Hey guys I was just wondering, I'm kinda new to this whoe vcd concept so I was wondering what's the difference between a regular VCD and a SVCD I heard SVCD's have like a higher esolution but I'm not sure/ Oh well, any help wouild be greatly appreciated. Oh and this SVCD thing, can they be played like VCD's on my comp. I have PowerDVD and it can play regular VCDs

-- Tyler Briley (UHF325@aol.com), February 13, 2001

Answers

Welcome to the world of VCD!

Svcd is much higher quality but no set standard has emerged yet. Most software that can handle DVD can handle SVCD and Power DVD should be more than capable of doing this. Your next problem is where to get SVCD's - have a look on http://www.d8a.co.uk/video-cds-vcd-shop- uk.htm and you will find only 1 store listed that sells them!!!!

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

Technically speaking, VCD is 352X240 resolution and 1.15mbps bitrate. It is regarded as VHS quality. Now SVCD on the other hand is 480X480 resolution and bitrates can very because it supports both CBR (constant bitrate) and VBR (Variable Bitrate), where as VCD is CBR.

SVCD is much better than VCD because of it's higher resolution, enhanced interactive features, and overall picture quality.

-- Victor DeLarose (meso@mc.net), February 14, 2001.

ok well since SVCD is so much better, does it compare to the quality of a DVD? Anyway, how much are SVCDs?

-- Tyler Briley (UHF325@aol.com), February 14, 2001.

here are some links - some are more "newbie" friendly than others. some are vcd, some svcd.

http://www.vcdhelp.com/ http://www.geocities.com/bug2kbug/svcdguide.htm http://go.to/Doom9 http://vcdgalaxy.cjb.net/ http://www.no-source.com/ http://www.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/svcd/overview/ http://www.inwards.com/~dbb/

-- ndumu (ndumu@hotmail.com), February 14, 2001.

-----http://www.vcdhelp.com/ -----http://www.geocities.com/bug2kbug/svcdguide.htm -----http://go.to/Doom9 -----http://vcdgalaxy.cjb.net/ -----http://www.no-source.com/ -----http://www.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/svcd/overview/ -----http://www.inwards.com/~dbb/

much better.

-- ndumu (ndumu@hotmail.com), February 15, 2001.

What's the difference between SVCD and CVCD??

-- Meng (monicah@singnet.com.sg), February 16, 2001.

I've spent all week learning about making VCD, SVCD's, plain old mpeg's, etc, so I'm delighted to have an opportunity to share some info:

1) PowerDVD does not support SVCD, only VCD unfortunately. WinDVD does however support SVCD's. You can also view them using Windows Media Player by just loading the mpeg file off the cd.

2) SVCD's are definitely higher quality than VCD's. They utilize an mpeg2 video stream while VCD's have mpeg1 video streams. The resolution is higher (NTSC-480x480) and (PAL-480x576). The bitrate can be variable while VCD's must have a constant bitrate of 1500 kb/s. Because they are variable, they are more efficient. In scenes that are more complex, the bitrate increases while simple scenes or periods where the video image doesn't change, the bitrate can be much lower.

3) While VCD are readily available for purchase, for some reason SVCD's still haven't caught on as much. There is less support for them both in PC software as well as in stand alone DVD players. However, WinDVD does play them perfectly, and more companies are making DVD players which do support SVCD,

The bottom line is that SVCD's are almost like DVD's in quality. I've been experimenting with making them from DVD's. While they take much longer to encode than VCD's and take up more disk space, I think the tradeoff is worth it because the quality is so much better. To give you an idea, a full two hour movie takes about 20 hours to encode on my Intel PIII-500 w/ 192mb ram and it takes up about two and a half CD's when I burn it onto disc.

-- flyboy (flyboy109@hotmail.com), February 17, 2001.

