Why do people make VCDs?

[Mirror_Image]

Allow me to quote this post from March 17, 2002 (roughly 3 weeks ago...):

I'm a bit of a newbie and not sure where to post this question, it's about video editing but I'm also a newbie so I also posted this on the Newbie forum...

and then, recently:

What you don't seem to realise is that MPEG1 is low resolution, and MPEG2 is high resolution.

Is that right?

From novice to MPEG expert lecturer in just 3 weeks, quite a fast learner! I certainly wish I could learn all about MPEG in that short time, but perhaps I'm soft in the skull by comparison.

I quote the University of California at Berzerkly (not jjust a student - http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/research/mpeg/faq/mpeg2-v38/faq_v38.html

MPEG Myths:

MPEG-1 is 352x240

Both MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video syntax can be applied at a wide range of bitrates and sample rates. The MPEG-1 that most people are familiar with has parameters of 30 SIF pictures (352 pixels x 240 lines) per second and a coded bitrate less than 1.86 megabits/sec----a combination known as "Constrained Parameters Bitstreams". This popular interoperability point is promoted by Compact Disc Video (White Book).

In fact, it is syntactically possible to encode picture dimensions as high as 4095 x 4095 and a bitrates up to 100 Mbit/sec. This number would be orders of magnitude higher, maybe even infinite, if not for the need to conserve bits in the headers!

With the advent of the MPEG-2 specification, the most popular combinations have coagulated into "Levels," which are described later in this text. The two most common levels are affectionately known as:

Source Input Format (SIF), with 352 pixels x 240 lines x 30 frames/sec, also known as Low Level (LL),
…and …

"CCIR 601" (e.g. 720 pixels/line x 480 lines x 30 frames/sec), or Main Level.

I've never met anyone who's even heard of VCDs in real life, I've only ever heard of VCDs on the Internet

Well, we stand corrected then!

(This is a bit like a Freshman PoliSci student that, 3 weeks into the first semester, is speaking authoritatively about their unique geopolitical theories as if they were an Oxford Don...don't you think?)

[pacmania_2001]

Reasons behind not buying DVD burners
1)Buying a DVD burner now would be like buying a Betamax VCR when it and VHS were competing. Look at where all of them ended up. Even if I could afford a DVD burner I would still buy a fast CD burner instead. Why? Because the functionality behind a CD burner is still more than that of a DVD burner. More people own CD players(of some sort) than DVD players(of any kind) so whatever I burn I can easily pass on to a friend/family etc.

2) TV Captures and Home Videos dont need the quality of DVD specs. A well authored XVCD or SVCD is more than enough quality for those types of things. A well authored XVCD or SVCD is also enough quality for a movie. I have handed a SVCD of M:I-2(that i made myself) to a person that works in the home entertainment industry and in his opinion it was of better quality than some DVD's he had seen and the difference between it and most DVD's of today was minimal.

3) DVD-R/RW/+R/+RW(did i miss any?) can currently only hold 4.7gb which isn't enough to do a 'true' backup of most commercial DVD's. If you want a movie then you still have to reauthor it with a DVD burner.

4) Prices are too high at the moment. In Australia a DVD burner is $1000 compared to $150 for a 24X CD Burner. DVD media costs $12 bucks a disc compared to 40 cents for a CD. I dont know about you guys but I dont want to throw away $12 bucks if I make a mistake. I also know of no one who spent a grand on their capturing card.

As for knowing people with DVD burners I know of no one, either in real life or on the net who own one.

[ejai]

Hey guys, check out the DVD forum there is a standard acceptable by the DVD forum. DVD-R and DVD-RW are acceptable standards and DVD+R and DVD+RW are not

See for yourself: http://www.dvdforum.com/forum.shtml

I agree with gameshow in some areas and I don't think he is bragging.
ej

[stegen44]

People make vcd's for a number of reasons. I will give you just a few.
I am running a 166 pentium, cable modem, 64megs of ram, 30 gig hard drive. I am broke. I have been able to make and obtain all kinds of movies, and make them play on my dvd player. It is awesome. It is so much fun making something out of nothing with such old equipment.
Just takes me longer, no problem. Come down to real world, with real people. Quality? I just encoded armaggeden, the sound and video will knock you thru the wall. ( 175watt per ch sound system. My dvd player
smokes. Daewoo 5700)It is more than worth it. And like so many of us here know, dvd recording for everyday people is years away. You sound like an intelligent person, can you tell me how to stop my ex wife from
coming after me? Three years now.

steve

[Urbs]

Too much reading....my head hurts!

