VCD SVCD CVD XVCD and XSVCD? Which should I choose?

[eronnero]

I have just been checking out all the different ways to burn movies - VCD, SVCD, CVD, XVCD and XSVCD! I dont know which to choose? I'm all confused! ARGGH!

[arealgijoe]

I am not confused at all.

1: MOVIES, I prefer DVD.

2. Slide show of slides or photos (stills) VCD, 704x480 ntsc resolution.

3. Cheap, short videos, want to make cheap copies to give others, VCD.

My preferances.

J E

[eronnero]

Wow! You're so cool!
Thanks for your help....ballsack.

[eronnero]

.......anyhoo. Maybe I should make myself a little more clear. By the sounds of it the X(S)VCD format puts a whole lot of unnecessary crap on the disc that, well if I wanted I'd just buy that damn DVD! Which leaves VCD, CVD and SVCD. I guess I want something that is of good quality yet simple at the same time? Any (helpful) comments? or (helpful) Opinions?

[sterno]

SVCD will have the best quality, if you have a high enough bitrate. You can also use VBR encoding to make more efficient use of space. SVCD also supports two audio tracks and four switchable subtitle sets, though not all players support those.

CVD is SVCD with a slightly lower resolution. That means you can drop your bitrate lower before the quality becomes unacceptably poor. One of the major strengths of CVD is that its resolution is a legal DVD resolution, so if you were to get a DVD burner you wouldn't have to reencode the video to put several CVDs on a DVD (you would have to resample the audio, but that doesn't take long).

VCD is probably supported by the most players and requires the least time to encode, and you can usually fit more on a CD than you could with SVCD/CVD at acceptable quality. However, VCD quality is far, far inferior to the others - it's about like VHS.

XVCD and XSVCD are just VCDs and SVCDs that don't follow the standards. Most (but not all) players allow you to deviate from the standard to some degree - higher or lower bitrates, higher resolutions, even VBR VCDs. I try to stay in the standards because that way I have less concern about compatibility in the future.

[eronnero]

Thanks heaps Sterno! You've been very helpful, it is very much appreciated! Just one more question if thats ok? Could you tell me more about this VBR encoding?
Thanks again.

[sterno]

CBR = constant bitrate. The video is encoded so that one second of video always uses the same amount of space, regardless of content. The VCD standard specifies CBR encoding.

VBR = variable bitrate. Different pieces of the video may be encoded at different bitrates. A high-motion scene requires more space to encode than a low-action scene, but with CBR they would both be done the same way and you'd either have bad quality during high-motion scene or wasted space during low-motion. With VBR the high-action scene would actually use a higher bitrate than the low-action scene. In short, VBR makes more efficient use of space by allocating it where it's needed instead of just encoding everything the same way. SVCD/CVD and DVD can use VBR or CBR encoding.

Some players can play a VCD encoded with VBR (XVCD), many can not. It's more common for players to be able to play XVCD with a different CBR rate (higher for better quality, lower for more video on one disc). Some can also play XVCDs with higher resolutions.

[eronnero]

Thanks very much once again mate.