SVCD's are great quality, but you cannot compare them with DVD's. I would say a SVCD is good enough that the encoding cannot distrube your overall viewing experience. I am pleased with SVCD, really pleased. SVCD are really popular with DVDrips, mianly because of the quality. Other VCDs (Video CD 2.0 - mpeg 1) released are from video tape (SCREENERS) and bootlegs (TELESYNCS)

Go to isonews.com for more info about releases.

As for burning these (I would never consider buying a vcd or svcd, when i could jsut guy a dvd. The movis that are worth it I buy, but for a movie I want to see I will simply download it...Ok maybe not simply) on PC you shoudl use CDRWin or NERO, both are great programs. NERO can burn a .bin and .cue (so can CDRWIN) and a plain mpg file you download. Quality of even SVCD is not enough to pay for, at least I don't think so...Maybe if it was lik e 5 bucks including shipping.

Watching them on your computer works as well, with the two DVD players listed above.

my problem is simple. I have a MAC.

A) no mpeg2 player for mac (only mpeg1 through quicktime) Mac's can play XVCD but not SVCD.

B) Mac's cannot burn mpeg2 or non-toast ready mpegs. Toast 5.0b9 will burn *some* non-toast ready mpegs, but some it will not. Therefore, if I have an mpeg I downloaded I would have to reencode it to burn it.

Now of course I have tried some work arounds using emulation. So first what i tried was Virtual PC, which did not work. It does not recognize my burner. Then I tried Softwindows, which does support burners, but not mine. I have a Yamaha IDE 8/4/24, which does not work...Other drives do work, you can ask me for a list. I do know people with scsi burners that have had this solution work for them, and they are able to burn using pc programs like NERO and CDRWin.

So where do i go now? Where for now I am shit out of luck. I have burned many svcds on pc's, and I like the quality after ebing used to reg vcds all these years. However, where I can burn .bin and .cue mpeg1 vcds on my mac with toast, I cannot burn mpeg2.

What I am hoping....Toast will include support for this. Or NERO is releasing a MAC version of their software. Althrough the current beta version does not include support for SVCDS, which makes it as usefull as Toast, I see them adding this feature pretty soon.

So for me, I have no way to burn SVCDs. Kinda unfortunate consdiering I have them all sitting on a server waiting to burn. SAD, SO SAD.

If anyone has a solution please let me know ;) Or if y

-- Tim B. (timb@uclink4.berkeley.edu), February 19, 2001.

If you ahve quesitons ask me? As for a some useufll info...Try

www.macdvd.org www.vcdhelper.com

I have a Pioneer-DV333 DVD player. Works very good with SVCD, XVCD, VCD, DVD. With all types of media. DO not get an APEX, the dvd playback sucks

-- Tim B. (timb@uclink4.berkeley.edu), February 19, 2001.

I would personally recommend a relatively new company called newvcds. They sell unreleased VCD and DVD movies. I ordered a couple of videos from them and was very happy with the result. their email address is sales@newvcds.com

-- Jeremy Hollingshead (jdhollin_00@yahoo.com), April 15, 2001.

If it takes 20 hours to encode a 2 hour DVD movie to SVCD on a 500 Mhz PC, I wonder how much less it would take to encode video capture material from cable TV to SVCD. I order the ATI TV Wonder to use my PIII PC as a digital VCR, and without investing in a Pioneer DVD-RW drive, I'd like to be able to rip cable TV material to disk using SVCD rather than lo-qual VCD. I really want to keep my hard drive 50% free, so encoding 1/2 to 1 hour programs to disk would be perfect. Question is, how fast to encode.

-- Roger Waldauer (rdw17@home.com), June 04, 2001.

!!!TO ROGER!!!

good though, i have done it and timed it (just 4 u) and it take's 2 hours to encode it well i hope that answered ur question and when ur older change ur name to something better like Stink & Smell and change ur dieper u BIG baby (WAAAAAAHWAAAAAAAAAAH)

-- Blood & Guts (Blood&Guts@whateverwhatever.com), July 19, 2001.

