I found VCD burn by NTI CDMaker can't be played on NT. Do anyone know how about other tools? Also, how about the commerical VCDs? One Windows 2000 CDFS driver developer ask me to get more information and he can do something to improve the compatibility of NT with VCD. In fact, he gave me a new CDFS driver which help to watch my VCD under Windows 2000. Your help is highly appreciated.

-- Xianjie Lu (xjlu@hotmail.com), August 06, 1999

Answers

Wait for the final commercial release of Windows 2000. Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 Beta 3 have problems with Video CDs. In particular, anything that talks to hardware directly. Video CDs are included in this as they change the screen resolution on a video card to fit NTSC or PAL perfectly. The new CDFS drivers coming out may help but the OS and Video Card must still work together to play a Video CD without problems.

-- The Lone Rnager (rutger_s@hotmail.com), August 06, 1999.

Thank you for your reply.

In fact, now I am working for Microsoft and wish to push the developer to support VCD under NT.

You are right, Windows 2000 Beta 3 doesn't support VCD generated by NTI CDMaker, but I am not sure whether it supports other commerical VCDs, which is a puzzle for the developers. Today(8/5/99) the guy developing CDFS driver gave me a new CDFS driver, which works perfectly under my Windows 2000. That is why I need more comprehensive investigation of playing VCD under NT. I am sure this driver will be included in the final release of Windows 2000, which is a good news for VCD fans.

-- Xianjie Lu (xjlu@hotmail.com), August 06, 1999.

Widnwos NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 Beta 3 chokes on most commercial Video CDs. Be they, Original copies or pirates. Windows NT/2000 currently right now hates them. If you are working for Microsoft then try to get them to make Windows NT/2000 let go of the death grip on the hardware a little. This is where the Video CD incompatibility lies.

-- The Lone Ranger (rutger_s@hotmail.com), August 06, 1999.

I'm one of the Windows 2000 CDFS developers, who Xianjie mentioned previously.

I can't do anything about video card / player related issues, other than bring them to the attention of those who should know.

What I'm primarily interested in are filesystem problems - where reading data from the discs in the first place (i.e. even an explorer copy of the files) fails. If these discs are non ISO compliant in lots of different ways, then we can't possibly hack our way around all of them. However if there is a common theme to the problems, as with discs generated by one particular package, then we can consider a workaround.

I'd be very interested to know of particular commercial titles which NT won't play - but particularly those cases where the error is CDFS filesystem related (typically an error or system popup of the form "The file/disc is corrupt and unreadable").

Any input will be appreciated.

-- Tom Jolly (tom_jolly@yahoo.com), August 10, 1999.

It is not a CDFS driver problem. It is the architecture of the OS. That is what is causing the problem. Windows NT and Windows 2000 DO NOT ALLOW HARDWARE TO BE ACCESSED DIRECTLY!!! Many video cards support Video CDs but only under Win95/98/98 SE. WHY?! Because the video card has to modify the video to fit the monitor(access the hardware directly). Many films are in PAL and as a result are squished into PC monitros which have no preferences. A PAL source is longer than an NTSC source and as a result either loses the top or bottom of the picture on a NTSC monitor. PC do not have this problem because the Video CD software directly accesses the Video Card to fit the screen. Want to see this in action...On a Toshiba laptop or Acer laptop, turn the resolution from 800x600 to 640x480. This will make a black border around the viewable screen. Next run Xing MPEG Player...it fills up the whole screen not the small portion used by the card. Xing accessed hardware to make it fill a screen. Windows NT and Windows 2000 will not allow this right now. That is why Video Capture tools are limited and many DVD-Roms only play back video under Win95/98/98 SE.

-- The Lone Ranger (rutger_s@hotmail.com), August 10, 1999.

I work on CDFS and hence am primarily interested in making sure that the system can actually retrieve the data from these discs. If there is a common & specific problem at this level, which is what I'm trying to find out, then we will probably work around the non- compliant media.

I will raise the VCD viewer issue with the right people, but for certain NT will not be re-architected to allow random software direct hardware access.

Thanks for your input. We are trying to make VCDs work better here. It would be useful to know of specific commercial titles which, for certain, do not work at all under NT.

-- Tom Jolly (tom_jolly@yahoo.com), August 10, 1999.