Video CD
Encyclopedia
Before the advent of DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 and Blu-ray, the Video CD (abbreviated as VCD, and also known as View CD, Compact Disc digital video) became the first format for distributing films on standard 120 mm optical discs. The format is a standard digital
Digital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...

 format for storing video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...

 on a Compact Disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

. VCDs are playable in dedicated VCD players, most DVD-Video
DVD-Video
DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs, and is currently the dominant consumer video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and a MPEG-2 decoder...

 players, personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

s, and some video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...

s.

The VCD standard was created in 1993
by Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

, Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....

, Matsushita, and JVC
JVC
, usually referred to as JVC, is a Japanese international consumer and professional electronics corporation based in Yokohama, Japan which was founded in 1927...

 and is referred to as the White Book standard. Though supplanted by the two aforementioned formats, VCDs are still popular, particularly in the low cost market.

Brief history

In the early 1970s, Philips and MCA developed the Laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...

. This optical medium is about one foot in diameter and holds an hour of analog video (along with audio in either analog or digital) on both sides. Though they provide superior picture quality through countless playbacks, Laserdiscs were always overshadowed by VHS because of their high price and lack of recording abilities.

Near the 1980s, Philips created a small scale version of the Laserdisc. This disc is 4.8 inches in diameter and is single-sided. They called it Compact Disc or CD. The format was initially designed to store digitized sound and proved to be a success in the music industry.

A few years later, Philips decided to give CDs the ability to produce video just like its 12-inch counterpart. This led to the creation of CD Video (CD-V) in 1987. But because of the disc's small size, plus the analog video which takes up too much disc space, only 5 minutes of picture information can fit in the CD (despite the fact that the audio was digital). Therefore CD-V distribution was limited to featuring music videos.

By the early 1990s, engineers were able to digitalize video signals, making them much more efficient in disc space. Because this new format could hold 83 minutes of audio and video, releasing movies on compact discs finally became a reality. The extra 9 minutes over a regular CD playing time was obtained by sacrificing the error correction (it was believed that minor errors in the datastream would go un-noticed by the viewer). This format was named Video CD or VCD.

VCD enjoyed a brief period of success, with a few major feature films being released in the format (usually as a 2 disc set). However, the introduction of the CD-R disc and the associated recorders, stopped the release of feature films in their tracks because the VCD format had no means of preventing unauthorized (and perfect) copies being made.

In the event, more sophisticated optical discs were in development of which one format was released only a few years later which provided a copy protection mechanism (The DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

). DVD players use lasers that are of shorter wavelength than those used on CDs, allowing the recorded pits to be smaller, so that more information can be stored. The DVD was so successful that they eventually pushed VHS out of the video market once suitable recorders became widely available. Nevertheless, VCDs made considerable inroads into developing nations where they are still in use today.

Moreover, CD-ROM has been the basic Software Installation tool for Computer Platforms (Windows XP and later versions do not need a Floppy disc, as they can Boot up from CD)where data is executed into computer using the CD Key. Major disadvantage in VCD files is that has the horizontal resolution of half to that of a DVD. DVD itself is being superseded as the HDTV provides double the resolution of a DVD and 4 times to that of VCD.

Container

In a VCD, the audio and video streams are multiplexed in an MPEG program stream (MPEG-PS) container.

Video

Video specifications
  • Codec: MPEG-1
    MPEG-1
    MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...

  • Resolution:
    • NTSC
      NTSC
      NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...

      : 352x240
    • PAL
      PAL
      PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...

      /SECAM
      SECAM
      SECAM, also written SÉCAM , is an analog color television system first used in France....

      : 352x288
  • Aspect Ratio
    Aspect ratio
    The aspect ratio of a shape is the ratio of its longer dimension to its shorter dimension. It may be applied to two characteristic dimensions of a three-dimensional shape, such as the ratio of the longest and shortest axis, or for symmetrical objects that are described by just two measurements,...

    :
    • NTSC
      NTSC
      NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...

      : 4:3
    • PAL
      PAL
      PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...

