Why VCD?

[joecav]

This is dumb, but I was curious as to why so many people burn VCD's? Why not just burn a DVD and get better quality/more room? I'm assuming, though, that people watch these in a dvd player...am I wrong? If you are just watching it on your pc why not just keep the mpeg files on you HD?

*I hope this didn't come across as sounding "smart", I'm not bashing anyone here. I honestly don't know.

[Ripper2860]

Joe Cav,

I myself do not have a DVD Burner so SVCD and VCD are my only options. Even if I had one I would still burn SVCD's and VCD's, simply because I only need VCR quality for most videos and like the fact that media is cheaper (at least today).

I also like the versatility that SVCD/VCD offer when burned to CD's. I can play them on most stand-alone DVD players; I can play them on virtually any desktop and laptop as long as it has a CD-ROM drive.

For me the real benefit is compatibility and portability. I never watch movies on my PC -- I look to a easy, fast, cheap, and compatible format that affords me flexibility.

When I do aquire a DVD burner, I will probably use it more to burn multiple SVCD's and VCD's to the greater capacity of DVD's, rather than copy DVD's. I can keep my kids occupied for up to 2 hrs on 1 VCD. They would stay in their room for the entire day if I could fill a DVD with SKVCD'ed movies

[theDruid]

Similar answer here...

I started learning how to make VCD's with the freeware tools a few years ago.

I have yet to buy a DVD burner, so I now mainly make SVCDs. If my source wasn't really good enough to warrant SVCD, I'd probably go back to VCD for that project.

As Ripper2860 says, when I do get a DVD burner, I expect I'll be putting multiple SVCD/CVDs onto DVD a lot of the time.

I try not to watch anything on the PC (even with TV out) if I can avoid it - but then my standalone will play more-or-less anything in MPEG-1 or MPEG-2.

I don't wish to sound like a smart-@rse or anything, but I think a fair few people who post questions about using their new DVD burners here could do with learning how to make (S)VCD's for a few weeks; I think they'd be able to answer their own questions pretty soon!

cheers,
mcdruid.

[Craig Tucker]

The main reasons, as I see them

1. If you only have a CD burner then burning to DVD is not an option.
2. It is much quicker to encode to VCD than to DVD (generally DVD will have a much higher bitrate)
3. The media is cheaper
4. If your source is not good enough to warrant greater quality than VCD
5 If you want to create something to watch on your DVD player that you are not bothered about keeping.

I have a DVD burner but I still create VCD's

[fmctm1sw]

I found VCDs perfect for 20 minute cartoons. Can fit 3 on a single disk and quality is OK. I have a DVD burner and havn't made a DVD yet. I have nothing against them but I am using up my CD-R's disks making 352x480 IVTC'd stuff. They look great. Also, try finding checap DVD media here in Japan...

[hech54]

Me...on the other hand...I haven't made a VCD since I got my DVD Burner. HOWEVER....once a VCD is created...it can be EASILY copied to another CD. Make one master....copy all the rest from IT to a CD burner at much faster speed than my DVD Burner.
And the quality is pretty damn good for VCD.....VERY impressive for SVCD.

[joecav]

Thanks guys for the enlightenment

[handyguy]

A vcd downloads from usenet much faster than a dvd....

[MarcoEsc]

I produce a television program and release it to fans via the Internet in VCD format. Why did I choose VCD over DVD or SVCD?

1. File size. The hour-long program is around 600MB, a realistic size to download. 4GB DVD significantly raises the bar.
2. Cost of media. Being able to burn to a 10cent CD means people are more likely to burn copies for friends...in theory. And believe it or not, we want that.
3. Playability. My tests found MANY more players handled VCD than SVCD. Plus at the compression needed to fit on a single disc (a requirement for me), VCD looked better than SVCD.

VCD is a legit format and will be around for a while.

Now if I could just find a good program that automates the process of resampling the audio on VCD/MPEG1 files (and does a good job of it), these files would be DVD-ready. 7 1/2 hours of video on a single disc...not bad!

[Cole]

'Cos it's fun!

[FineDragon]

My reason is a little different than the others. I have a DVD burner but I burn VCDs sometimes because it's all that's available. I watch a lot of Chinese movies and most of these movies only come in a vcd format.

Even if it is in a DVD format, the quality is still of vcd quality. Besides, they're only 3 for $10 in San Francisco Chinatown. Much better than renting.

[lordsmurf]

When the source was bad to start with... say *cough* *cough* Paris Hilton video *cough * ... .... and you don't plan to keep it for longer than the time it took to play the movie. :P

[spectroelectro]

Why VCD?
I still use VCDs occasionally and sometimes capture & burn to VCD even though I have a DVD-quality capture setup (Canopus AVCD-100) and a DVD burner.
Some source material has video that's relatively unimportant. Case in point: C-SPAN and C-SPAN2. These channels often show superb and fascinating lectures during the weekends, but since they're basically just talking heads, it would be a total waste of money and encoding time to cap these at 720 x 480 with some high bitrate and burn 'em to DVD.
Instead, I use an ancillary video card on my PC to cap these sorts of things off the TV in 352 x 240 1150 kbit VCD quality and burn 'em directly to CD-R. Do you really care if that hysterically funny Al Franken lecture has high video quality?
Another good reason to maintain VCD capability is that in other countries VCDs are often still the standard video format. If you know someone who lives overseas and want to send 'em a newscast or what-have-you, it's simplest to burn it to VCD. PAL is often used overseas but folks in other countries can typically play a VCD even if it uses NTSC format, whereas they're often out of luck if you were to send 'em an NTSC VHS videotape. And vice versa, of course.
Lastly, VCDs are an excellent format for educational or "how to" videos. If you do video production and need to distribute cheap relatively short (up to 80 minutes) instructional videos, VCDs are an excellent medium. VCD playback is almost universal on DVD players, except for the wretched Apex DVD player, which foolishly destroyed its own market by opting out of VCD playback capability. All other DVD players, however, still support VCD playback on CD-Rs, while some DVD players still don't support DVD video playback on DVD-Rs.

[SatStorm]

Basicly, VCDs are good for presentations, teasers, low cost and fast backups, even education uses. On CDRs, I think they have a limited future (2 - 5 years). But what makes a VCD (mpeg 1, framesize, bitrate, etc) gonna exist for at least 20 more years, 'cause VCD specifics are virtual exist on DVD Video.