What is a Video Compact Disc or VCD?
A Video Compact Disc or VCD is a compact disc that plays movies and music. It is in multi-platform format which means you can use many different kinds of equipment to play them.
VCDs look exactly like a CD or CD-ROM except that it stores video/audio clips using the compressed and standardized MPEG-1 (Motion Picture Expert Group) format. It was jointly developed by Philips and Sony and were introduced in 1993. A single disc can only hold 74 minutes of video but usually only 50 to 60 minutes is actually used.

Why is VCD gaining popularity?
VCDs are very popular in Asia and are gaining popularity in America, Europe and Australia. It has been said that 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.

What equipment do I need to play VCD?
VCDs can be played on VCD compatable karaoke players. The second way is to play VCDs on DVD players. DVD movies are encoded using a compression technique called MPEG-2. Whereas, VCDs are encoded in MPEG-1. Because of the similarity of encoding/ compression technique, most, but not all DVD players can play VCD and DVD. For example, SONY DVP-S3000 and SONY DVP-S7000 and PIONEER DVD PLAYER DV-505. will play in all the JVC and Pioneer Karaoke players, the 555, 22, 33, 303, 508, and any other player which is Video CD compatible.
On the other hand, VCD players cannot play DVDs. You also can play VCDs on your PC if your computer is properly equipped.

What are the advantages of VCD?

1. VCD is multi-platform.
2. Random Access for quick search.
3. Multiple audio/voice tracks for multilingual support.
4. It's a cheaper alternative for DVDs and Laser Discs.
5. It's the exact size of your regular CDs and its so much easier to store compared to VHS.
6. It's picture and sound WILL NOT deteriorate with time, unlike VHS so if you are a movie collector,you can keep your collection for a very long time.

What is the quality of VCD like?
One of the objectives of the MPEG-1 standard for VCD was to get the quality comparable to S-VHS. In practice, picture quality when using a VCD players may somehow be almost as good as laser disc, depending on the encoding. VCDs are playable on any machine capable of playing VCD anywhere in the world. This is because VCDs have no incompatibility problem caused by different formats such as PAL, NTSC & SECAM, and also do not have lock-out codes that disallow you playing movies that are not bought in your region. Because of the capacity to hold more data, DVD can hold up to 26 more times (6 Gigabytes) of data as compared with VCD (650 Megabytes).

How can I play VCD on my computer?
Almost any computer can play VCDs because they are based on MPEG technology. You only need a basic pentium PC (minimum pentium 166), a 20xCD-ROM drive, a good video card and a software-only MPEG decoder.
There are two most popular MPEG decoder software that is from Xing Technology called Xing MPEG and Active Movie from Microsoft. You can try out Xing's latest version of MPEG program by downloading it from WWW.XINGTECH.COM. If you are running a windows NT/95/98 machine you'd probably have the media player as a plug-in in Internet Explorer. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Insert VCD into your CD-ROM drive.
2. Open XingMPEG player.
3. Click at File and then Open. From the Look in menu: Choose the cd-rom drive. Open the Mpegav folder and you'll get either .dat or .avi files. Click at it and ENJOY your movie!

Windows Media Player / Active Movie supports popular video and audio formats including AVI video, QuickTime, WAV, MIDI, AU, and AIFF. It also supports playback of MPEG video and audio. With the support of MPEG video, ActiveMovie gives you television-quality video on your computer.
To enhance the performance of your computer, get a MPEG card from your local computer shop to relief the decoding work from your main CPU. That way, the movie you are watching will play more smoothly. Another recomendable software to play VCDs is Taiwan Cyber Link's The Software-only VCD PowerPlayer. It requires no hardware VCD player or MPEG card, saving significant cost. It is said that this software is much better than the XING MPEG Player that is, it’s easy to use and has high quality graphic. Pls go to http://www.cyberlink.com.tw/ to download.

Can I play VCD's on a Sony Play Station video game player?
Yes, with the VCD movie adapter accessory -about $60 street price for the adapter. It plugs right into the Play Station player.

How do I play VCD on a Apple Macintosh?
You will need Quicktime, Apple's video technology that allows you to play high quality video directly to your computer. You can download it from WWW.APPLE.COM. A 4x CDROM and a 604e proccessor is good enough to play VCDs.

What is the difference between NTSC and PAL?
There are two TV video standards, NTSC and PAL. NTSC is used in North America, and PAL is used almost everywhere else in the world. Most hardware devices (DVD or VCD players) that play PAL video resolution out on a NTSC monitor correctly will cut approximately 24 lines of resolution from the top and bottom of a PAL image.
Note : NTSC has 352 X 240 video resolution and PAL's video resolution is 352 X 288. This PAL to NTSC video conversion / truncation problem does not exist when viewed on a PC monitor as the PC just displays the whole image.