[Gameshow Host]

Mirror Image>>

> From novice to MPEG expert lecturer in just 3 weeks, quite a fast learner!

What are you talking about? I never claimed to be an expert, as I said, I'm a total newbie to video capturing. I only got my capture card a few weeks ago (hence I came here to learn about capturing). Although I'd heard about VCDs before on the Internet, I was surprised to find that there are so many people actually using it instead of DVD.

I have never claimed to be an "expert". How could I be after just a few weeks? My comment about MPEG resolution wasn't an "expert opinion", it's just basic stuff everyone knows. I first heard about VCDs a long time ago (on the Inernet) and I learned straight away that VCDs are half the resolution of DVD videos. This isn't "expert" information. Anyone who makes VCD should know what its resolution is. Surely they would need to know this information in order to author it? It's not expert at all.

As for the information you supplied about mpegs, I never thought (or said) that MPEG1 is set at 352x240. MPEG1 can be any resolution you like. I've been editing videos for years and believe me I'm well aware of this. But we weren't talking about just any old MPEG1s, we were talking specifically about VCDs (remember?). And VCDs ARE a particular resolution, and that resolution is half the dimensions of DVD. I'm not sure exactly what the resolution is because I don't really care about VCDs, but I would think something like 360x288 - pretty low res.

>Gameshow Host wrote:

>I've never met anyone who's even heard of VCDs in real life, I've only >ever heard of VCDs on the Internet

>Well, we stand corrected then!

What's with you, Mirror_Image? I just ask a perfectly reasonable question to the group, but you seem to have become almost obsessive about trying to argue with me and mock me, to the point of going through my old posts and quoting them! Did I do something to upset you? When I said I've never heard of VCDs outside the Internet, I wasn't saying that they aren't popular. I was explaining that I didn't realise how popular they were, because where I live they're not popular. I live in England. You say "VCD" to anyone in England and no-one will have a clue what you're talking about. But you say "DVD" and we all will. Everyone I know now has a DVD player, and all my friends (my age) have burners. To me, it seems odd to be using anything other than DVD. That's why I asked the question. And from asking this, I have learnt that for many people there are several reasons why they can't or don't want to buy a DVD burner, and are happy with the quality of VCD, despite its low resolution.

Mirror_Image, If it'll really make you happy to make fun of me, then I'll tell you some things about me that you might find funny... I wet myself in primary school; I sleep with a teddy; I once wore my girlfriend's undies. Happy joking!

[Gameshow Host]

pacmania_2001>>

They're all good points, but something that everyone (including you) seems to be forgetting is that DVD is "full" resolution, meaning that if you digitise something and store it on DVD then you don't really lose quality because the resolution stays roughly the same. Whereas VCD is "half" resolution, meaning that a VCD image is 1/4 the size of the original image. I accept that many people are happy to use that, and it's just a question of taste, which is not something you can argue about... but you cannot say that no quality is lost when you put somehting on VCD because it's 1/4 the original size! In the case of a very bad quality old VHS tape, the number of lines of the horizontal resolution may be quite low, but the number of lines of the vertical resolution will still be the same because vertical resolution remains constant. So only DVD would preserve all the lines of vertical resolution, and as VHS is analogue, it would preserve all the lines of horizontal resolution much more accurately; although if the resolution was very low and the image was very blurry then you probably wouldn't notice or care about the VCD dropping horizontal resolution.

I'm sick of saying the word "resolution". Can we all use the word "charlie" instead from now on?

I love Pac-Mania by the way! That Jungly Steps music is so weird!

