 Number 244 - September 2003 |
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| VCD - The Poor Man's DVD | |
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By Larry Lamph, Blue Chips Magazine October 2002, Utah Computer Society (www.ucs.org) | |
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For all of us who would
like to have a DVD burner in our computers but don't have the money
($300+) to blow on something that would be nice but not a necessity, at
least according to the Chief Financial Officer (your wife), there is
hope -the VCD.
What's Video CD? Video CD, or VCD, is a digital movie format. It's basically a primitive version of DVD. A Video CD is a kind of CD. It looks the same as a music CD or a CD-ROM, except that instead of music or software, it holds movies, using compressed MPEG-l video. Its resolution is 352x240 (NTSC) or 352x288 (PAL), which is roughly comparable to VHS. Compared to Video CD, DVD provides much higher resolution (700x480), comparable to laserdisc or even better. DVD movies use MPEG-2 compression, rather than the MPEG-1 compression used by Video CDs. A single VCD disc can only hold about 70 minutes of video, so for a typical movie, you need two discs. You can play VCD's back on a Video CD player connected to a TV, or on a fast PC with a CD-ROM drive. Most DVD players can also play VCDs. Philips and Sony introduced Video CD's in 1993. It never caught on in North America, but it became hugely popular in Asia, where most households didn't already have VCRs. In Asia, Video CD players are roughly as common as VCRs in North America: China alone manufactures 2 million VCD players a year. In Southeast Asia, Video CD has entirely replaced the VHS tape for movie sales and rentals The other big advantage of Video CD versus DVD is that it's relatively easy to create your own Video CDs ( e.g. from home movies), using a CD-ROM burner. What's Video CD Quality Like? Picture quality when using a VCD player is generally comparable to VHS. More specifically, VHS resolution is about 300x360, whereas VCD resolution is 352x240 (NTSC) or 352x288 (PAL). About NTSC & PAL... This is not as confusing as you may think. Basically, there are two TV video standards, NTSC and PAL. NTSC is used in North America, and PAL is common in Europe, Asia and almost everywhere else in the world. Most hardware devices (DVD or VCD players) that play PAL video resolution on a NTSC monitor correctly will cut 24 lines of resolution from the top and bottom of a PAL image. This is usually not an issue, because not much detail is lost by such truncation. Note: NTSC has 352 x 240 video resolution and PAL's video resolution is 352 x 288. However, the PAL to NTSC video conversion / truncation problem does not exist when viewed on a PC monitor as the PC is able to display the whole image. Most TVs and DVD players are multisync now. Therefore, they can play both NTSC & PAL format. The quality depends on the content of the picture. If there are many details (like in a street scene) or fast movements, the data compression affects the quality. You then have an effect like in JPEGs with higher compression. Generally the quality is beneath that of a Laser Disk. |
Why Would I Want To Store Video On VCD?
Because you want to play the video on your standalone DVD Player and in comparison with VHS the quality does not get worse every time you play it. Besides being a low-cost way to preserve your family videos for generations to come, VCD's make great gifts for all occasions. If you have a CD-R/W drive in your computer, you can duplicate your commercially transferred VCD's for the price of your time and the blank CD-R of your choice. Give a copy of your wedding video to members of the wedding party. Parents on both sides of the family will want one too. Have a new baby? Make a personal video archive for your child, so he or she will have long-lasting digital video of himself or herself to share with their children. Copy & distribute family reunion videos. Remember, VCD's can be copied without loss, so be sure to make extra copies! Always be sure to keep a verified master copy in reserve in case a 'working copy' is lost or damaged. VCD's are the perfect fund-raiser for active groups. Just videotape your school band, dance group or sports team in action using any camcorder, and then have the video transferred to VCD. Take orders, and then deliver commercially reproduced copies with custom artwork. Who wouldn't want lasting memories like that? How Can I Make My Own VCDs? The vcdhelp.com Note that I know very little about making VCDs--so sending me E-mail probably won't help you very much! If you're running into a problem, I'd suggest trying the Video CD Forum The Basic Steps: 1. Capture the video. (Only if from video, vhs, tv, cam, dv). 2. Convert the video to VCD, SVCD or DVD MPEG video. 3. Author the MPEG video which means adding menus, chapters or still pictures and then build the VCD, SVCD or DVD file structure. 4. Burn the authored video, usually directly when authoring in step 3. 5. Play the burnt video on your DVD Player. I hope this information has been helpful, I know I learned a lot researching this Info |
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Number 244 - September 2003
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