Do you know if LD players with VideoCD (VCD) playback can reproduce non-compliant CD-R (higher video bitrate) VCDs? thank you.

The manuals will say specifically as they always state every single thing they are compatible with. My guess is that none do. Very few LD players play VCDs at all, only ‘oke models and only some of those.

A lot of Hong Kong / China / South East Asia models had the CDV section swapped with a VCD circuitry.

So far only found one Korean player that has both CDV and VCD: LOTTE LDP-8300VD



Julien

Out of interest how do they work? I'd've thought the bitrate from a CD would be constant and fixed, unless you physically spin the disc faster - is that what these non-compliant discs require?
And the Pioneer LD/DVD combi players, DVL-909 and DVL-919(E) - and possibly all of their DVL- range? I was trying to work out a way to filter the Hardware Database here on 'LD' + 'VCD', but couldn't...

My experience with “Super VCDs” is that they put MPEG2 on a VCD. This was handy at the time since CD burners were common and DVD burners and media still expensive. If you wanted to make an home movie that’s wasn’t very long SuperVCD was perfect.

Since MPEG2 is more efficient than MPEG1 the drive may not need to actually spin faster, I don’t know. All the devices that play Super VCD would have to be designed for it from the beginning and I’d assume most of not all of these were also DVD players since that’s what would give them the MPEG2 chip.

Which type would that be? XVCD? SVCD?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_CD#Similar_formats

LD Players doing VCD usually came in 1.1 / 2.0 -- that is constant standard bit rate only.

/

Example of 1.1: Pioneer CLD-D3V



Example of 2.0: Pioneer CLD-S180V



It seems that VCD 1.0 could only play the underlying player standard (NTSC or PAL) but that VCD 2.0 can play both NTSC and PAL even if LD is only NTSC.

More details here: https://www.videohelp.com/vcd.htm

DVL players might leverage the DVD chipset for higher bit rates or variable bit rates but the manuals do not mention that.

Julien

Julien

Was there any commercially released SuperVCD? Maybe some bootleg but I don’t recall any movie had a legit SuperVCD release. it is a shame because SuperVCD looked pretty good compared to VCD.

I remember back in the day no name Chinese VCD players were the best because they could play anything you throw at it including SuperVCD and DiVx. Most modern Blu-ray and 4K UHD players don’t play even regular VCD now.

That’s because %99.9999 of all VCDs are bootleg. Probably more. “Serious” hardware manufacturers don’t typically court customers who are too poor to pay for anything…well…they didn’t back then anyway. Now Facebook somehow makes money off 3rd word genocide by giving away free internet access…but in the 90s it was different. In the 90s even so much as compatibility with VCD is seen as waving a giant pirate flag. Pioneer was trying to sell a $1000 machine that played $100 movies. They didn’t think they should be spending a cent on making the thing run Indian soap operas someone bought out of a guy’s trunk and I’m glad they didn’t. VCD is the next worst thing to CED.

Since it was mostly supported by China to counter DVD, there might have been some Chinese releases... but nothing the rest of the world would be tracking for collection I suppose?

Julien

So, CED is a subcategory here, but not VCD...

Are there a lot of bootleg CEDs?

I we start documenting all the Thailand pirate filmed-in-theater => badly encoded releases... we're all dead

I did own the official Singapore release of The Phantom Menace on VCD (no burnt-in subtitles except for Alien languages) but the quality was quite bad.
Even well encoded VCDs would turn into VHS-quality in action scenes (especially explosions).



They also released the "Special Edition Trilogy" in the same format as a boxset and eventually also released Ep.2 and Ep3 in a few countries on VCD in the same type packaging.

I'm quite sure Star Wars wikis are documenting these well.

Julien

I had that PM VCD too. I bought it at a store in Massachusetts called, Newbury Comics. From them, I also bought Simpsons and Futurama VCDs. Those had pitch problems. I think it's called, PAL Speedup or something.

Just one VCD question: Was the 2-part Star Trek episode, The Menagerie ever released on VCD? I had that on VHS/Beta/CED and LD and always wondered...

"If we start documenting all the Thailand pirate filmed-in-theater => badly encoded releases... we're all dead"

Guys, wait a minute. Not a database of releases, but just a forum dedicated to discuss them in. And while I'm here, a forum to discuss Industrial titles...

We could have a sub-forum section indeed, that doesn't hurt anyone.

I won't add them as a format you can collect/trade on LDDb but we can talk about them.

Julien

Video CD sub-forum added!

=>

Julien

Thanks for this Julien!

I actually watched a VCD a few weeks ago. My wife wanted to watch John Woo's Once a Thief, and the only format I had it on was VCD!

Only problem was I didn't have any equipment I was sure could play it back connected to my HT. I dropped in the Oppo UDP-203 and crossed my fingers, but it did actually play! Odd considering Video CD isn't listed as one of the disc formats that it can play:

Also surprised that it also plays back Kodak Picture CDs. I actually had one of those made. I think I'll pop it in and see what the interface is like (only one I've ever seen before was wit the Sega Saturn VCD/PictureCD attachment.)

Dang. PhotoCD is pretty fringe. It’s hard to play one even in Windows/Mac now. I’m impressed.