what's a video-cd?


because i know my lens on my toshiba sd-2109 can read that type of fromat.

Video CD's (or VCDs) are standard CDs (as in CD audio or CD-ROM) that instead contain audio and video much like a DVD. The problem is, while a DVD can hold 4.5gb on a single layer, a CD can only hold about 650mb. Most movies take at least 2 discs, but still that's only 1.2gb. Quality is generally VHS level or lower.

They are legally manufacturerd in Asia and some other reagions, however no one puts movies out on them in the US. Pirates really love to use them because they are easy to create / manufacture / duplicate on a standard computer & CDR.

Daniel, the quality is not necessarily VHS level or lower. It's mostly VHS level because they are usually copied from a VHS 'master'. I've seen them in Hong Kong where they use DVD ('Blade') master, and the quality (and sound) is very good...above VHS.

But having said that, I am not sure if VCD actually has a higher resolution specs than VHS.

They are generally poor picture quality, even for those 'genuine' copies. And yes, the double CD makes it annoying when watching movies, and while it can give two soundtracks, they are mono, because they use the left and right tracks for a different language...or in the case of Karaoke, one track for music, the other for vocal.

DVD is many many many times better than VCDs.

I guess it depends on how high your definition of VHS is (which is of course dependant on the VCR actual recordings). VHS movies today look 50x better than those made 15 years ago. The best I've seen in VCD was just slightly below a high-quality SP VHS tape, but then again not many are available around here.

Agreed...I've seen tapes that are very good quality, you'd think you're watching a TV broadcast...and I have (and cursed) tapes that are very typically, obviously 'video'. And I have videos that are worse than videos should be. So far, a lot of the VCDs I've seen tend to be a bit blurry...which I can only put down to VHS master. The Blade I saw was definitely from a DVD master, because it was very very sharp, and the sound quality is very good, even on cheap demo equipment (those that they just keep playing day and night).

DVD Video is based on MPEG-2 compression, while VCD Video is based on MPEG-1 compression. When you have any kind of data compression there is a balance which must be considered. The greater the compression ratio, the smaller the file, the lower the quality. And vice versa.

Thus VCD Video would look very good if the compression setting was set to low at the time of the mastering process. The movie "Blade" is very dark, making it suitable for VCD transfer, although illegal.