Video CD FAQ
Russil Wvong /
Movies /
Video CD FAQ
Video CD FAQ
by Russil Wvong
This list of Frequently Asked Questions is aimed at people
interested in Video CDs.
If you have a question about Video CDs that isn't already in the FAQ,
I probably don't know the answer! I set up a
Video CD Forum several years ago as a place where other people could answer
questions that I couldn't. Unfortunately the database server which drives
the forum has now died,
but all of the posts made to the forum are still available.
For information on burning your own VCDs, see
www.videohelp.com.
Contents:
What's Video CD?
Is there a Video CD newsgroup?
What's Video CD quality like?
Which DVD players can also play Video CDs?
Where can I buy VCDs?
How do Video CD players compare?
How can I play a Video CD on my PC?
How can I make my own VCDs?
How are Video CD and CD-i related?
What's Video CD?
Video CD, or VCD, is a digital movie format. It's basically a
primitive version of DVD.
A Video CD is a kind of CD. It looks the same as a music CD or
a CD-ROM, except that instead of music or software, it holds movies,
using compressed MPEG-1 video. Its resolution is 352x240 (NTSC) or
352x288 (PAL), which is roughly comparable to VHS.
Compared to Video CD, DVD provides much higher resolution
(720x480 for NTSC or 720x576 for PAL), comparable to laserdisc or even better.
DVD movies use MPEG-2 compression, rather than the MPEG-1 compression used by
Video CDs. For more information on how MPEG compression works, see the
MPEG FAQ
by Frank Gadegast.
For more information on the actual structure of the Video CDs,
see this page from the MPlayer documentation (via Guentcho Skordev).
For more information about DVD, see the
DVD FAQ
by Jim Taylor.
A single VCD disc can only hold about 70 minutes of video, so for a typical
movie, you need two discs. You can play VCDs back on a Video CD player
connected to a TV, or on a fast PC with a CD-ROM drive. Some DVD players can
also play VCDs.
Video CD was introduced by Philips and Sony in 1993. It never caught
on in North America, but it became hugely popular in Asia, where most
households didn't already have VCRs. In Asia, Video CD players are
roughly as common as VCRs in North America: China alone manufactures
2 million VCD players a year.
Prior to the introduction of DVD in 1997, one reason to get VCDs was
in order to watch Hong Kong movies. If you're a Hong Kong movie fan
in North America (like me), and you don't live in a city with a large Chinese
population, it's not so easy to find HK movies locally. But because
VCDs are so popular in Asia, almost all HK films released in the last
few years are available on VCD: you can easily order them by mail
for US $10-20.
Today (March 2000), however, Hong Kong movies are being
released on DVD, so I find there isn't so much of a reason to
bother with VCD.
The other big advantage of Video CD versus DVD is that it's
relatively easy to create your own Video CDs (e.g. from home
movies), using a CD-ROM burner. There's a lot of discussion
in the Video CD Q&A forum on this topic.
Finally, Video CD is creating a big problem for the movie industry,
analogous to the problem that MP3 has created for the music
industry: it's very, very easy to create pirate copies of
movies using Video CD. When a new movie is released in the
theaters, pirates will smuggle in a camcorder
and point it at the screen while the movie is playing.
Or they make VCD copies from laserdiscs, DVDs, and "screener"
copies of movies (sent to video rental stores for previews before
they decide to buy movies).
Pirate VCDs sell for $1 or so in places like Hong Kong, Malaysia,
or China (since it only costs 5 cents to duplicate a CD). This has
been crippling to the Hong Kong
movie industry: why pay $5 or $10 to see a movie in the
theater when you can get a pirate VCD for $1 and watch it with
your friends and family, as many times as you want?
Personally, I dislike piracy and what it's doing to the Hong
Kong film industry. I don't buy pirated Video CDs. If you
want to know where to get pirated movies, or how to create
them yourself, please don't ask me.
Is there a Video CD newsgroup?
There's been some discussion of VCDs on alt.asian-movies and
alt.video.dvd. There's also been some discussion of how to make your
own VCDs on rec.video.desktop. Your best bet is probably to search
Google Groups.
