Video CD - Compared With DVD

Compared With DVD

When playing a DVD, the viewer is brought to a main menu which gives them options (watch the feature film, view deleted scenes, play some special applications, etc.). VCDs are usually straightforward, playing them often goes directly to the video with extras (mostly trailers and commercials) taking place before or after it.

Subtitles are found on many Asian VCDs but cannot be removed, unlike DVDs. The subtitles are embedded on the video during the encoding process. It's not uncommon to find a VCD with subtitles for two languages.

Though the VCD technology can support it, most films carried on VCDs do not contain chapters, requiring the viewer to fast-forward to resume the program after playback has been stopped. This is mostly because VCD technology is able to start playback at a chapter point but there is nothing to signal the player that the chapter has changed during a program. This can be confusing for the user as the player will indicate that it is still playing chapter 1 when it has played through to chapter 2 or later. Pressing the Next button would cause playback from the beginning of chapter 2. However, preview material is sometimes stored in a separate chapter, followed by a single chapter for the film.

VCDs are often bilingual. Because they feature stereo audio, disc players have an option to play only the left or right audio channel. For example, ERA of Hong Kong's release of the animated film The Iron Giant features English on the left audio channel and Cantonese on the right. This is similar to selecting a language track on a DVD, except it's limited to 2 languages, due to there being only two audio channels (left and right). The audio track effectively becomes monaural.

VCD's most noticeable disadvantage compared to DVD is image quality, due both to the more aggressive compression necessary to fit video into such a small capacity as well as the compression method used. Additionally, VCDs are available only in stereo, while DVDs are capable of six channels of discrete surround sound. The audio compression of VCDs also suffers from not being able to pull off the Haas effect for matrixed surround sound.

VCD does have a few advantages over DVD-Video:

• The VCD format has no region coding, so discs can be played on any compatible machine worldwide. Many VCD players can compensate for the differing frame rate and pixel count between NTSC and PAL/SECAM TV systems.

• Some titles available on VCD may not be available on DVD and/or VHS in the prospective buyer's region.

• VCD can cost significantly less than DVD. A brand-new Hollywood blockbuster on VCD is usually only 36% the price of its DVD counterpart.