VCD'S

VHS quality, i.e. less than DVD but still acceptable.

Can you play them on a playstation2

Well a VCD is just an MPEG burned onto a CD-ROM, although the MPEGs aren't usually compressed as badly as the ones you're likely to download off of the web.

Many VCDs are boots (especially those from mainland China) but most are not, since they were the predominant video medium in East Asia for a long time. Some look just awful (my copy of Edward Yang's A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY is a pixelated mess), some very nice (I have a VCD of TOKYO STORY that's better than the US VHS), but none of them approach the quality of a decently-mastered DVD.

Most machines that can play DVDs, can also play VCDs. But the best thing to do (always) is check the manual.

What are you looking for on VCD?

How come they were never launched here? (they were all over India)

Closer to the latter. VCD is supposedly S-VHS quality video, encoded using MPEG-1. SuperVCD is higher-bitrate MPEG-1/variable-bitrate MPEG2. The only discs I've ever seen have been Far East imports; the shop in London's Chinatown where you could get lots of Japanese-version films on VCD for five or six quid has closed down, no doubt liquidated by their unshiftably vast Sanrio stock.

Most DVD players will play VCD and SVCD now. I presume when you rip a DVD for burning to CD-R, compressing in the process, you're effectively creating an SVCD. I dunno, I've never done it.

Amaturist,

I've seen loads of concerts on ebay by the ramones, the who etc and, like people have mentioned alot, hong kong cinema that look real interesting so i thought it would be a good, cheap medium to investigate

Nick, the short answer is that by the time Asia had its economic boom, VHS was an old technology (having been popularized in America and Europe long before) and VCDs were seen to be: more compact, cheaper to produce, potentially cheaper to sell. As I understand they are still the main medium for video in the poorer countries in that part of the world: the PRC, Indonesia, etc.

I don't know about India--the Indian video stores around here (Chicago) seem to carry either VHS or DVD, but that doesn't necessarily reflect what's being sold in Bomby and New Delhi.

For Hong Kong cinema, you should check out Poker Industries (www.pokerindustries.com) who usually have both VCD and DVD releases of contemporary HK films (the VCDs being a bit cheaper, but not really worth it given the drop in quality). Check into the recent spate of films from the HK production house Shaw Brothers--lots of classic wuxia, kung fu, action, romance, etc. films on DVD and VCD.

Oh, I realize I didn't quite answer Nick's question. I don't think they were launched in Europe and America because given the 15-year market dominance of VHS, and the lack of a huge incentive to purchase VCDs instead (quality is typically poorer), there was never enough interest to make a big push. I also think that around the same time as VCDs became widespread in Asia, DVD was already in the development stages.

VCDs are also way cheaper to duplicate than VHS, just to add to what amateurist said.

Right, and as a corollary I think the trade in bootleg VCDs has really helped the spread of the medium overall.

one film i rented on vcd was split over two discs, and it wasn't very long. is that common?

Yes, that's a way of avoiding poor compression. My TOKYO STORY DVD is spread over two disks, and it's barely two hours.

I meant to say TOKYO STORY VCD