      /SECAM
      SECAM
      SECAM, also written SÉCAM , is an analog color television system first used in France....

      : 4:3
  • Framerate:
    • NTSC
      NTSC
      NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...

      : 29.97 or 23.976 frames per second
    • PAL
      PAL
      PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...

      /SECAM
      SECAM
      SECAM, also written SÉCAM , is an analog color television system first used in France....

      : 25 frames per second
  • Bitrate: 1,150 kilobit
    Kilobit
    The kilobit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information or computer storage. The prefix kilo is defined in the International System of Units as a multiplier of 103 , and therefore,...

    s per second
    • Rate Control: constant bitrate
      Constant bitrate
      Constant bitrate is a term used in telecommunications, relating to the quality of service. Compare with variable bitrate.When referring to codecs, constant bit rate encoding means that the rate at which a codec's output data should be consumed is constant...



Although many DVD video players support playback of VCDs, VCD video is only compatible with the DVD-Video
DVD-Video
DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs, and is currently the dominant consumer video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and a MPEG-2 decoder...

 standard if encoded at 29.97 frames per second or 25 frames per second.

Audio

Audio specifications
  • Codec: MPEG-1 Audio Layer II
    MPEG-1 Audio Layer II
    MPEG-1 Audio Layer II or MPEG-2 Audio Layer II is a lossy audio compression format defined by ISO/IEC 11172-3 alongside MPEG-1 Audio Layer I and MPEG-1 Audio Layer III...

  • Frequency: 44,100 hertz
    Hertz
    The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....

     (44.1 kHz)
  • Output: Dual channel or stereo
    STEREO
    STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...

  • Bitrate: 224 kilobit
    Kilobit
    The kilobit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information or computer storage. The prefix kilo is defined in the International System of Units as a multiplier of 103 , and therefore,...

    s per second
    • Rate Control: Constant bitrate
      Constant bitrate
      Constant bitrate is a term used in telecommunications, relating to the quality of service. Compare with variable bitrate.When referring to codecs, constant bit rate encoding means that the rate at which a codec's output data should be consumed is constant...



As with most CD-based formats, VCD audio is incompatible with the DVD-Video
DVD-Video
DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs, and is currently the dominant consumer video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and a MPEG-2 decoder...

 standard due to a difference in frequency; DVDs require 48 kHz, whereas VCDs use 44.1 kHz.

Advantages of compression

By compressing both the video and audio streams, a VCD is able to hold 74 minutes of picture and sound information, nearly the same duration as a standard 79 minute audio CD. The MPEG-1 compression used records mostly the differences between successive video frames, rather than write out each frame individually. Similarly, the audio frequency range is limited to those sounds most clearly heard by the human ear.

Other information

Video CDs are authored
Optical disc authoring
Optical disc authoring, including DVD and Blu-ray Disc authoring , is the process of assembling source material—video, audio or other data—into the proper logical volume format to then be recorded onto an optical disc .-Process:To burn an optical disc, one usually first creates an...

 using the Mode 2/XA
CD-ROM XA
CD-ROM XA is an extension of the Yellow Book standard for CD-ROMs that combines compressed audio, video and computer data, allowing all to be accessed simultaneously. It was intended as a bridge between CD-ROM and CD-i and was developed by Sony and Philips...

 format, allowing roughly 800 megabytes of VCD data to be stored on one 80 minute CD (versus 700 megabytes when using Mode 1). This, combined with the net bitrate of VCD video and audio, means that almost exactly 80 minutes of VCD content can be stored on an 80 minute CD, 74 minutes of VCD content on a 74 minute CD, and so on. This was done in part to ensure compatibility with existing CD drive technology, specifically the earliest "1x" speed CD drives.

The VCD standard also features the option of DVD-quality still images/slide shows with audio, at resolutions of 704x480 (NTSC) or 704x576 (PAL/SECAM). Version 2.0 also adds the playback control (PBC), featuring a simple menu like DVD-video.

352x240 (or SIF
Source Input Format
Source Input Format defined in MPEG-1, is a video format that was developed to allow the storage and transmission of digital video....