If you're interested in creating your own VCDs, the place
to check is probably
www.videohelp.com.
What's Video CD quality like?
Picture quality when using a VCD player is generally comparable to VHS,
but I've never seen a VCD that I thought was better quality than VHS,
and I've seen several that were quite a bit worse: if the encoding isn't
done well (which requires high-end hardware and software), you can
see blockiness in the image.
More specifically, VHS resolution is about 300x360, whereas
VCD resolution is 352x240 (NTSC) or 352x288 (PAL). Henrik Herranen has an
interesting page comparing the resolution of DVD, laserdisc, broadcast video,
VHS, and CD-i which shows
what this
means in practice.
Comments from Rainer Hofmeister (rhofm AT net4you.co.at):
The quality depends on the content of the picture. If there are many
details (like in a street scene) or fast movements the data compression
affects the quality. You then have an effect like in JPEGs with higher
compression. Generally the quality is beneath that of a LD. I have lots of
VCDs and I think the quality of the picture is good enough even if you
don´t consider the very low price.
For HK movies, two of the major distributors are Mei Ah Laserdisc and
Universe Entertainment. According to Charles Amith (amith AT kingsnet.com),
Mei Ah VCD quality is typically 8 out of 10, while Universe VCDs are
more like 5-6 out of 10.
So what does "5-6 out of 10" mean?
Well, I've got a copy of The Bride with White Hair on VCD from Universe.
When I play it back on my VCD player, you can see blockiness in
the image if you're close to the TV, but it looks fine from a normal
viewing distance. A bigger problem is that the subtitles are extremely
small, bordering on unreadable (at least on my 20" TV).
Where can I buy VCDs?
Most places that sell VCDs also seem to be selling DVDs.
Through the Internet:
For Hong Kong movies, try
Blue Laser (Connecticut)
or Five Star Laser
(LA).
If you're interested in Indian movies, Video CDs are quite popular
in India. Indian portal sites like
www.indiatimes.com and
www.rediff.com offer VCDs of Indian movies. (Information from V. Subhash.)
For more VCD sellers, see the Related Links page.
I haven't heard anything about
them from customers.
Stores in specific cities:
In San Francisco: E&M Star. (Information from Charles Amith,
amith AT kingsnet.com.)
I've also bought VCDs from New Sandy Records & Gifts, 1126 Grant Ave.,
(415) 989-4964.
In Los Angeles/southern California: Shadow VCD, 1407 S. Monterey St.
(off Valley Blvd.), Alhambra, CA, (626) 570-9216. (Information from
William Woods, atrac AT webtv.net.)
Others: Happyland Company, 141 N. Atlantic Blvd., #105,
Monterey Park, (626) 458-9857. There's also a small store in
the shopping center opposite the old location of TLC Laser Music
at 250 W. Valley Blvd., #C, San Gabriel, which sells Video CDs.
Finally, Gameland, which has a number of stores in the area, sells some
Video CDs.
(Information from Eric Gustafson.)
In Vancouver: MAL, 115 E. Pender St., (604) 688-2831. There's also a MAL store
in Richmond. They sell VCDs for CDN $20-23, with some on sale for $10.
They also sell Hong Kong DVDs.
In Chicago: Beauty Video, 2126-A S. Archer Av., (312) 326-3222.
(Information from Norman Nithman, nrn AT tezcat.com.)
In Melbourne: Mark Morrison
writes that you can buy VCDs in Chinatown and in suburbs with a high Asian
population (such as Richmond and Box Hill), for about A$25. Many places
also rent them, for A$2.50.
In Indianapolis: International Bazaar, 4225 Lafayette Rd, (317) 299-9073.
Video, music, groceries, and more. Carries various PAL/NTSC electronics,
including Betamax. Modest selection of Hindi VCD titles.
(Information from Raul Galindez-Torres, galinder AT tce.com.)
If you're in New York, you should also be able to buy Video CDs in Chinatown.
Look for stores that sell music CDs.
If you want to get more information about a movie, see the
Hong Kong Movie Database
or www.lovehkfilm.com.