[nutty_hamster]

Gameshow Host: alot of your points are baseless and wrong, if you want me to i could make a manifesto of all of them, have a nice day.

also, yes VCDs have a lower Resolution that DVDs. as Mirror_Image pointed out, that's part of the standard. you could just as easily change the resolution and/or bitrate of a VCD and it will look identical to a DVD but then it will be an XVCD. basically it depends on your source, Highquality (DVD, Digital Video, TV, VHS) -> DVD/SVCD, Lowerquality (TV, VHS, Bootleg Movies ie CAM, TS, SCR, WP) -> VCD. There is no use making a huge file out of a marginal looking source, that's what is known as a "waste".

[Scarpad]

Well I used to use VHS to tape shows I wanted to Keep Like Enterprise etc, now I throw them onto a VCD, the quality is a bit better than VHS and they won't degrade. At some point when the DVD's are available I'll decide if it's worth the $$$ to upgrade, If I do I'll probably Donate my collection to a worthy Friend, if not I have half way decent versions. With CDR's for about .30 cents each it's a great value me thinks.

[Gameshow Host]

Please do! I'm not here to teach, I'm here to learn. I'm a newbie: I want to be corrected.

[pvdh]

- Backing up VHS to SVCD is different! SVCD is much higher in quality than VHS. Why would you encode in DVD when SVCD already stores the

Not always... I own VHS tapes that look extremely good, better then a lot of SVCD discs I have, anyway the average VHS tape, when done right, will look perfectly the same in VCD format..

- Size makes a difference. A DVD can contain a complete VHS-tape, a SVCD can not! We have to be honest, DVD has a serious advantage there!

You can fit a LOT of SVCD on one 80min disc.. And you can stuff a complete movie on a VCD disc if you tweak it a bit..

- In short time, when the DVD-RW standard is stable and prices will drop, SVCD will die - no doubt about that. DVD will be the way to go, if you like it or not.

I feel it is much morew likely people will start writing SVCD format movies to DVD discs. much less hassle.

[pvdh]

they aren't popular. I was explaining that I didn't realise how popular they were, because where I live they're not popular. I live in England. You say "VCD" to anyone in England and no-one will have a clue what you're talking about. But you say "DVD" and we all will.

I am not trying to offend you, but that just might be because you and the people around you are somewhat younger then some of us here. VCD is an OLD format, something like 18 years ago I first saw VCD's being played. ough.. guess I'm getting old..

[quote]
That's why I asked the question. And from asking this, I have learnt that for many people there are several reasons why they can't or don't want to buy a DVD burner, and are happy with the quality of VCD, despite its low resolution.

You are growing up (and again I am sounding old..), with DVD and stuff like I grew up on the Sinclair ZX80, PET and VIC-20. Hell I STILL enjoy getting the VIC out of the closet to play some gridrunner. For a 1MHz machine is sure was fast..

But don't be put off by some of us old folks who sometimes forget what we went through ourselves.. (anyone remember typing 12 pages of hexcode from a magazine.. Now THAT was fun..)

But enough off topic drivel.. back to todays stories...

[phhoth]

well, the fellow who wrote this got way too much attention.
Did it occur to anyone that his DVD burner may have too much radiation?

[Piper]

Here are my reasons for using VCD as opposed to DVD's (whatever format).

1. There are too many competing DVD formats, period.
2. The DVD formats that do exist are still relatively expensive. If I want to watch a DVD more than once, I'll buy it.
3. DivX and other MPEG-4 based codecs don't play in my DVD player. VCD's play very well.
4. VCD's are MPEG-1 - they'll play on anything wheras DivX requires fast CPU's. Again, not as portable.
5. My caps are from VHS and TV and are inherently low res as it is. MPEG-1 is perfect for low res video and outperforms MPEG-4 (IMHO).
6. VCD's don't HAVE to look like crap. It's crap in, crap out. I'm able to make VCD's that are easily better quality than VHS, and for my purposes, that's just fine by me.

[vulture]

Everyone I know now has a DVD player, and all my friends (my age) have burners. To me, it seems odd to be using anything other than DVD.

