Video CD or VCD, or Compact Disc digital video, is a standard digital format for storing video on a Compact disc. View CDs, as VCDs are sometimes referred to, are playable in dedicated players, personal computers, and many DVD players.

The VCD standard was created in 1993 by Sony, Philips, Matsushita, and JVC and is referred to as the White Book standard.

= Technical specifications =

VCD display resolution is 352x240 Pixels (NTSC) or 352x288 pixels (Pal), approximately one quarter of full television resolution (720x480 for NTSC, 720x576 for PAL). VCD video is in MPEG-1 format; audio is encoded as MPEG Layer 2 (MP2); video is stored at 1150 bit rate, audio at 224 kbit/s. Overall picture quality is intended to be comparable to VHS video, though visual compression artifact may be noticeable in some cases. Poorly compressed video in VCD tends to be blockier than VHS video.

Since the overall bit rate of VCD is approximately equal to the bit rate of an ordinary audio CD, the length of video that can be stored is similar to that of a CD: a standard 74 minute CD can hold about 74 minutes of VCD-format video.

= Similar formats =

An improved standard, SVCD, uses MPEG-2 compression and a variable compression rate for higher video quality. Another development is the KVCD which is a modification to the standard MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 format. It enables a standard CD to hold more than 120 minutes of near DVD quality video using compression with standard NTSC and PAL resolutions. It also promises more than 6 hours of near VCD quality through compression on a 700 MB CD-R. The files created can be played back in most modern standalone DVD players. Another format designed to squeeze the most out of a CD is the DVCD or Double VCD where a regular CD is overburned to include upto 100 min of video. This format is seen only in China and the DVCDs are playable on any DVD or CD player though some CD-ROM drives have problems with this CD.

= Adoption =

While never gaining a foothold in the United States or Europe, commercial VCDs are very popular throughout Asia because of the low price of the players, their tolerance of high humidity (a notable problem for VCRs), and the lower-cost media. The negligible cost of the media gave rise to widespread unauthorised copying in these areas, which is probably the reason it was never widely supported by the entertainment industry in the United States. The advent of recordable CDs and inexpensive recorders has spurred a rapid growth of their acceptance in the US, since most DVD players can play them.

The VCD format allows home computer users to create home movies on CD. Almost all DVD players are capable of playing regular VCDs. However, not all DVD players can read the CD-R media, hence homemade VCDs produced by CD burners (versus those produced by pressing) may not be playable on some DVD players. Such incompatibility is a major problem that prevents consumers from distributing their home-made VCDs such as their Christmas or other holiday greetings to relatives.

Many commercial Video CDs of blockbuster Hollywood and Asian movies and television series are not widely available in the Western countries; however, they are available in ethnic communities such as Chinatowns and several Malaysian-based commercial web sites (although quality and authenticity may sometimes be questionable). These VCDs are often produced and sold in Asian countries such as Hong Kong, Mainland China, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. In some cases, several major Hollywood studios may license Asian companies to officially produce and distribute the VCDs, such as ERA of Hong Kong or Sunny Video in Malaysia.

Due to relative small storage capacity, feature-length films sold on VCD are usually divided into two or three discs and television series may come in a box set package with multiple discs. In both cases, most films run at roughly 60 minutes per VCD, before viewers are prompted to change discs. In many Asian movies, subtitles are not removable on standard VCDs, unlike DVDs.

VCD is gradually being replaced by DVD, which offers most of the same advantages to Asian buyers as VCD, as well as a much better quality picture (with less digital compression artefacts) and sound (often in Dolby Digital and/or DTS), due to its larger storage capacity.

VCD does however have a few points in its favor:

These factors may ensure a steady market for VCDs for many years to come.

=See also=

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