VideoHelp Forum




+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 21 of 21
  1. Member Super Warrior's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2002
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    Don't get me wrong,this is in no way meant to be a bashing topic. I'm just really curious how many out there still bother with it.

    With DVDs superior storage ability, as well as burners&media almost costing the same as CD-R stuff these days, Plus you can easily take your collection of VCDs and put many of them to a single DVD.

    Once combined about 5 old VCDs to a DVD and still had about 2GBs free space left over. Pretty cool.

    I was a big VCD fan for awhile as it was a great alternative to crappy videotapes,i used to own one of those cool Terapin VCD recorders. Now with DVD however there is no longer any reason to use the VCD format.
    Quote Quote  
  2. Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Arizona, USA
    Search Comp PM
    I actually made one recently, although I agree with you that DVD is definitely superior for video. The VCD I made was a slideshow. I used VCDEasy, which has a nice feature for doing that, and it allows you to watch each slide indefinitely until you hit the "next" button on the remote. I find that for these kinds of projects, VCD's are easier to put together, and the picture quality of the stills is on par with DVD's at 720 x 405.
    Quote Quote  
  3. Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    North America
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by Super Warrior
    i used to own one of those cool Terapin VCD recorders. Now with DVD however there is no longer any reason to use the VCD format.
    I have the LVW-5104 which records VCD (not the primary reason I bought it though). I did a VCD with it just for kicks. It brought me back to the day when I didn't have a DVD burner and I thought VCD was the coolest thing.

    I have been meaning to do a AVI-DV -> VCD conversion with Procoder Express just to see how well Procder preforms.
    Quote Quote  
  4. I hardly ever burn VCDs anymore, however I still code in VCD format quite often.

    VCD format is a great way to cram a whole bunch of TV show episodes onto one single DVD (you have to modify the audio to 48hz mp2, though).

    Make a small menu and presto you can easily cram one whole season onto 2-3 DVDs at most, which makes it convenient for viewing/keeping.

    Quality is not fantastic in VCD but certainly decent and watchable.
    Quote Quote  
  5. I have to admit that I haven't made one in years.

    Regards.
    Michael Tam
    w: Morsels of Evidence
    Quote Quote  
  6. Member
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Oz
    Search Comp PM
    True VCD (MPEG-1 @ 352x240/288) I don't make very often anymore. Usually only use this format for the odd downloaded MPG file which is already in compliant VCD format to avoid re-encoding or for the occasional very small resolution downloaded AVI file where VCD format just happens to be the closest standard size to the original so to keep resizing changes to a minimum.

    SVCD on the other hand I use all the time. Every single day in fact. Use it far more often than DVD in all honesty. The major advantage for me is that for downloaded AVI source material, the picture quality is indistinguishable from DVD and it requires no authoring step, which is a real pain in the arse for me both for time and disc space requirement reasons. I use SVCD/CVD for everything under 1 hour in length - so basically for all TV shows. Movies I use DVD, but even then the picture is encoded at SVCD resolution so I can fit 2 movies/DVD easily.
    Quote Quote  
  7. I sometimes still use VCDs to put documentaries or chat shows on (I still have a lot of CD-Rs to use up).
    Cole
    Quote Quote  
  8. Member pchan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Singapore
    Search Comp PM
    I usually squeeze 6 hrs of VCD into 1 DVD.
    Quote Quote  
  9. Banned
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    USA
    Search Comp PM
    I had to make a series of SVCDs last month for a customer project. It had been quite some time since I've had to do that so i'd say it's far from a regular experience for me to be producing VCD/SVCD discs but they are still being used by some individuals.
    Quote Quote  
  10. Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    I still make them -they are great for short instructional videos. They encode faster,the disks are cheaper and they make their own menus automatically. The worst problem is Windows Media Player support is so lame that you have to teach people how to watch them on computers and you also have to teach some people how to access the menus with their DVD player.
    Quote Quote  
  11. Member gadgetguy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Location
    West Mitten, USA
    Search Comp PM
    I made one several months ago because that one last episode wouldn't fit on the DVD.
    "Shut up Wesley!" -- Captain Jean-Luc Picard
    Buy My Books
    Quote Quote  
  12. Banned
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    USA
    Search Comp PM
    Whole bunchs are sold at YesAsia.
    The MA instructionals from China are mainly on VCD still with DVD creeping in slowly.
    Quote Quote  
  13. Member GMaq's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Canada
    Search Comp PM
    Hi, Cool Topic,
    What always impressed me about VCD's was that if they turned out decent I was always more impressed with what I got than if I captured in MPEG-2 and could make out artifacts from the Satellite source, playing around with bitrates was also fun, With the advent of Video iPods and Sony PSP's etc I think MPEG-4 and AVC H.264 is going to have some people not bother with disc authoring at all. for the record I do about 80% DVD's nowadays.
    Quote Quote  
  14. Banned
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Freedonia
    Search Comp PM
    Like gerryc, I sometimes make video slide shows on VCD. Doing them on DVD is a huge waste of disc space.