For an good overview of Hong Kong movies, see the book
Hong Kong Action Cinema, by Bey Logan.
Which DVD players can also play Video CDs?
There's a database of compatibility information at
www.videohelp.com.
Note that if you want to be able to create your own VCDs and play them
on your DVD player, you'll need a DVD player which can read
CD-R or CD-RW discs.
If you want to buy a DVD player and be able to watch Hong Kong VCDs
on it, be careful. There's two TV standards, NTSC and PAL;
NTSC is used in North America, PAL is used in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong VCDs are sometimes encoded in PAL format and sometimes
in NTSC format -- people in Hong Kong usually have dual-standard TVs.
VCD resolution is 352x288 for PAL and 352x240 for NTSC.
Video CD players can handle the PAL-to-NTSC conversion,
but some DVD players cannot. On some early DVD players,
if you played a PAL VCD, the extra 48 lines would simply
be cut off the bottom of the image.
How do Video CD players compare?
Now that DVDs are widely available, it probably makes more sense
to get a DVD player than a Video CD player.
Some Video CD player manufacturers:
ACS Innovations, Singapore (Compro CVP-120k)
BTC
JVC (DX 333)
Panasonic (SL-VP50, SL-VP55, LX-V850EN)
Philips
Sony (MCE-S70, MCE-S50, MCE-C50K, MCE-K700, MCE-F11, D-V500)
How can I play a Video CD on my PC?
If you're running Windows, there's a number of free VCD players.
VideoLAN provides a free,
GPL, open-source, Video CD player called VLC which runs on
Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, and the Zaurus.
(Information from Anton Freiheit.)
Microsoft's Windows Media Player can play Video CDs.
Subhash VCDPlayer, freeware, by V. Subhash.
QuickVCD Player, freeware. Supports Windows 2000.
Note that Hong Kong VCDs invariably have both Cantonese and Mandarin
soundtracks, one on the left channel and one on the right channel. If
you leave them both on, the audio will sound rather strange (like
there's an echo). You need to disable one channel or the other.
If you're running Linux, Rocky Bernstein provides the following
comparison of open-source Video CD players:
... having worked on a couple of VCD players for some open-source
projects (VideoLan's vlc, xine, and VCDImager), I'd like to offer
this comparison.
You mention VideoLan's vlc and and MpegTV. Probably more popular
in the open-source software world are Mplayer (http://mplayerhq.hu) and xine (http://xinehq.de) which both can play
Video CDs. A couple of years ago (circa 2002) playing a Video CD meant
being able to play the individual MPEG tracks that appear after
the first track. (The first track contains Video CD information
such as a list of entry points, playback control navigation, still
frames - used for menus, and may also contain MPEGs). And even
playing MPEGs, media players were not able to show subtitles that
are possible in SVCDs and CVDs. As best as I can tell MpegTV is in
this category.
In the last couple of years however VCD support has gotten more
complete, particularly with respect to xine and vlc. Of the 3 that
I am familiar with -- mplayer, xine and vlc -- I'd say that xine
currently has the most extensive VCD support. It can handle
playback control (pretty much - default menu selection hasn't been
done), still frames, and play MPEGs in the first MODE2/FORM2 XA
track. SVCD and CVD subtitles can be shown too. However for that
you need to get a plugin http://subhandler.sourceforge.net/ that is not part of the
main core (xine-lib). Since this is not part of the core, some
small changes to the source code may be needed to get it to work
with the most recent version of xine-lib.
Since the completion (mostly) of full VCD support for xine, I
started focusing my attention on vlc using the player-independent
code I developed for xine. Although navigation code is all there,
vlc currently has a problem with still frames and switching
between still frames and motion MPEGs. However the subtitle
support in vlc is very good. Because both xine and vlc use my
libcdio library they both have the ability to play disk CD images
such as the CDRWIN BIN/CUE format, the cdrdao TOC format, and
Ahead's Nero NRG format. These are useful for people who author
VCDs to catch potential problems before burning a CD.
