Introduction
 VCD
stands for Video CD, and it is a special CD that includes Audio as well as Video
on it.
A
video cd can store 'about' 1 hour of a movie, so most VCDs movies come
on 2 disks some longer films come on 3 disks. More information on
what is vcd here
If
you are familiar with regular audio/music CDs, then you will know what a VCD
looks like. A VCD has the capacity to hold up to 74/80 minutes on 650MB/700MB
CDs respectively of full-motion video along with quality stereo sound. VCDs use
a compression standard called MPEG to store the video and audio. A VCD can be
played on almost all standalone DVD Players and of course on all computers with
a DVD-ROM or CD-ROM drive with the help of a software based decoder / player. It
is also possible to use menus and chapters, similar to DVDs, on a VCD and also
simple photo album/slide shows with background audio. The quality of a very
good VCD is a better quality then a VHS tape based movie.
A VCD can be played on
Different Versions
>> For DVD Players:
Version 1.0
This is
the most basic Video CD 'specification' dating back to 1993/4, which has the
following characteristics:
-
One
mode 2 mixed form ISO-9660 track containing file pointers to the information
areas.
-
Up to
98 multiplex-ed mpeg-1 audio/video streams or cd-da audio tracks.
-
Up to
500 mpeg sequence entry points used as chapter divisions.
The
Video CD specification requires the multiplex-ed mpeg-1 stream to have a cbr of
less than 174300 bytes (1394400 bits) per second 5 in order to accommodate
single speed cd-rom drives. The specification allows for the following two
resolutions:
>> A
VCD with Version 1.0 is playable by most DVD Players that are build
after 2001, and by most DVD Players built before 2001.
If you have an old DVD Player (built before 2001), then you better the check the
User Manual and look for the VCD capability. If you see that your DVD Player can
play DVDs as well as VCDs, than you can be sure that it can reads the VCD 1.0
Standards.
If you are not sure whether your DVD player
is capable to playback vcd, just confirm this labels do appear on your player s
owner manual:
Version 2.0
About
two years after the Video CD 1.0 specification came out, an improved Video CD
2.0 standard was published in 1995. This one added the following items to the
features already available in the Video CD 1.0 specification:
-
Support for mpeg segment play items (SPI ), consisting of still pictures,
motion pictures and/or audio (only) streams was added.
-
Support for interactive playback control (PBC) was added.
-
Support for playing related access by providing a scan point index file was
added.(‘/EXT/SCANDATA.DAT’)
-
Support for closed captions.
-
Support for mixing ntsc and pal content.
By adding PAL support to the Video CD 1.1 specification, the following
resolutions became
available:
-
352 x
240 @ 29.97 Hz (ntsc sif).
-
352 x
240 @ 23.976 Hz (film sif).
-
352 x
288 @ 25 Hz (pal sif).
For segment play items the following audio encodings became available:
-
Joint
stereo, stereo or dual channel audio streams at 128, 192, 224 or 384 kbit/sec
bit-rate.
-
Mono
audio streams at 64, 96 or 192 kbit/sec bit-rate.
This
new standard is readable by almost ALL DVD
Players, those built before 2001, as well as those built after 2001. The new
Standard made VCD even more popular since it can be watched on almost ANY DVD
player in the world.
>> For Computers:
Version 1.0: the older version of VCDs can be played by special VCD
players like the one 24arabia.com offers free to download. You can download the
VCD Player here and enjoy your VCDs.
Version 2.0: the new version of VCDs can be played on Windows Media
Player and has NO PROBLEM at all with all other Video Programs ( Real,
Xero, ect...)
>> More General Questions:
Can
my DVD Player play NTSC or PAL VCDs? Is there any problem?
Some
people may worry on PAL / NTSC color format come with VCD, we personally do not
have such concern seriously cause its hardly to be detectable. In addition, most
DVD player as well as TV set were produced with the capability to auto detect
video s color system, they will reproduce video signal to match with each other
and that will completely eliminated all your worry, provided your DVD
player or TV only accept specific color system, you might not having any
problem at all to playback vcd.
Why
are VCDs gaining popularity in USA/ Canada, Australia and Europe?
Nowadays, VCDs have practically replaced video cassettes in Asia. The main
reason is because VCD is cheap compared to DVDs and the quality is even better
than VHS. It can also last much longer than VHS and has no drop in sound/picture
quality when stored for a long time. It is much smaller in size, easier to
store, that is why it is ideal for movie collectors! One good aspect is that it
can be played on DVD, LD players, a computer and many other devices. Also, the
popularity of VCDs is on the rise because of the gaining interest among
Americans and Canadians for Arabic and Oriental movies.
The
audio/video quality of VCD is always better than 'VHS' tape based Movies and it
can carry surround sound effect.
>> Help Links:
You can also head to these following
sites for a more involved explanation and help:
More from 24arabia.com links and help
If you need any support
or have still a question feel free to contact our
support team
for detailed help. We will be glad to assist you.
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