VCD Workshop

The following definitions come from, the amazingly useful website for both newbies and advanced users, http://www.vcdhelp.com/ Any links within the following document will lead directly there

Please Note: The link to VCDHelp.com may contain information that could help one to violate Copyright laws. The purpose of this workshop is to introduce the student(s) into creating VCD’s and what they are. We are not responsible for such content nor is violating copyright law the focus of this workshop. What you do with the knowledge from this website AND the workshop is completely your own.

Before we begin, it’s a really good idea to familiarize yourself with the different formats. Take a look at the possibilities we have at our disposal when faced with the challenge: “What format should my end product be?”

VCD stands for 'Video Compact Disc' and basically it is a CD that contains moving pictures and sound. If you're familiar with regular audio/music CDs, then you will know what a VCD looks like. A VCD has the capacity to hold up to 74/80 minutes on 650MB/700MB CDs respectively of full-motion video along with quality stereo sound. VCD’s use a compression standard called MPEG to store the video and audio. A VCD can be played on almost all standalone DVD Players and of course on all computers with a DVD-ROM or CD-ROM drive with the help of a software based decoder/player. It is also possible to use menus and chapters, similar to DVDs, on a VCD and also simple photo album/slide shows with background audio. The quality of a VCD is about the same as VHS tape based movies.

A VCD can be played on

- Standalone VCD Players(very common in Asia), check here for a compatibility list.
- Almost all standalone DVD Players, check here for compatibility list
- Playstations with VCD-addon (Playstation 2 does NOT support VCD’s, read our DVD Players list for more info)
- Sega Saturn with VCD-addon
- Dreamcast with VCD-addon
- And of course on all computers with a CD-ROMs/DVD-ROMs with a software VCD/MPG Player.

SVCD stands for "Super VideoCD". A SVCD is very similiar to a VCD, it has the capacity to hold about 35-60 minutes on 74/80 min CDs of very good quality full-motion video along with up to 2 stereo audio tracks and also 4 removable subtitles. SVCDs use a compression standard called MPEG to store the video and audio. A SVCD can be played on many standalone DVD Players and of course on all computers with a DVD-ROM or CD-ROM drive with the help of a software based decoder / player. It is also possible to use menus and chapters, similar to DVDs, on a SVCD and also simple photo album/slide shows with background audio. The quality of a SVCD is about the same, but usually better than SVHS tape based movies but it depends how many minutes you choose to store on a CD, less minutes/CD generally means higher quality.

SVCDs can be played on

- Many standalone DVD Players, check here for compatibility list
- All CD-ROMs/DVD-ROMs can play SVCDs with a software DVD/SVCD-Player

Note!!! Remember that these are no STANDARDS as VCD and SVCD. And therefore most stand alone DVD Players can't play them without lots of hacking/freezing or not at all, most because of the high bitrate that requires faster CDR/W reading-capabilities in the DVD Player.

XVCD stands for eXtendedVCD and is an extension of VCD 2.0. It tries to use the most power from the chip of the standalone DVD player. Some people speak from a mix between VCD 2.0 and SVCD. XVCD uses like VCD MPEG1 but it is possible to set up the bitrate to 3.5 MBit/s and use a higher resolution. It is impossible to use multi audiostreams for multilanguage or use subtitles.

XSVCD stands for eXtendedSVCD. It tries to use the most power from the chip of the standalone DVD player. Some people speak from a mix between SVCD and DVD. XSVCD uses like SVCD MPEG2 but it is possible to set up the bitrate to 9.8 MBit/s and use a higher resolution. It is possible to use multi audiostreams for multilanguage or use subtitles.

A X(S)VCD can be played on

- Many standalone VCD Players.
- Not so many standalone DVD Players but check here for a compatibility list.
- And of course on all computers with a CD-ROMs/DVD-ROMs with a software VCD/MPG Player.