) resolution was chosen because it is half the vertical, and half the horizontal resolution of NTSC video. 352x288 is similarly one quarter PAL/SECAM resolution. This approximates the (overall) resolution of an analog VHS tape, which, although it has double the number of (vertical) scan lines, has a much lower horizontal resolution.

Internal Control

An example of the software control chart [taken from Flower And Snake disc 1 of 3] including menu commands found in the configuration volume as "CDI_VCD.CFG"

CONTROLS=ALL
CURCOL=YELLOW
PSDCURCOL=RED
PSDCURSHAPE=ARROW
INITLANG=DAT
SUBTTYPE=OVERLAYED
SUBTTCOL=EBEBEB
SUBSTCOL=101010
SUBTBCOL=0
SUBTACOL=999999
CENTRTRACK=2
AUTOPLAY=AUTO_ON
DUALCHAN=DUAL_ON
TIMECODE_X=64
TIMECODE_Y=100
LOTID_X=64
LOTID_Y=64
ALBUM=STANDARD

CD-i Digital Video

Shortly before the advent of White Book VCD, Philips started releasing movies in the Green Book
Green Book (CD-interactive standard)
The Philips "Green Book" specifies the standard for interactive, multimedia compact discs designed for CD-i players . This compact disc format is unusual, because it hides the initial tracks which contains the software and data files used by the CD-i players. It does this by omitting the tracks...

 CD-i
CD-i
CD-i, or Compact Disc Interactive, is the name of an interactive multimedia CD player developed and marketed by Royal Philips Electronics N.V. CD-i also refers to the multimedia Compact Disc standard used by the CD-i console, also known as Green Book, which was developed by Philips and Sony...

 format. While these used a similar format (MPEG-1), due to minor differences between the standards these discs are not compatible with VCD players. Philips' CD-i players with the Full Motion Video MPEG-1 decoder cartridge would play both formats. Only a few CD-i DV titles were released before the company switched to the current VCD format for publishing movies.

XVCD

XVCD (eXtended Video CD) is the name generally given to any format that stores MPEG-1 video on a compact disc in Mode 2/XA, at VCD resolution, but does not strictly follow the VCD standard.

A normal VCD is encoded to MPEG-1 at a constant bit rate (CBR), so all scenes are required to use exactly the same data rate, regardless of complexity. However, video on an XVCD is typically encoded at a variable bit rate (VBR), so complex scenes can use a much higher data rate for a short time, while simpler scenes will use lower data rates.

To further reduce the data rate without significantly reducing quality, the size of the GOP
Group of pictures
In Video coding, a group of pictures, or GOP structure, specifies the order in which intra- and inter-frames are arranged. The GOP is a group of successive pictures within a coded video stream. Each coded video stream consists of successive GOPs...

 can be increased, a different MPEG-1 quantization matrix can be used, the maximum data rate can be exceeded, and the bit rate of the MP2 audio can be reduced (or even the use of MP3 audio instead of MP2 audio). These changes can be advantageous for those who want to either maximize video quality, or use fewer discs.

KVCD

KVCD (K Video Compression Dynamics) is an XVCD variant that requires the use of a proprietary
Software patent
Software patent does not have a universally accepted definition. One definition suggested by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure is that a software patent is a "patent on any performance of a computer realised by means of a computer program".In 2005, the European Patent Office...

-quantization matrix, available for non-commercial use. KVCD is notable because the specification recommends a non-standard resolution of 528x480 or 528x576. KVCDs encoded at this resolution are only playable by computers with CD-ROM drives, and a small number of DVD players.

DVCD

DVCD or Double VCD is a method to accommodate longer videos on a CD. A non-standard CD is overburned to include up to 100 minutes of video. However, some CD-ROM drives and players have problems reading these CDs, mostly because the groove spacing is outside specifications and the player's laser servo is unable to track it.

In North America

The advent of recordable CDs
CD-R
A CD-R is a variation of the Compact Disc invented by Philips and Sony. CD-R is a Write Once Read Many optical medium, though the whole disk does not have to be entirely written in the same session....

