I would like to know more about Maximum bit rate (MBR). Is a VCD's MBR limited by the player or is it limited by the VCD format. Also I would like to know if anyone can tell me the MBR for the Sony dvps300 DVD player in VCD mode. If MBR is limited by the player, is it possible to increase MBR for use in faster players?

-- rodney green (thegreens@netzero.net), December 23, 1998

Answers

As far as I know, the maximum bitrate of a Video CD player would be the LOWEST bitrate of three separate processes. The first is the bitrate that the CD was recorded at. The second is the speed of the cd drive (150kbps=1x, 300kbps=2x, etc...). The third is the speed that the mpeg decoder can handle.

On a computer, all three of these can vary depending upon your hardware to produce varying degrees of performance. On a VCD player, though, the lowest will usually be the speed the cd was recorded at, since (I think) this is usually standard.

I don't know if this helps, but just keep in mind that, unless you make your own vcd's, you probably can't get much of a performance increase with different hardware.

-- Ben Smith (benjamin-smith@utulsa.edu), January 19, 1999.