DVD stands for Digital Versatile or Video Disc, DVDR stands for DVD Recordable and DVDRW for DVD ReWriteable. On a DVDR you can fit about 2 hours of very good quality DVD-Video, MPEG2, including several audio tracks, Stereo, Dolby Digital or DTS, advanced menu systems and subtitles. You can also have ordinary data on a DVD that can be played by all DVD-ROMs. It's also possible to use MPEG1 and MPEG2 with low bitrate and low resolution(quality like VCD or SVCD) on a DVD so you can then store several hours video on a single layer DVD-RW.

Today does it exist some different types of DVD Recording standards, all those support single layer DVDs which mean that you can store up to 4.7 BB (4.37 GB) data or up to 2 hours of very good video. The formats are:

DVD-R
DVD-R is none rewriteable format. DVD-R is compatible with many existing DVD-ROM drives and many DVD-Video players(roughly about 90% of all players). This format seems to be the most DVD Player compatible format so far.

DVD-RW
is primarily supported by Pioneer. DVD-RW is a rewriteable format. It is compatible with many newer DVD-ROM drives and DVD-Video players(roughly about 70% of all players).

DVD+RW and DVD+R
DVD+RW has some better features than DVD-RW/DVD-R such as lossless linking and both cav and clv writing(read more at www.dvdplusrw.org). DVD+RW is a rewritable format and the DVD+R is just a none rewritable format. DVD+RW is compatible with most newer DVD-ROM drives and DVD-Video players(roughly about 70% off all players). DVD+R discs has not yet been released but they should be more compatible than DVD+RW according to dvdrw.org.

DVD-RAM
is not compatible with most DVD-ROM drives and DVD-Video players. Think of it as a removable hard disk that can also read DVD-ROM discs.

Read our DVD Players Compatibility list to see what types your DVD Player supports.

But what's miniDVD / cDVD then? Read on the miniDVD page.


A DVD-+R(W) can be played on

-- Almost all standalone DVD Players.
-- And almost all computers with a DVD-ROMs with a software DVD Player.

- - - End info from VCDHelp.com - - -

In a nutshell:

VCD’s can be recorded onto regular CD-RW drives using standard CD-R/CD-RW media.  VCD’s use the MPEG-1 encoding standard to compress the video and audio.  VCD’s are playable on all PC’s (Using Windows Media Player) and MAC’s (Using FreeVCD) with a standard CD-ROM drive and many standalone DVD players.

VCD’s hold around an hour's worth of material.

DVD’s need to be recorded onto DVD-R discs (much more expensive) using a DVD-RW drive. (Often called a “SuperDrive” because it can burn both CD-R’s and DVD-R’s)  DVD’s use the MPEG-2 encoding standard to compress the video and audio.  DVD’s are playable on most stand-alone DVD players and a PC or MAC that has a DVD-ROM drive installed along with the appropriate software to control it.  DVD’s hold more than an hour’s worth of material

Sidenote: Putting a video file on a CD does NOT make it a VCD.  It makes it a CD that has a data file on it – it just so happens that, in this case, the data is a video file.  This will become more apparent once you have burned your first VCD.  The format for burning a VCD is slightly different than burning a data CD with a video file on it.

Q. So what is a VCD good for? (Or – what are the pro’s?)

A. A VCD has a variety of pro’s.  Some of the following might be:

1. Prolonged storage/archival of video footage without degradation of media

2. Inexpensive and readily available technology for VCD creation

3. Standard CD-RW media for recording

4. Standard CD-ROM for playback

5. Playback on standard computers using free software

Q.  So what is a VCD NOT good for? (Or - what are the con’s?)

A.  As stated above, VCD’s can hold around an hour worth of video material.  This means you’ll need to split the video onto more than one VCD if your source is more than an hour long.  Some stand-alone DVD players will NOT play VCD’s and software is required on computers to watch VCD’s.  Also, the VCD MPEG-1 compression standard is not quite as good as the MPEG-2 (DVD) compression standard.  However, it’s no worse than watching an SVHS tape – which is still better than watching a standard VHS tape!

