All of your video cd questions answered on 1 handy page!

What is a video cd?

A video cd is a movie, or any sequence of pictures and sound stored by MPEG1 which is recorded onto a CD Rom. A video cd can store about 1 hour of a movie, so most video cd movies come on 2 disks some longer films come on 3 disks.

What about DVD?

Until the cost of DVD's comes down I recommend buying video cd movies. Especially if you have a quality computer system to play them on and particularly since there are no region locks on video cd Movies.

Who make the movies?

The movies are made by large movie companies in the first place and then they are pressed onto video cd's and are distributed by companies like Berjaya HVN, Movie Magic, wawansan videovan and Speed (Warner Bros) under licence to the movie makers.

How do they get so much on to a CD?

I would like to say it's down to fairy magic but technology provides the answers. The movie pictures are cleverly compressed by a format known as MPEG 1 encoding.

(DVD movies use the latest Mpeg 2 encoding which is less compressed but offers exceptional quality - look out for the new Super video-cd as it offers near Mpeg 2 quality and is almost as compressed as mpeg 1.) Basically instead of storing every single part of the picture only the bits of a picture that are different to the previous frame are stored. This drastically cuts down the size of the movie.

Can I Buy video cd's in the UK?

Unfortunately there are very few original english movies available on video cd format. (This is probably because CDi machines and video cd players never really caught on.) Our index does contain links to a couple of stores that sell english video cd movies.

Please note that it is illegal to sell a movie in the UK which has not been rated by the BBFC. This is why there are no shops in the UK to my knowledge that legally sell video cd's or region 1 DVD's from other countries.

Is it illegal to import them into the USA?

Where can you buy a video cd movie to import into the USA?

The most popular country of Origin is Malaysia. Most video cd's come from Asia and most of the suppliers listed on this site come from Penang in Malaysia.

There are some suppliers from Hong Kong and Indonesia that also supply video cd's but before ordering I strongly recommend that you verify that the video cd's you buy are in English and not with english subtitles.

What about Pirate or Bootleg video cd's?

Pirate and Bootleg video cd's are sold all over the Internet. Some shops sell both Legal and Bootleg video cd's. Some pirate video cd's are sold from the bedrooms of teenagers who have copied their favourite video onto a CDR disk and try to flog it for a few quid to their mates! Do not buy Bootlegs as the quality is usually very bad - comparable to an over used ex rental video cassette. As recording and printing equpment has become more sophisticated the bootleg video cd's are not easy to spot.

Spotting Pirate video cd's!

Things to look out for.

• Spelling mistakes on the title page or movie description along with blurred or smudged pictures.
• Bootleg video cd's have no Malaysian censorship and classification stickers on the back. This sticker is separate from the video cd cover it is never printed on the same page as the video cd movie Cover. The certificate is called the b-certificate and some Malaysian suppliers do not sell video cd movies with the B certificates on if they are exporting to the USA or Europe. (Always ask for the B-Certificate as a quality assurance and to prevent fraudulent use of them.)
• All video cd's are censored and cut and bad language is completely cut on a legal Malaysian video cd. Bootleg video cd's are usually made from imported video cassettes or footage taken from a camera smuggled into a movie theatre.
• Pirate video cds are recorded on gold, blue or green CD's which do not always play in DVD drives and on CD rom drives.

How to play video cd movies.

• DVD Players - (Most players will play video cd's make sure they have Videocd or video cd logo's on them - or check in the instructions.)
• video cd Players - (There are specific video cd players and video cd/MP3 players available on the market. This includes CDi machines and CDi machines equipped with a digital video cartridge.)
• Playstations - (Playstation 1 needs special plug in decoder hardware to play video cd's. Playstation 2 can play DVD so it may also play video cd's - please check this out first - I cannot get a PSX2 to try out.
• Sega Saturn and Dreamcast -I don't know - I would have thought that it was possible but I have seen no hardware or software to enable video cd playback!
  
• PC's and Apple Mac's All modern computers can play video cd's if they have a compatible CD Rom or DVD Drive. (Mimimum spec Pentium 166 MMX for smooth playback with a decent graphics card and 6 or 8 speed drive.)

Due to differing voltages and TV formats (PAL, NTSC etc) I recommend buying hardware from your own country.

Running video cd on a PC

Microsoft Media player will happily run most video cd movies although some that have heavy copy protection may not work. You can use almost any type of DVD player software to run them. I recommend Cyberlink Power DVD.

If your graphics card is fairly modern you will probably find that it comes with a DVD or at least an MPEG player which should give excellent results. Also many sound cards, dvd drives, cd roms and even new computer systems come with an mpeg decoder nowadays. It seems good advice to use anything that came with your hardware as this will be optimised for the best results.

I also have an IBM 760XD laptop which comes with an exellent mpeg player which is far superior to microsoft media player. (I also upgraded media player and actually got worse playback (I assume because of the extra features that take more processing power than the Pentium 166 was able to give.)

Where can I get a video cd player from?

Here are links to various video cd and Mpeg players for your computer - some are free to download some are evaluation copies and some must be purchased before they can be used - please see the details on the sites you are directed to.

Buy Legal video cd's from the following sources and you will not be disappointed. I have used them all and have rankd them according to price and service given. I continually monitor the service and actively encourage feedback. I will also update this site to show the latest offers and special promotions.

TOP video cd MOVIE STORES

FIND video cd MOVIE STORES