by Garry McCarthy

VCD (Video Compact Disc) is a CD which contains moving pictures and sound using a compression standard called MPEG1, outputting it to a resolution of 352×288. It can hold up to 74 minutes of full-motion video on a 650MB CD (80 minutes on a 700MB CD), along with quality stereo sound. A VCD can be played on almost all standalone DVD Players, and on all computers with a DVD-ROM or CD-ROM drive (with a software based decoder / player). The quality of a very good VCD is about the same as a VHS tape, except that VCD is usually a bit more blurry.

SVCD (“Super VideoCD”) is similar to a VCD, but has higher quality. It uses the MPEG2 compression standard, and outputs to a resolution of 480 x 576. The quality of a SVCD is much better than a VCD because of the higher resolution. They can hold between 35 and 60 minutes of full-motion video on a CD, along with up to 2 stereo audio tracks and 4 selectable subtitles; however, the quality diminishes with larger storage rates. 

Both VCDs and SVCDs can be played on many standalone DVD Players and on all computers with a DVD-ROM or CD-ROM drive (with a software based decoder / player). It is also possible to use menus and chapters, similar to DVDs, and also simple photo album/slide shows with background audio.

For comparison, DVDs and DV tapes each have a resolution of 720×576; HDTV has a resolution of up to 1280×720, with the actual amount dependent upon many factors.

Most computer screens, and the projector used at the SDUPS meetings, have a resolution of 1024×768. Therefore, none of the disc-based formats will be able to match the resolution of a slide show run through a program (like ProShow) using digital images.

ProShow says it will output to both VCD and SVCD. I’ve made a VCD, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to get an SVCD output. The VCD played on one of my DVD players, but not the other.