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Got a question- on a few sites they list vcd's as well as dvds. i am curious as to what the difference is. The prices are less that half of dvds, I wasnt born yesterday, and i am guessing they have some short comings, or possibly dont have the extras- Im also curious because my new dvd player can also play the vcds. ( are there regions just like the dvd's or are all the same ? ex- R1, R0) Thanks in advance for your help !
your opinion counts
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No extras (unless it's part of the footage) no menus, no switchable audio tracks, no removable subtitles, and video that is a lot, a lot, a LOT worse.
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VCDs have no region. Any player can play them.
They use mpeg or something. I'm not too well versed in the media. Basically they have much better quality than a VHS when they are store bought.
They won't have extras, and I found fast fowarding to be more choppy on my player. The sound is still CD quality. Audio selections might not be as abundant.
Overall they aren't bad. If you want it for a collection, a DVD is always better to have. Though if you just want to check out a movie, VCDs are great.
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VCDs are exactly that - video cds. For instance, a regular cdrom drive can read them, as opposed to needing a dvdrom on a computer to play then. They hold less capacity than DVDs and as I understand it, are not playable on every dvd player. They also don't last as long as dvds do, they degenerate faster.
I've got the ring movies on vcd, and they work just as well as any dvd I have, except my ps2 won't play them.
Hope that helps,
-K
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Quote:Originally posted by Steve_the_Talking_Pie
They use mpeg or something. I'm not too well versed in the media. Basically they have much better quality than a VHS when they are store bought.
So are DVDs. DVDs are Mpeg2, VCDs are Mpeg1. Also, you can burn VCDs with a regular CD burner, which is why you should be even more vary of cheap copies. A low low quality downloaded AVI file could be converted to a VCD and burnt, making it horrible quality. By the same token, a VCD can be made from the original film print and be near-dvd quality.
There's no way to tell how bad the quality is beforehand. You can guess with DVDs by the number of episodes per DVD (if it has 12 on one disc... you know it won't be good) but VCDs, no matter what quality, bitrate, or options you use, it only first a certain length of time. (3 episodes, usually. I don't know the exact minutes)
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I knew that DVD used mpeg-2 but iI wasn't sure on the rest. That's my point, official VCDs are nice. The crappy boots off ebay aren't.
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VCD's are generally junk..
outta vcd specs the bitrate for the video is at only like 1100 Kb/s at video resolution 352x288 while DVD contain mpeg2 can use VBR and peak up to 8 Mb/s and has a screen res of up to 720x480 and of course dvd's can hold up to 9.6 gigs of capacity.. while cd's are stuck to the mins.. you can have 74 or 80 mins of video on vcd's..
but keep one thing in mind.. I can make a dvd look just as shitty as a vcd.. Most of the time its all about what your source is from.. if its from soemthing that is shitty then the dvd and vcd will both be shit..
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Another note about VCDs is that they are restrained to 45 minutes per disc due to the limit of storage available to the CD format.
I have a decent selection of VCD movies and I will be the first to say that they don't hold a candle to DVDs for convenience, picture quality, or options. That said, if you can get a good deal on a VCD for a series you're only going to watch once or twice and don't care if it has the absolute best picture or not then go with the VCD.
It's one of those cost vs. quality things.
Sometimes low quality doesn't matter that much.
Gullible isn't in the dictionary.
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umm, VCDs can hold up to 74 or 80 minutes of video if you use the standard bitrate, like Schultz mentioned something like 1100 kps. NTSC resolution of VCD is 352X240, PAL is 352X288.
I see lots of digisubs on VCD theses days, which is a good thing for those who dont have high speed internet and aren't interested in getting HKs with bad subs.
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Zaggato.. you are thinking about SVCD's which are a standard based on Mpeg2 like dvd.. have a screen resolution of 480x480. And bitrate can actually be variable up to 2500 kb/s so thats why you can only get about 45 mins outta 1 cd.. depending on teh bitrate you use for video and audio..
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Oh... I was going from experience with my VCDs.... not a one of them is over 45 minutes. Most of the VCDs I have are HK action movies from a few years back.
They must all be SVCDs then.
I actually got Iron Monkey about five years ago on VCD before anyone else had even heard of it around here. The DVD is a massive improvement for movies with a lot of action like this one though.
Gullible isn't in the dictionary.
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They wre probably VCDs but since any movie that spanned over 80 minutes had to be split into 2 VCDs they just probably split the movie into half so probably around an average of 45 minutes each.
Commercial SVCDs are pretty rare.