Gameshow, I may have missed an earlier comment, but...I'm curious which type of DVD-writer you decided to buy, and whether all of your friends went with the same standard? As others have said, it seems premature to purchase a DVD-writer at this point (think Betamax).

Just curious, not flaming or anything...thanks.

[afwasborstel]

Did it occur to anyone that his DVD burner may have too much radiation?

Sorry???

The same as in Russia a few years ago??? Okay..then I keep on making VCD and SVCD. And I was almost convinced by that Guy to buy a dvdburner...

[Gameshow Host]

pvdh>> What does my age have to do with whether or not I've heard of VCDs? You said that you grew up with the Sinclair ZX80, PET and VIC-20 - so did I. That means you must be roughly the same age as me! I remember typing in all those POKEs from magazines. I love all my old computers, but when it comes to video editing, I need to move with the times!


phhoth>>
> well, the fellow who wrote this got way too much attention.

Says who? In whose opinion? Yours?


Piper>> And everyone else: can you all please stop saying that VCD is "VHS quality". It is NOWHERE NEAR VHS quality. It's half the resolution! How can something 1/4 the size ever be as good a quality as the original?

Also, you were talking about using DivX. DivX is a highly compressed format and is only for transferring video over the Internet. It's not supposed to be used for storing your own videos on your own discs. DivX quality is nowhere near the quality of MPEG1 or MPEG2. You should avoid it unless you want to make your video files tiny to send over the Internet.


vulture>> The DVD videos my burner makes work fine on all three of my DVD video players. My DVD writer is an LG, it was just the cheapest one I could find, there was no thought put into buying it. I have no idea what DVD burners my friends have. I'm amazed so many people here don't have one. I thought most people had one these days.

[MythSpell]

Hmmm...

Average cost of DVD writer compared to CD writer - 4 times as much
Average cost of DVD media compared to CD media - 15 times as much

Approximate percentage of new computers shipping with DVD writers - less than 1%
Approximate percentage of new computers shipping with CD writers - 60%

So, you can't figure out why so many people are using VCD/SVCD??? And you seem to think that practically everyone already has or should get a DVD writer?!?!

Folks, here is a person who started an entire thread because he felt the uncontrollable urge and firm belief that all the thousands of people here who are using VCD/SVCD and are perfectly happy with it must all be idiots because they don't see and do things the way he does! Any person who believes that he is right and everyone else is wrong is clearly way beyond reasoning with. Just my 2 cents - Take it or leave it. Thank you and have a nice day!

[Gameshow Host]

MythSpell>> Oh shut up. I never said I was right and anyone else was wrong. I simply asked a question which, in my part of the world, is a very valid one.

DVD writers may be expensive compared to CD burners, but for what they do, surely it's worth the money? You all bought a PC. How much was that? Probably several times more than a DVD writer. Okay, not everyone who buys a PC is interested in using it for video. But everyone here certainly is - so I figured most people here would have a DVD burner. Some things are very expensive, but they are so essential that you sometimes just need to get one. Like my PC.

I don't know what country you all live in, but I live in England. Here, we all record our video in one of either two ways - to tape or to DVD. No-one uses CDs because no-one has heard of this. You don't get commercial VCDs on sale in the shops. VCD is not an option. So if we want to record video, we either buy a video tape recorder, or a DVD burner. In England, a video tape recorder is about £200 and a DVD recorder is about £300. It may be an extra 50% of the price, but DVD recorders aren't just for video, they allow a whole number of things that a video tape recorder can't do. So, for people with a PC and the knowhow, a DVD recorder is the logical choice. Add to this the fact that DVD burners are coming down in price extremely rapidly, and will soon be CHEAPER than tape recorders, and you can see why - where I live - DVD is a very popular format.

And personally I wouldn't want to store video on a VCD, I have spent my whole life dealing with full resolution video and found out through the Internet that some people chop down their video to squash it onto a CD. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to do that, that's why I asked this question.

