I have a friend who has a vcd player which plays on television, and i am amazed my its quality. I am wondering why when i play vcds on my computer the quality is poor, crappier than those of my vcr and vcd machine. I am wondering what i could do about it to improve the quality. I have a pIII and a TNT2 graphics card.

-- ka wong (playplayon@yahoo.com), March 19, 2000

Answers

I asumme you're playing your vcds @ a resolution higher than 800x600 on your computer. Try playing them @ 800x600 or lower. Televisions have a much lower resolution, this is why they "seem" to play vcds with good quality (it's just not possible to see the artifacts on TV screens, that's all)

-- gon (gon15@excite.co.jp), March 21, 2000.

And assuming you are using a software based decoder... the TNT2's overlay quality comes into the overall equation. Mind you, it isn't the best. Try it on a geforce.. or those cards based on on the Savage3d/Savage4/savage2k.... i think you'll see a big difference.

-- Flancer (huongch@bigfoot.com), March 22, 2000.

Dont be a cheap scate. Buy a DVD

-- Bill Gigov (gigovb@hotmail.com), April 14, 2001.

When you watch television you sit about 1.5 to 3 meters away from the screen. The pixels on a TV are really bright so they blur the edges and everything looks smoother. In reality the PC monitor picture is much sharper than a television which is why the artifacts and jaggies are more noticable.

Tip - If playing VCD on a computer screen set the resolution to 640x480 and sit at least 1.5 meters away - the picture quality is incredible.

Please note that pirate VCD's are generally of very poor quality anyway - make sure that you buy the genuine ones - see www.d8a.co.uk/vcd for the best suppliers of VCD.

-- Waynne Smith (hemail@ukfun.com), April 14, 2001.

TIP: PLAY IT ON YOUR VCD PLAYER!!!

-- ADZY30 (ADDZY30@AOL.COM), January 05, 2002.

go out and buy the fucker on VIDEO!

-- m@ J (mkj0@msn.com), January 05, 2002.

Screw M@J rent them and copy them! Har Har Har

-- Alfred E Neuman (PRO@msn.com), January 02, 2003.