, inexpensive recorders, and compatible DVD players spurred VCD acceptance in the US in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, DVD burners and DVD-Video recorders were available by that time, and equipment and media costs for making DVD-Video fell rapidly. DVD-Video, with its longer run time and much higher quality, quickly overshadowed VCD in areas that could afford it. In addition many early DVD players could not read recordable (CD-R) media, and this limited the compatibility of home-made VCDs. Almost every modern stand-alone DVD-Video player can play VCDs burned on recordable media. However, some modern players cannot play VCDs; for instance, the Sony PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...

.

In Asia

The VCD format was very popular throughout Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...


(except Japan and South Korea) in the late 1990s through the 2000s, with 8 million VCD players sold in China in 1997 alone,
and more than half of all Chinese households owning at least one VCD player by 2005.

This popularity is, in part, because most households did not already own VHS players when VCDs were introduced, the low price of the players, their tolerance of high humidity (a notable problem for VCRs), easy storage and maintenance, and the lower-cost media. Western sources have cited counterfeiting as a principal concern of VCD users.

VCDs are often produced and sold in Asian countries and regions such as Mainland China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, Malaysia, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

, Burma, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

 and Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

. In many Asian countries, major Hollywood studios (and Asian home video distributors) have licensed companies to officially produce and distribute the VCDs, such as MCA Home Video
Music Corporation of America
MCA, Inc. was an American talent agency. Initially starting in the music business, they would next become a dominant force in the film business, and later expanded into the television business...

 in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, ERA of Hong Kong, Sunny Video in Malaysia, Vision in Indonesia, CVD International and Pacific Marketing and Entertainment Group in Thailand, Excel Home Videos in India, Berjaya-HVN and InnoForm Media in both Malaysia and Singapore, Scorpio East Entertainment in Singapore, as well as VIVA Video, Magnavision, and The Video to C in the Philippines. Legal Video CDs can often be found in established video stores and major book outlets in most Asian countries. They are typically packaged in jewel cases like commercial CDs, though higher-profile films may be released in keep case
Keep case
A keep case or poly-box is a type of DVD packaging. From the well-known brand Amaray, this type of case is often called Amaray case, creating a genericized trademark and ambiguities about the real manufacturer of the case....

s. The consumer should always check for the VCD or DVD logo so as to avoid purchasing the wrong format.

In Asia, the use of VCDs as carriers for karaoke
Karaoke
is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music using a microphone and public address system. The music is typically a well-known pop song minus the lead vocal. Lyrics are usually displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol,...

 music is very common. One channel would feature a mono track with music and singing, another channel a pure instrumental version for karaoke singing. Prior to this, karaoke music was carried on laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...

s.

In Burma

In Burma, VCDs are the medium of an underground video network that largely stays beneath the sights of the military regime, although VCD trends are reported on by expatriate newspapers. Popular videos include Buddhist monks speaking out against the regime and comedy skits ruthlessly mocking military leaders. It is reported that even soldiers watch VCDs in their barracks.

Worldwide trends

VCD's growth has slowed in areas that can afford DVD-Video
DVD-Video
DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs, and is currently the dominant consumer video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and a MPEG-2 decoder...

, which offers most of the same advantages, as well as better picture quality
(higher resolution with fewer digital compression artifacts) due to its larger storage capacity. However, VCD has simultaneously seen significant new growth in emerging economies like India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 and Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 as a low-cost alternative to DVD. As of 2004, the worldwide popularity of VCD was increasing.

Compared with VHS

Overall picture quality is intended to be comparable to VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 video.
Poorly compressed VCD video can sometimes be lower quality than VHS video, but VCD exhibits block artifacts (rather than the analog noise seen in VHS sources) and does not deteriorate further with each use. While both formats need fast-forwarding to find certain scenes, rewinding to beginning upon reaching the end is not required in VCD.

Though technically superior when compared to tape-based mediums, VCDs have a few minor flaws. Videos in the format do not come with closed caption (written words appearing on-screen to aid viewers with hearing problems). When watching a film that exceeds 74 minutes, which is the maximum video capacity of one disc, a viewer would have to stand up and change the disc upon reaching half-way (unless the discs are played on a VCD changer that could hold multiple discs as well as playing them automatically in succession), whereareas a single VHS can hold 2½ hours of continuous video.