I'll give you an analogy: It's like spending your whole life hearing music in stereo, on the radio, on your CDs... and then finding out that many people like to copy their music from their CDs onto floppy disks (which we will say are cheaper) but they are only in mono. From the perspective of someone who isn't used to dealing with anything other than stereo, the question I would ask is: why bother with this low quality way of copying when you can make exact copies for a little more money? I am not calling ANYONE an idiot by asking such a question. If anything, I was calling myself an idiot for not understanding why so many people use VCD. The only point I wanted to put across was that it seems strange to copy using a low quality format, when you can quite easily make a high quality copy. What I didn't realise when I wrote it was that a lot of people don't have DVD burners, when I thought most people had them.

[Spicuzza]

Gameshow Host,

Your topic is "Why do people make VCDs? Here is Why I do it.

My son Steve is one of the best High School wrestlers in the State of Florida, as a junior he was this year's Class 2A 135 lb State Champion.

I film his wrestling matches with my Canon Hi8 camcorder.

To watch his matches we could just feed the Hi8 video into the TV, this gives us the absolute BEST visual quality. Not a great solution because you have to use the camcorder as a VCR, set it up and so on.....

I can copy from the Hi8 to VHS for portablity and then of course this could be played on anyone's TV with a VCR. Not a bad solution but it's just the match without any editing, graphics, music, sound effects, not to mention it's a pain in the ass to keep adding matches to the same tape and to access a specific match requires one to fast forward/rewind, etc.
Also, there is the degradation of the tape over time issue.

Now if I capture his matches to my computer a whole new world opens up. I can add graphics, I can add a music track, I can add sound effects, transitions, video filters, the list is endless........

Now for the main answer as to Why I make VCD's?

I can fit approximately 7 to 10 of his matches on one CD-R, @ 2300 kbps, when burned with Nero as tracks. He enjoys watching the matches on the TV through the DVD player, he can access any match in any order with the push of a button on the remote without the hassles of fast forwarding/rewinding. His entire wrestling season can fit on 4 to 5 CD-R's for a total cost of about $1.50.

Making VCD's is not a zero sum game. Some people want to edit/achive old VHS tape, some want to rip DVD's, some want capture TV shows, some want to make photo slide shows,.... the list of reasons is as diverse as the people who enjoy this web site's forums.

Gary Spicuzza
cic7@juno.com

[Gameshow Host]

Thanks. I think I'd better just say VCDs are wonderful. I don't want to mess with wrestlers! :)

[siaododo]

Gameshow Host

I think you are an idiot for buying a DVD burner right now. You know in a couple of years, DVD burners will come down in prices, that all of us poor folks will be able to afford it, and the DVD burners will be faster, and have more features.

I remember just 2, 3 years ago, a 2X CD burner would cost around $400, last week, I just bought a 16X CD burner for $40 at Office Max. It is the economic, stupid.

I know it is not legal to do this, but I like to see people stop me:

I would rent a DVD for $3, I would down load the free programs from this site, and convert it to VCD for less than 20 cents on 2 blank CD's. I admit the quality is not DVD, but I sure couldn't tell the difference on my $150 27" TV and my cheap-ass $500 stereo system, you know, us poor folks also have poor eye-sight & poor hearing. Anyway, my final cost is about $3 - $4 per movie that I have just "stole" from the big Hollywood movie company. If I live in the Orient, I don't even have to do this, I can get a VCD movie for less than $1.

I guess what I am trying to say is, before the prices of movies, Music Cd's, comes down to a reasonable level, ($20 for DVD, $15 for Music CD, Oh, please), us poor folks will continue to rip off the rich people and be entertained.

[alucard2050]

my 2 cents on this........i make vcd's.....i am also broke so a dvd burner is out for now.....my little girl is 1 year now and i have about 10 hours worth of video on mini vhs tapes.....the camcorder i paid 50 bucks for......i would love more but my pocketbook is empty....anyway, all these videos of her will eventually wear away if i play these tapes over and over...so heck, why not take the freeware that is available and my older than god cd burner and some blank cdr's that cost about 10 cent each and place my videos on cdr so that i can have them probably till i'm 6 feet under.......might not be dvd quality but its the best damn quality to me with my little girl on it............

[vulture]

I simply asked a question which, in my part of the world, is a very valid one.