I encoded a dvd and it took my 900 Mhz Athlon with 128 Megs of ram (in the process of upgrading to 1.5 gigs of ram) 36 Hrs to complete. Quality was great, but for only 500 megs I would rather find a server that has SVCDs for download. Only, I don't think the quality is good enough to pay for. I don't want to burn to a disc. I would rather leave it on my hard drive for others to download from me. We need a transfer system for movies! Any ideas?

-- Who'sYourDaddy? (schillerj002@hawaii.rr.com), July 22, 2001.

What if I just want to burn/save home digital video. I originally capture, edit and save it in .avi format. Would i be better off then converting it to mpeg 2 (svcd) rather than mpeg 1 (vcd). I can convert to mpeg1 for free using TMPGenc. How would I convert to mpeg2? I can play mpeg1 using Windows Media Player, or if I burn to CD-RW (using Nero 5.5), I can play on my settop DVD player. If I convert to mpeg 2 instead, how do I play it on my PC, and on my TV?

Also, can playback in Windows Media be enlarged to fill the PC screen?

-- (dlove@grmslaw.com), January 31, 2002.

Just in case anyone is still reading this thread, tmpgenc can now convert to mpeg2 format, to view them on a pc simply use a dvd software although I'm sure there's players and codecs for it if you want to look around...

-- Tim Lee (azrael3@collegeclub.com), March 23, 2002.

and if you're going to use tempgenc for encoding a svcd, you're going to need a program called Smart Ripper [also free] in oreder to control the max/min/avg bit rates... have fun

-- Inge Lyxzen (presciencewroughtsinertia@hotmail.com), December 31, 2002.

when a dvd player says it plays VCDs, would it play home made ones burnt with nero? and whats the best cheapest player to buy?

-- Dom Soar (domsoar@hotmail.com), May 31, 2003.

svcd's are great quality (in-between tv and dvd) and although are not as popular as vcd's they will be a big hit soon but some dvd players have problems playing svcd's, they think they are vcd's and are all squished up on the tv so thats ehy you need dvd players compatible with svcd's

svcd's work perfectley with power dvd 4.0

-- bob smith (s8953@hotmail.com), May 31, 2003.

Tim B:

To burn .BIN on a Mac with Toast, click on the other tab, select disk image, drag n drop the .BIN file, then burn. The .CUE isn't needed, you can just toss it.

It works for me 8)

If you only have the .mpeg of the file, you can use Gumby to make a .BIN and .CUE from it with the VCD/SVCD Builder function of Gumby. It'll make a .BIN and .CUE from it, then you can burn it according the my directions above with Toast. (The .CUE is just trash, you can throw it away)

Gumby is available from here http://gumby.misplacedmac.com/

-- bjb0mb3rz (bjbomber@phreaker.net), June 13, 2003.

My Apex DVD player (model AD-703) works great for me. The playback is great, and it's fairly cheap.

-- bjb0mb3rz (bjbomber@phreaker.net), June 13, 2003.

http://vcdgalaxy.cjb.net I need the guide for 2.5

-- Devon (devonsmit@msn.com), October 06, 2003.

THE BEST PROGRAM TO USE IS NERO 5.5 IT BURNS MOVIES AND CONVRERTS THEM 2 CDR I NEVR TRIED IT 2 SEE HOW THEY COME OUT BUT THE SOFTWARE COSTES 70 SO IT SHOULD COME OUT PRETTY GOOD SVCDS ARE WAY BETTER BUT NOT DVD QUALITY JST BUY A DVD BURNER ITS CHEAP UNDER A 100 BUKS AND QWORTH IT TIGER DIRECT.COM THANKS

-- TONY BENSON (THEMSNSN@AOL.COM), March 11, 2004.

bjb0mb3rz -> whahaha you fucking n00b

-- JP Balkenende (grewgew@2qwfwq.com), June 28, 2004.