    I gave up on SVCD years ago. I made them for a couple of years until I got into making DVDs. SVCD does have better quality than VCD, but it is just as much a dead end, maybe more so since SVCD resolutions aren't valid for DVD unless you use DVD Lab (I don't have it). I have a friend who regularly makes VCDs of TV shows he likes because it's really really easy for him to record in VCD format and the quality is "good enough" for him. He likes being able to get about an hour or so of TV on one CD-R disc and he's not interested at all in SVCD, since the better quality would limit him to about 30-35 minutes per CD-R.

    Just an aside, when I first got into burning TV shows to disc, I started with VCD and then moved to SVCD for the better quality. This would be in 2000. The quality of commercial VCDs then was terrible. It was truly awful. I have some VCDs of Hong Kong Kung Fu movies that have unbelievable pixelation. That was one of the reasons I started making SVCDs - you could usually avoid the pixellation if you were careful. I have recently bought a few VCDs from Hong Kong from http://www.yesasia.com and I bought them because they were cheap and I didn't want to pay $15+ each to see them on DVD. I didn't want to see them enough to pay DVD prices, but for $7 or 8, I'd pay for a VCD. I am amazed at how much the quality has improved. VCDs now are often letterboxed, which improves the quality immensely by allowing most of the bits to be used on the film since the black bars don't need to have a lot allocated to them to encode them. I think whatever commercial studios are using to encode VCDs has improved a lot too. I wouldn't say that the best VCDs are indistinguishable from DVDs, but you can get a surprisingly good picture now from commercial VCDs.
    Quote Quote  
  15. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Location
    dFAQ.us/lordsmurf
    Search Comp PM
    I never really made VCD or SVCD, but I did do a number of CVDs, and they transferred perfectly to DVD. I still do CVD from time to time, usually when I had a small show and a DVD is a waste.
    Want my help? Ask here! (not via PM!)
    FAQs: Best Blank DiscsBest TBCsBest VCRs for captureRestore VHS
    Quote Quote  
  16. Mod Neophyte redwudz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    USA
    Search Comp PM
    I've done a few, mostly instructional videos like one of the posters above. Some of the stuff is from short ~15 minute VHS tapes and VCDs are a natural for this. Also gets rid of all my boxes of blank CD's that I rarely use anymore.
    Quote Quote  
  17. I still do VCDs. Sometimes the kids stuff isn't real long & I'm not wasting a dvd. I still have some old stuff on vhs that isn't "dvd-worthy" so they'll go to vcd cd.
    Quote Quote  
  18. Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Middle of England
    Search Comp PM
    I was going through my old CDRs the other day and came across some SKVCD I had made when I only had a CD burner,the quality of the films still amazes me from a 800mb disc, never liked the quality of VCD
    so never made many, only use DVD now though, I was looking to burn 25 X 20 minute episodes of scooby- doo on to one DVD using Kwags half KDVD template,done a test and quality looks pretty good....Cant seem to get on his website though .
    Oscar.
    Quote Quote  
  19. I havent made a vcd in 2 1/2 years . Why bother since the vcd quality sucks. I still have my first vcd too. I have no idea why I do but hey its like opening a business and keeping the first dollar you make on a wall in the office.
    Quote Quote  
  20. Member Super Warrior's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2002
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by GMaq
    Hi, Cool Topic,
    Thanks,funny you should say that. I remember someone here making a similar topic about 2-3 years ago and all the VCD loyalist people got pissed.

    Nice that there have not been any negative responces yet
    Quote Quote  



Similar Threads

Visit our sponsor! Try DVDFab and backup Blu-rays!