Last and sadly least is mplayer. It has many other fine qualities,
but for VCD playing, it does not have yet any sort of navigation
support, can't play stills, and can't show SVCD or CVD
subtitles. Hopefully that will change in the next couple of
years. mplayer can however read CDRWIN BIN/CUE format CD Disc
images to some extent.
An earlier note from "Uncle Prawn" (an alt.asian-movies regular),
about playing VCDs on PowerMacs:
First off, you need to be running the latest version of Quicktime
(2.5) and have Apple's MPEG extension. If you don't have these,
they can be downloaded from Apple's
website.
For a player, you need to use either Apple's MoviePlayer (version
2.5.1 - also downloadable from Apple) or one of the shareware
players. I suggest 'VCD Player', which is available from the 'Info
Mac' website or FTP sites.
A further comment from Ivan Drucker (ivanxqz AT aol.com):
Power Macintosh users running Mac OS 7.6 or later (or 7.5.x with
QuickTime 2.5 plus the QuickTime MPEG extension) can play both
Video CD and DV/CD-i (White and Green book) formats with any
QuickTime-savvy application, including the supplied
MoviePlayer. The software MPEG decoding is handled by QuickTime.
For Amiga people, a comment from Gavin Dodds (Gavin AT eagle001.demon.co.uk):
I think I should point out that you can play VCDs on an Amiga CD32
with an FMV add-on. The CD32 will play both green book and white
book VCDs.
How can I make my own VCDs?
I don't know much about making VCDs myself, but the
www.videohelp.com website
has a lot of detailed information on how to create your own VCDs.
My brother Curt started burning VCDs recently (March 2001)
using his PC. He sent me a description of the process for
the FAQ (thanks, Curt!):
I decided to investigate digital video editing for various reasons:
a. Having lived in a foreign country that used a different broadcast
standard from where I grew up, I found it frustrating that I could not view
my collection of VHS video tapes.
b. I am also concerned about degradation in quality of my video
collection.
After many hours reading the Video CD FAQ, searching the WEB for software
encoders and editors and just trying out various things, here is the
process that I used to successfully create VCDs:
My system specs:
Pentium III 550 MHZ
294 MB Ram PC 100
ATI AIW Radeon video card
1. Capture video
Hints - use highest quality capture setting available for your equipment -
I used MPEG-2 capture on my ATI All-in-wonder Radeon. I did not have the
video/audio sync problems that most AVI captures seem to experience.
[Update: Curt later found out that the Radeon also supports MPEG-1 capture.]
2. Deinterlace and resize
Reasons why this is required - see www.oldskool.org/mpeg/mpegfaq.html.
Use TMPGEnc (shareware) - can be downloaded at www.tmpgenc.com
I used TMPEnc beta 12.a, which can handle MPEG-2 video streams. Later
versions (12.b, 12.c, and 12.d have the MPEG-2 capabilities disabled or
available for a limited time for evaluation purposes.) [There is a huge
discussion of encoders at www.flexion.org - already it appears that TMPEnc
beta 12.a is no longer available at www.tmpgenc.com.]
2.1 Click on [Setting]
2.2 On the Video tab, change
"Size" to "352 x 240"
"Aspect ratio" to "4:3 525 line NTSC"
2.3 On the Advanced tab, change
"Video Source Type" to "interlace"
double click on the "deinterlace" filter and select desired filter
(blend fields)
double click on the "clip frame" filter and set desired crop settings
click "OK"
2.4 Start.
Click on Video source and select your video/audio file(s)
Enter the name of your output file.
Click [Start]
This takes the longest time in the whole process - to encode 30
minutes of video took 8 hours. (Of course, I ran it overnight.)
3. Merge & Cut
TMPGEnc has a simple utility to clip your MPEG files.
Select "File," "MPEG tools," "Merge & Cut"
"Add" your file(s)
"Edit" your file(s) - allows you to mark desired segments to be included in
output file.
Enter the name of your output file.
Click [Run]
4. Pad file
After all of that, your MPEG-1 file will still not be VCD compliant.
Select "File," "MPEG tools," "Multiplex"
Change the "Type" to MPEG-1 VCD
"Add" your file(s)
Enter the name of your output file.
