type of encoder you use to make the mpeg-2 file. Like i said, it all depends on who's making it.

I have quite a few VCDs. As others have said, the quality is on par and perhaps slightly better than VHS. The nice thing about VCDs is that they can play on standalone DVD players and any Windows-based PC with a simple CD-ROM drive.

Not to mention that they can be played numerous times and never wear out.

I bought one VCD on an anime title. It wouldn't run on my DVD player even though my DVD player claim to be able to run VCD discs. So I never buy any VCD after that.

I bought the Star Wars trilogy, special edition on them. Accidentally got Pan and scan though, and haven't watched but 15 minutes of episode 4. I guess I didn't wanna see them again as much as I thought hehe.

Do any actual stores carry VCDs?

i've had lion king and aladdin on vcd for a few years now. not very impressive. pixelriffic bordering on unwatchable when something is moving onscreen. plus they are pan and scan and they sound awful.

I have 4 vcds & the quality is as good a VHS. They are easier to store than a VHS tape & like DVDs will never wear out.
these are the ones I have
Baywatch: 2 TV Movies (Bouncey Bouncey :D )
Bambi (it's on 1 VCD)
Jaws 5: Cruel Jaws (the WORST transfer i've ever seen & the audio doesn't sync-up the lips)

The only ones I have are ones that were included as 'bonus disks' with CDs. Quality was pretty dire to say the least - but then I can't even tolerate VHS anymore.

AVCDs are pretty cool though :)

Here in NYC, there are several stores in Chinatown that have a large selection of VCDs at very cheap prices -as low as $2-3 each for some of them.

As mentioned, quality varies. Some are downright bad, others are amazingly good. You mainly find VCD's in asian countries. VHS didn't catch on there as it did in the US, instead they've had VCD's for years.

Some of you may remember something called Philips CDi from about 8 years ago. There were lots of infomercials on it, and it was being heralded as the entertainment of the future. That was basically a VCD player.

If you haven't seen more than a small handful of *professionaly created* VCD's, don't knock them. A good VCD can be pretty good.

I've never bought one, but last year I watched a friends VCD of Battle Royale. The quality was better than I expected. Not great, but watchable. At least I was able to enjoy the movie enough to get the DVD, so that's one advantage of VCDs.

VCDs were very big in Hong Kong (and I believe mainland China) before DVD, although the format never really caught on here. I remember visiting Hong Kong at the beginning of 1997, just before DVDs were introduced, and seeing prerecorded VCDs everywhere. Major chains like HMV or Tower had tons of them, including Hollywood films. You could also buy standalone players, (if you didn't want to play them on a computer) that I saw for the equivalent of around $150-200 US. The quality of the VCDs really varied, depending on how well they were mastered. I've seen some look anywhere from near unwatchable to slightly better than VHS. At any rate , they sold very well in HK, they were the cheapest format, cheaper than VHS and much cheaper than laserdisc (a format that was popular in HK but unlike the US market, was aimed at the rental market with higher prices for the most part). Bootleg VCDs were, of course, common back then as well.

YMMV, but in my experience, they work good for cartoon type stuff, and are VHS quality type for all else...

(SVCD is a whole different story)

Star Wars 1, 3, 4 and 5 (maybe #2 now too) were actually licensed for release on VCD in Malaysia and Singapore, I suppose to try & cut down on bootleg sales. I bought them all at the time, and I was grossly disappointed.

I also bought all 3 Indiana Jones movies on VCD somewhere a long time ago, don't even remember where.

I have to say that, in my humble opinion, the quality is not even as good as VHS - pixellation abounds!!

I personally will NEVER buy another VCD, heck, I probably wouldn't take one if they were giving them away, unless it was some excellent free porn!