Isnt VCD obsolete?

[jman98]

I hesitate to speak for Cornucopia, but perhaps he is referring to the fact that very few BD players support VCD any more. I've got a Samsung 3D BD player that won't touch VCD or MPEG-1 based .mpg files at all. I also happen to have a compliant DVD that I made using MPEG-1 some years ago as a test disc and my Samsung player plays it flawlessly. So the decoding chips seem to still recognize MPEG-1 but few manufacturers are writing firmware to support old formats like VCD and SVCD. But there's no reason that MPEG-1 can't be supported for many years to come as it's legal for DVD and my simple test showed that even a modern BD player will play a DVD that uses it. Philips is one of the few DVD player manufacturers that still sees value in supporting old formats like VCD and SVCD.

[Robbins1940]

I squeezed up to 55 minutes of SVCD on 99min discs and for the most part had no problems playing them. Only thing was you couldn't pause them or rewind and fast-forward without problems.

And I still have a few in storage that work just fine on a dvd player that my dad has.

[netmask56]

Since getting my Popcorn C200 I haven't used my DVD/Bluray player much. Transferred my collection to the network and got rid of a lot of clutter in the living room. As for quality of VCD's I shake my head that we actually sat down and watched full length movies. Some of my elderly clients have asked recently if there will be a VCR with a digital tuner built in! Analog is due to be turned off, at last, December this year.

[Cornucopia]

I hesitate to speak for Cornucopia, but perhaps he is referring to the fact that very few BD players support VCD any more. I've got a Samsung 3D BD player that won't touch VCD or MPEG-1 based .mpg files at all. I also happen to have a compliant DVD that I made using MPEG-1 some years ago as a test disc and my Samsung player plays it flawlessly. So the decoding chips seem to still recognize MPEG-1 but few manufacturers are writing firmware to support old formats like VCD and SVCD. But there's no reason that MPEG-1 can't be supported for many years to come as it's legal for DVD and my simple test showed that even a modern BD player will play a DVD that uses it. Philips is one of the few DVD player manufacturers that still sees value in supporting old formats like VCD and SVCD.

You hit the nail on the head, jman98!

Robbins1940 speaks anecdotally, but unfortunately for the rest of us, only as one who got lucky.

Scott