DVD Players and VCD's etc

[Daz]

I've seen DVDs and VCDs a lot cheaper than VHS. Do VCD's play ok on the cheap ?100 DVD Players? And will Mpegs/avis which have been d/l and copied onto disc play on these machines. The specs say CDR and CDRW etc. It may seem like an obvious question but I know naff all about DVD players.

Thanks

[Mego]

I have a cheap Tesco (ok, Wharfedale) DVD. It certainly plays VCD's (quality pretty terrible, but watchable - Far East pirates I think). No idea about MPEGS etc, but don't see any reason why they shouldn't play....

[Shaun]

My Wharfy don't do mpegs, VCDs of Planet of the Apes etc no problem.

[Onan The Librarian]

VCD's can be made from MPEG's if you have CD burning software such as Roxio or Nero. I use Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.0 and you can use it to create VCD from one or more MPEG's. You can even create menus so you can skip to the correct movie!

VCD's can also be played on your PC using Window's Media player. If you look at the CD through explorer and go into one of the folders, you will find a very large .DAT file probably called something like mpegavi.dat. It's an MPEG by another name!

Onan

[Boo2]

CDR & CDRW's are music/ audio. VCD is video, and they play on 90% of DVD players. VCD picture quality is only comparable to standard VHS. There's a list of 800+ DVD players here giving players compatability with various media, plus reviews and ratings.

[Boo2]

Link didn't work, try here

[Justin Crane]

CDR = CD Read
CDRW = CD Read Writable

These are the type of disk(s) you buy for your CD Burner.

Your DVD player will need to be VCD (backward) compatible which 99% are, the problem might be wether it can read the disks above or only disks that are pressed professionally.

If your player which is listed in the link in the previous message does not have CDR/CDRW or VCD crossed out then you can play VCD's you have created yourself or bought without problems.

You can create VCD's (.dat) from .mpg using Nero etc. If you get compatibility warnings when dragging the .mpg onto the VCD window then its just a matter of rencoding it using TMPenc. etc.
There are also no region problems with VCD's as are with DVD, but porn on DVD is almost all region free anyways.

The quality of VCD depends on the source that was used to make it. It is comparable to VHS but I have seen some DVD rips that are nearly as good as the DVD itself. The limitations of VCD is the CD will only hold 74 or 80 mins of film, so films that are longer will need to be stretched over 2 or 3 disks.

Im my opinion VCD's are better than VHS because the CD does not wear out or get chewed up the more you use it, is able to be 'menu-ised', and is a lot cheaper and it takes lot less space and its easier to hide CD's than tapes.

Try www.vcdhelp.com for more info.

Cheers
Justin.

[Daz]

Thanks Guys. I'm off to buy one now. Only a cheap Alba 113 from Argos. I'll put your words of wisdom into practice

[Boo2]

Thanks Justin, but I believe Daz was concerned with commercially available VCD?s, rather than burn-your-own. In which case, please don?t expect better quality than standard VHS (both are 60% copy quality).

Burn-your-own SVCD?s etc, might achieve better quality, but at the expense of run time (18 ? 40 mins typical) making them less suited to full length films, than even VCD?s ...okay for personal compilations maybe.

But watch out for the unstoppable revolution DVD-R!! Media and recorder prices dropping daily =o)