VCD playback quality different on different DVD players?

[behoovedgirl]

Ok so I imported this thing I taped to mini DV off of satellite TV into imovie, then encoded it to VCD standard mpeg1 format using the preset in ffmpegx, and burned it with Toast.

On the computer in quicktime, the video looks excellent (especially compared to Toast's crappy VCD codec). On my cyberhome DVD player, the quality is also really good for a VCD. But then I brought the exact same disc into my parent's Sony DVD player (which is a few years old)... and it was AWEFUL! Horrible blocky choppy digital noise.

Is it normal for the same VCD to look excellent on one DVD player and horrible on another? Or have I done something wrong?

Thanks for any insight...

[galactica]

it very well could be that. Their player could perhaps only play back VCD 1.0 while you made a VCD 2.0 . Or it could be that the player doenst have an up to date vcd decoding ability so that it hesitates when playing it back.

I have a question..... you burned this VCD to disk.
Put the disk in your computer and you open it with Quicktime?!?!?

Dont do much work with VCD's but i always assumed they were just like SVCD's such that when you burn them you can only watch them using VLC open disk option.

[tgpo]

Didn't older players do a kind of 'fake' VCD handling, or am I thinking of something else?

What about the media? Is it quality media? because I've had VCDs on certain media that will play in one DVD player, but not in another.

[galactica]

Didn't older players do a kind of 'fake' VCD handling, or am I thinking of something else?

possibly. I had a pannisonic dvd player that I got eons ago. Perhaps during the tiem when VCD playback on DVD player was just integrated?

Any how, it didnt like hardly ANY vcd's i made. Ones i actually purchased (yea, crazy isnt it!) worked great.

so i eventually sold it and got a new one, now all the ones I made work fine.

[behoovedgirl]

well actually i had to burn it onto a CD-RW because my parents old sony player wont read normal CD-R's with the lighter coloured surfaces.

but the odd thing is, their DVD player will even play VCD's encoded with Toast's crappy codec better quality than the VCD i encoded with ffmpegx. Yet the ffmpegx vcd looks WAY better than the toast one on my mac and my cyberhome player. if that makes any sense.

i suppose it'll just remain a mystery, and i'll tell my parents they need a new dvd player