Click [Run]
5. Burn your VCD.
Your MPEG-1 file(s) are now VCD compliant. However, they must be imaged
and burned onto your CD-R/RW media.
Nero 5.0 ($49 download) can perform both functions.
Problems may arise if your DVD player does not read certain media types.
You may need to experiment with different brands of CD-R/RW before you find
the one that works in your machine.
I recommend burning the final MPEG-1 files themselves onto a CD-R just in
case you need them at a later date. (e.g. If you want to convert them to
PAL, or edit them further. After all, you spent all of that time encoding
them - and it is a lot simpler than trying to convert your VCD back to
MPEG-1.)
If you're running Linux, I've been able to create Video CDs using
mencoder to create a VCD-compliant mpg file, vcdimager to create
the VCD image, and cdrecord to burn the Video CD.
How are Video CD and CD-i related?
CD-i is an older format ("Green Book") than Video CD ("White Book").
It supports interactive computer games as well as movies.
You can play VCDs on a CD-i player, provided that it has the DV
cartridge. But there's about 30 movies released by Philips on CD-i
which you can only play on a CD-i player, because they use the
"Green Book" standard: you can't play them on a VCD player or on
a PC. These CDs are labelled "Digital Video" or "DV".
Peter Chang (pchang AT ix.netcom.com) writes that he has
been able to play Green Book movies on his PC, using an older
version of the XingMPEG player (1.3), but not with the latest
version.
Matthew Sparby (matthew AT sparby.nu) sent the following
information by e-mail:
CDi Videos (Green Book Video) is an older standard than VideoCD. It uses
the same MPEG-1 encoding but it uses a different filesystem. The only
dedicated hardware that can play these discs is a Philips/Magnavox CDi
system with a Digital Video cartridge.
Many people express an interest in being able to play these videos on
their PC's. Many older PC's are able to play these discs using software
like the Xing MPEG Player or a proprietary player bundled with a hardware
MPEG decoder like the Boca Voyager Movie Player. This is usually only
possible under Windows 3.1, though, because Windows95 and Windows NT
utilize a new 32 bit CD-ROM driver called CDFS which is incompatible with
the filesystem type on the Green Book CD's. It is possible to disable the
32 bit CD-ROM driver under Windows95 and install the older MSCDEX driver
which will allow you to play the CDi Videos.
Another option is the Creative Labs Encore DVD kit. This kit includes a
DVD-ROM drive and a hardware MPEG decoder card and proprietary software.
It allows you to play DVD's as well as VideoCD's and CDi Videos on a PC.
It also includes TV output capabilities so you can watch all three types
of videos on a television set. It's possible that other PC DVD kits give
the same capabilities.
More information from Tom Lee (tomlee AT ee.stanford.edu):
1) CD-i disks may not mount on a PC natively, but there are two options
for making them do so. For Win95/98/Me, use the CDi filesystem driver
from http://www.icdia.co.uk/sw_pc/disctools.html. For later OS
versions,
use ISO Buster (a download link for it is also provided on the same
page). Windows Media Player seems to play .rtf movie files just fine (I
used mplayer2.exe in my quick test, even though versions 6 and later
are
allegedly required).
2) On a Mac, CD-i disks will only mount if the OS is pre-X. QuickTime
will play the movie, but you have to drag the .rtf file over the QT
icon; the Open File command will not list the .rtf movie because of the
incompatible file systems. I have used MoviePlayer 2.5.1 which, unlike
later QT players, allows you to save the movie in a format that's
subsequently readable by both Macs and PCs. I have demuxed and then
remuxed the rtf movie to produce an mpeg-1 video that, once burned onto
a CD-R, plays in my standalone DVD player (and everything else) just
fine. For maximum compatibility, you might have to re-author it as a
VCD, but my DVD player is very tolerant. [It's possible that the
demuxing/muxing is unnecessary; perhaps just changing the file
extension
from .rtf to .mpg would also work, but I was in the process of
re-authoring experiments, and didn't get around to trying that trick.]
For more information about CD-i, see the
CD-i FAQ maintained by Jorg Kennis.
$Date: 2006/08/02 05:35:57 $
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