And I think it's a worthy question to ask. I'm sort of straddling the fence on this issue. I would like to preserve video at full-resolution (i.e., burn DVDs). However, I don't want to buy a DVD burner at this point, or pay for the expensive media. My compromise plan is to burn SVCDs (not quite there yet, but that's another issue having to do with ASUS v7700, Win2K, VDub, etc, etc). Someday I will get a DVD burner, but for now the standards are not firmed up enough, and the media is too expensive. You can't beat CDR prices...sooooo cheap.

Anyway, I think your questions are valid, and it's a good discussion to have.

[Verbatim]

I realise this is the VCD forum, but I still don't understand why so many people use VCD. In this day of high quality video, where DVD is now the standard format for video, it amazes me that people go to all the trouble of capturing their videos (and worrying about dropping frames!), just to put them into a shitty low-quality mpeg1 VCD format, when they could easily use mpeg2 DVDs which are much better quality.

There may be some people who don't have a DVD burner, but burners are cheap enough today, and coming down in price all the time, and within a couple of years there won't be anyone who doesn't have one. If you use VCD because you don't have a burner then you could just store all your mpegs on your hard drive until you get one.

I realise not everyone is a "quality freak" like me, and many people are happy to use a low-quality, highly compressed video format. But this is an age of high quality video, and when you have a computer with a capture card, you have the means to record high quality video - so why not take advantage of it?

Before long, video tape will be phased out completely, and anything less than DVD quality will look pretty crap. When that time comes, you might regret not having recorded all your TV programmes in a higher quality.

Mpeg-2 give you much better picture I think. My dvd player plays mpeg-2 and when I have a chouse I will always take the mpeg-2 file format. You are just adding tons of steps to make a vcd. I do make VCD when I can get a good file to work from. At lest 600x400 screen size.

[Mirror_Image]

How ridiculous does this sound:

I realise this is the Ford forum, but I still don't understand why so many people drive Fords. In this day of high quality vehicles, where Mercedes-Benz is now the standard for personal vehicles, it amazes me that people go to all the trouble of driving their Fords (and worrying about lack of power), just to put their family into a shitty low-quality Ford vehicle, when they could easily drive Mercedes Benzes, which are much better quality.

There may be some people who don't have a Mercedes, but Benzes are cheap enough today, and coming down in price all the time, and within a couple of years there won't be anyone who doesn't have one. If you drive a Ford because you don't have a Benz then you could just store all your kids in your house until you get one.

I realise not everyone is a "quality freak" like me, and many people are happy to drive low-quality, underpowered vehicles. But this is an age of high quality vehicles, and when you have a garage with an overhead door, you have the means to park high quality vehicles - so why not take advantage of it?

Before long, Cheap cars will be phased out completely, and anything less than Mercedes-Benz quality will look pretty crap. When that time comes, you might regret not having filled your garage with higher quality.

========================

In that example, while I might intend to say that MB is superior to Ford (they are, but with that sticker price, they better be), the TONE of the post would be inappropriate. It is confrontational, and only thinly interrogative. It seems to be written to say, "I have a Benz, and I don't understand why everyone doesn't", to a much greater degree than it inquires politely as to why other people decide not to drive what I drive.

[vulture]

How ridiculous does this sound: I realise this is the Ford forum, but I still don't understand why so many people drive Fords.

Kinda ridiculous, in light of the fact that the Forum tagline says "VCD, SVCD and DVD Encoding, Authoring and Playing." It's not just about VCDs. I think it's a valid question, and I've enjoyed reading the thread. So there

[Gameshow Host]

siaododo>> I'm an idiot for buying a DVD burner?

