The Official Video CD (and CD-i DV) Thread

[kfbkfb]

This thread is about the 1st Digital Video (and Digital Audio)
consumer optical disc format.

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

I first saw CD-i Digital Video at the SCES in Chicago in the early 1990s
(a short portion of the James Bond movie The Living Daylights).

I have several Video CDs:
Clear and Present Danger
Star Trek The Motion Picture
Never Say Never Again
The World is not Enough
and one CD-i Digital Video (purchased 1993-11):
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

My Panasonic DVD-S1 plays all my Video CDs but won't play my CD-i DV.

I played the Star Trek CD-i DV at a Department Store on a Philips CD-i
player with the FMV/Full Motion Video cartridge, as I recall, the picture
impressed me by being almost noise free (unlike Broadcast, Cable,
LaserDisc and Videotape).

Clear and Present Danger has very good picture quality (P&S)
and has a Dolby Surround encoded stereo soundtrack.

Star Trek The Motion Picture has fair picture quality (P&S), but
it seems to have been made from a master video with a lot of
dropouts in both the video and the audio.

Never Say Never Again has fair picture quality (somewhat letterboxed),
but was made from a damaged film source with a lot of scratches and
noise and a few jumps in the movie.

The World is not Enough has good picture quality (P&S) but has one
segment where the encoder seems to run out of bits and the picture
degrades dramatically.

Back in the mid-1990s, before DVDs, our local Best Buy had a small
section with Video CDs.

What are your experiences with Video CDs (and CD-i Digital Videos)?

Kirk Bayne

[kfbkfb]

It was 30 years ago last month that I discovered (and bought 1) CD-i Digital Video discs at a Dillards department store electronics department:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Center_Mall

I never got a Philips CD-i system w/FMV.

Anyone else have any CD-i DVs or Video CDs?

(the VLC player I downloaded tells me that Clear and Present Danger is NTSC and the rest in the above post are PAL)

BTW - I have Clear and Present Danger on prerecorded VHS, LD [1st w/AC-3 soundtrack], Video CD, DVD, Blu-ray and UHD Bly-ray.

Kirk Bayne

[lateralspin]

Originally Posted by kfbkfb

Anyone else have any CD-i DVs or Video CDs?

I got rid of them. The CDIs were not compatible with my blu-ray players, and VCDs were based on LD transfers, are low PQ compared to the HD of blu-ray. So into the trash they go

[kfbkfb]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Video_Interactive

I first heard about digital video&audio on CD size discs in mid-1989 in a computer magazine article [the DVI system].

I keep my few [CD] digital video&audio discs for the novelty of having them, I watched the first disc of Star Trek TMP for the first time on my 32" HDTV earlier today - picture quality was tolerable and the Dolby Surround was good using the Hafler/DynaQuad passive speaker matrix for decoding.


Kirk Bayne

[russweiss1]

In the early to mid 90's I made many trips to Los Angeles Chinatown. VCD's were available in a lot of the shops. I never bought any because I was buying laserdiscs during that time. If I could go back now I'd probably pick up some of the more obscure titles that haven't been released in better formats.

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[SethRex]

I have a few. The Star Wars Trilogy, Episode 1, Battlefield Earth, The Quest, and Resident Evil 1 and 2.

[BijouMan]

Originally Posted by russweiss1

In the early to mid 90's I made many trips to Los Angeles Chinatown. VCD's were available in a lot of the shops. I never bought any because I was buying laserdiscs during that time. If I could go back now I'd probably pick up some of the more obscure titles that haven't been released in better formats.

I have not been to any Asian country, but I am told that Video CD was much more popular than the videotape systems as a means of distributing content in those countries because the discs could tolerate the higher humidity better than magnetic tape. There was no region protection, so the owners of those shops probably bought those discs back in China and brought them over to sell to users here (airlines and authorities have nothing against bringing discs on airplanes.) LaserDisc, on the other hand, was really only popular in Japan as well as countries like Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. I have never heard of LaserDiscs or players existing in mainland China.

[sapiendut]

I miss VCD too. Picture quality is garbage but having VCD (instead of VHS) was better than not having anything at all. I was collecting laserdisc at the time but there were movies that’s OOP on LD where I can only get on VCD.

[BiggusDickus]

I had two films on VCD, singapore or malaysian releases i believe as they took off a bit there i understand, i think one was the 1973 The Three Musketeers, cant rem the other.

I also have a music video album "Infected" by The The from 1986, absolutely fantastic album which had a video shot for each song. The only other release of it was on VHS, so my VCD is prized!

[Donl1282]

Was VCD sold in the US? I only recall seeing VHS and laserdisc before DVD arrived. I know VCD is widely available in Asia, at least developing Asian countries in the 90s. My father brought some Hollywood films on VCD from China when he came to visit which play on DVD player. Not even sure if those Chinese VCD discs were official releases or pirated copies.

[meremortal]

Another obscure format, Movie CDs were sold at the software store in the mall. That was back when stores would even sell things like a Netscape browser, which is pretty funny to think about now. I really miss that era and the fun variety of stores in malls in the 90s. Early 90s in particular was just a total golden age for malls with so much to do as some had multiple arcades, multiple record stores, and in general just happier people who enjoyed being there. I could easily spend hours per day there on weekends without getting bored. But back on topic, the only Movie CD I can for sure remember having was Arcade. I also had a Terrapin VCD player from back in the day and remember it seeming kind of cool at the time even though the machine was a bit problematic.

[Ratcrack]

VCDs were a great cheap alternative for me when buying asian cinema. I only have a few and bought most of them on YesAsia years ago. I think $7-10 each at the time. All of them are Hong Kong releases.

Hitman (Jet Li)
Return Of Godzilla
Bodyguards and Assassins
Three (horror)
Space Battleship Yamato (no eng. sub)

I actually discovered VCDs when I purchased a VCD bootleg copy of Street Fighter II Animated (uncut) on ebay. I thought I was getting a legit DvD copy. "What the heck is this?"

At least it was cheap.

[Sugar Bear]

I used to love making my own VCDs in the days before recordable DVDs. 320x240p looked OK on tube TVs of the day. Fun format.

[Modren]

Interesting video from a couple months back on the pre-VCD days of selling movies on CD-ROM, including some early work by Criterion. Some of the features on these discs do seem genuinely cool and I wish they were available in modern formats, like the real-time script view.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=eRH7YSwl3xc