Equipment Needs:

This is quite a hard list to compile – there are just too many system incompatibilities with certain hardware to say “This is the be-all-end-all product for X”.  What I’ll do here is outline what’s needed and give examples of products readily available for purchase at the local Best Buy/Circuit City type store.  Then I’ll further break it down into hardware needed as mandated by source material.

1. Equipment to digitize video
2. Software to capture video
3. CD-R/CD-RW drive
4. Software to burn the VCD’s

Equipment to digitize video – Depending on the source material (e.g. VHS, SVHS, DV, D8, Hi8, miniDV, etc…) you’ll need a way of getting the video from the source to your hard drive.  (called digitizing video)  This is done by adding a PCI card to your computer OR using a capture device.  The table below lists several (but not all) possibilities:

* not required

VHS/SVHS - Personally, the best choice for digitizing analog video, IMHO, is the Dazzle DVC.  (Dazzle Digital Video Creator)  It does not require installation of a card and it’s moveable from machine to machine. (Connects via USB port)  Furthermore it has S-Video capabilities whereas the ATI video cards do NOT!

Digital Camcorders - If you have a digital videocamera, such as the newer Sony Handycam series  or that use miniDV tapes – most likely there will be a firewire port somewhere on the camera. (Sony likes to call this the iLink) In which case you’ll need a firewire card to connect the camera to your computer. Note: you’ll be transferring video to and from your computer in the digital domain! Unfortunately, if you have a PC – you’ll have to install this card. If you own a MAC – or an iMac purchased within the last year or so…you may already have a firewire port built-in. Check your computer manual and camera manual for more info. Bear in mind that the links above are only suggestions – they may or may not work with your system. Do the legwork and find out! 

Analog Camcorders – These are the older cameras on the market that do not use digital tapes to record video. Some examples are the cameras that use Hi-8, VHS-C, etc….  Basically, you’re in the same boat as the people who need to transfer VHS material – again I would suggest the Dazzle family.

Side note: if you have a digital camcorder and think you might have the need to do analog video at some day – you might have to buy one of the analog capture devices (the ATI card OR the Dazzle). However, check your camera and manual first! My Sony Handycam has analog input/output ports that allow me to hook up a VCR to my camera. In essence, I use my camera as the capture device between the VCR and the computer - I have no need for a Dazzle DVC device.

Software to Capture Video - Browse the shelf at Best Buy and you’ll see there are quite a number of video capture software packages available to home users nowadays. This is largely due to the recent developments in digital camcorders and the like. In this workshop, we’re going to use two packages – SonicFoundry’s Video Factory and Apple’s iMovie

Both of these programs are inexpensive (in Apple’s case it’s free with newer iMacs) and pretty easy to use.

Note: VideoFactory 2.0 deluxe comes at a slightly higher price - because a firewire card is included!

You’ll need this software to not only capture the video, but also to manipulate and put all the finishing touches on the video. You’ll then export the video to a file and let your CD authoring program do the rest of the work.

CD-R/CD-RW drive – Pretty self-explanatory. Since you’re burning a CD - you’ll need a CD burner. There’s a million of these on the market today and I’m not about to suggest any. Ask your local techie what they would buy. 

Software to burn VCD’s – Again, there are a few packages out there that support burning VCD’s. Since we own copies of these programs AND I’ve used them for years – I suggest starting with Roxio’s EZ CD Creator for PC and Toast for Mac. Off the shelf – they’re each around $100.

Finally, if you would like to skip all the above hassles AND all you need to do is take VHS/SVHS(analog) or analog camcorder material and burn to VCD AND don’t need to create fancy effects or do post production AND want a VCD player in home-unit style AND want to be able to record things in real-time (such as TV shows) check out the Terapin. It's a bit pricey – but worth it! All you need is the Terapin and a spare VCR and you’re off and running.

-end-

Related Tutorials for VCD Workshop:

Using Video Factory

Using Roxio's Easy CD Creator to burn VCD's