So I'm an idiot for buying something that allows me to store all my TV recordings without losing quality? I'm an idiot for buying something that lets me make a high quality digital backup of my home movies, to preserve them forever? I'm an idiot for buying something that allows me to make an exact copy of a DVD video? How can you say that someone who buys a DVD recorder is an idiot? If no-one bought DVD recorders then they would NEVER come down in price and they would more than likely just stop manufacturing them. If I'm an idiot for buying one, then so are millions of other people. Unlike you, I'm not interested in making millions of cheap copies of films that I can just go out and buy in the shops (or in the future will be able to download for free), I use DVD to store my own recordings of things that you cannot go out and buy in the shops. The only way to store these without losing quality is on DVD. Some people may choose to wait a couple of years until the price of burners is a lot lower, but I am happy to pay the difference to be able to burn DVDs right now. It's not a huge amount of money. I don't know how much money you all earn, but I pretty much earn next to nothing, yet I was easily able to save up for my DVD recorder in only a couple of weeks. And personally, I would be prepared to save up for months to get one, considering how important it is to me.


vulture>> Finally, someone who can understand! Thanks for not treating me like I'm a fool, like everyone else has done! :)


Mirror_Image>> Very amusing! But I think the attention you are paying me and the lengths you are going to to defame me is a little sad. Your interpretation of what I said was kinda correct. I was saying "I use DVD, and I don't understand why everyone doesn't". Although I was not being confrontational. I did not intend to make any trouble and it was a quite clearly a proper question. If I wanted to have a go at VCD users I would have just said something like "VCD users are all stupid and I hate them". But I'm not like that, I don't think that way. I simply didn't understand why people would choose one format which is shit, instead of another format, which is good. It's as simple as that. I couldn't understand it.

As I have said before, when I wrote the post, I assumed that most people here had a DVD burner. This website is about VCD and DVD. I assumed everyone had both a DVD burner and a CD burner, for doing both. Everyone I know has a DVD burner, and in all the other forums I go to on the Web, I get the impression that a large percentage of people have them. Even people who don't care about digital video are buying them for their other uses. They may be reletively expensive, but we all own computers. We all update our computers every few years. We all pay hundreds of pounds/dollars for computer hardware. We all use digital video. I assumed we all had DVD burners.

If you understood that I didn't realise that most people here were without a DVD burner, then you should see that my question was perfectly valid.

And will you get off my back now?

[vitualis]

Why people make VCDs should be obvious and has been covered.

As to why people make VCDs rather than DVDs:

1. CD-R media is much cheaper than DVD-R media in most parts of the world. DVD-R media still constitutes a significant fraction of the cost of an DVD. The cost of a CD-R blank is near negligible. Most people here make VCDs as a rip off a DVD or for captured video off TV. Using DVD-R media is simply not economical. As someone else here stated, if I really want a DVD so much that I want to watch it more than once, I would BUY it rather than spend the time, expense and effort of putting it onto DVD-R/+RW media.
2. CD-R/W drives are also cheap and are near standard on most new computers. The same cannot be said of recordable DVD drives. If most of your friends have DVD-R/+RW drives then you have a very special group of friends. I can add to the list of people here who say that I personally know nobody with a recordable DVD drive.
3. As for most capture cards being 1/2 the cost of a DVD-R/+RW drive, I think you are grossly mistaken as to the type of capture cards most often described about and used on this forum.
4. The fact that you haven't heard of VCD before indicates about your knowledge. VCDs are very popular in some parts of the world, especially Asia where it is much more common than VHS. As such, VCD compatibility is in essentially every DVD player.
5. Authoring VCDs is relatively easy and can be done with freeware tools. Authoring programs for DVDs are still in its infancy.
6. The quality of VCDs can be excellent. Obviously DVD can do much better but obviously, at this point in time, the cost/benefit ratio is still firmly on the side of VCD.

You have to remember that most people who make VCDs (at least on this forum) are doing it as a hobby. I think that I can say with some certainty that the cost of a DVD-R/+RW drive + media +/- software is an extravagence beyond most members here at present.

Regards.

[tom28]

Ditto, yup yup we are doing it as a hobby. Yup yup DVD burner and media are still too expensive. Correctly stated, in US only a small percentage of people have DVD burner cause it is still expensive. Agreed that I will leap into the DVD Burner once it is affortable and I can then say I will forget about the VCD/SVCD and put everything onto a DVD media....providing the standard for DVD+RW is stable. Of cause encoding into SVCD is fun........and challeging.