Compared with DVD

When playing a DVD, the viewer is brought to a main menu which gives him/her options (watch the feature film, view deleted scenes, play some special applications, etc.). VCDs are straightforward, playing them goes directly to the video with extras (mostly trailers and commercials) taking place before or after it.

Subtitles are found on many Asian VCDs but cannot be removed, unlike DVDs. The subtitles are embedded on the video during the encoding process. It's not uncommon to find a VCD with subtitles for two languages.

Though the VCD technology can support it, most films carried on VCDs do not contain chapters, requiring the viewer to fast-forward to resume the program after playback has been stopped. The reason for this is unknown. However, preview material are sometimes stored in a separate chapter, followed by a single chapter for the film.

VCDs are often bilingual. Because they feature stereo audio, disc players have an option to play only the left or right audio channel. For example, ERA of Hong Kong's release of the animated film The Iron Giant
The Iron Giant
The Iron Giant is a 1999 animated film produced by Warner Bros. Animation, based on the 1968 novel The Iron Man by Ted Hughes. Brad Bird directed the film, which stars a voice cast of Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick, Jr., Vin Diesel, Eli Marienthal, Christopher McDonald and John Mahoney...

 features English on the left audio channel and Cantonese on the right. This is similar to selecting a language track on a DVD, except it's limited to 2 languages, due to there being only two audio channels (left and right). Also the audio track effectively becomes monaural.

VCD does have a few advantages over DVD-Video:
  • The VCD format has no region coding, so discs can be played on any compatible machine worldwide. Many VCD players can compensate for the differing frame rate and pixel count between NTSC and PAL/SECAM TV systems.

  • Some titles available on VCD may not be available on DVD and/or VHS in the prospective buyer's region.

  • VCD can cost significantly less than DVD. A brand-new Hollywood blockbuster on VCD is usually only 36% the price of its DVD counterpart.

Hardware and Software support

Video CDs are not popular in the US, Canada and Europe, so its support is limited among mainstream software. Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...

 prior to version 9 and QuickTime Player do not support playing VCD directly, though they can play the .DAT files (stored under \MPEGAV for video and audio data) reliably, and plugins were available. Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...

 added native support of VCD along with DVD-Video and can launch the preferred application upon insertion. The disc format is also supported using Windows Media Player Classic
Media Player Classic
Media Player Classic is a compact media player for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows. The application mimics the look and feel of the old, lightweight Windows Media Player 6.4 but integrates most options and features found in modern media players...

 variations and VLC Media Player
VLC media player
VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...

 both support VCDs natively.

Direct access playback support is available within Windows XP MCE, Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...

, Windows 7, BSD, Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...

, Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

, and Darwin
Darwin (operating system)
Darwin is an open source POSIX-compliant computer operating system released by Apple Inc. in 2000. It is composed of code developed by Apple, as well as code derived from NeXTSTEP, BSD, and other free software projects....

, among others, either directly or with updates and compatible software.

Disc playback is also available both natively and as an option on some CD- and DVD-based video game consoles, including PC-FX
PC-FX
The is a video game console released in Japan on December 23, 1994 by NEC Corporation. It is the 32-bit successor to NEC's PC Engine ....

, Sega Saturn
Sega Saturn
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console that was first released by Sega on November 22, 1994 in Japan, May 11, 1995 in North America, and July 8, 1995 in Europe...

 (pictured right), Sega Dreamcast
Sega Dreamcast
The is a 128-bit video game console which was released by Sega in late 1998 in Japan and from September 1999 in other territories. It was the first entry in the sixth generation of video game consoles, preceding Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's Xbox and the Nintendo GameCube.Dreamcast sales were...

, Sony PlayStation and PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...

.

Most DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 players are compatible with VCDs and VCD-only Players are available throughout Asia, and online through many shopping sites. Some BluRay and HD-DVD players also retain support, as do CBHD players as well.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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