Which is better VCD or VHS?

-- Michael De Gracia (cambumbo@hotmail.com), January 02, 1999

Answers

VCD vs. VHS? Well it depends on what you are looking for.

VHS offers fair picture and nice sharp sound. But VHS suffers from ware, the older and more used it is the more it gets dameged.

VCD offers good sound and again fair picture, VHS picure is always the same where as VCD can be much beter, but can be crap. VCD can't be damaged, exept by scatching.

-- Jonathan Dale (JMDLORD@aol.com), January 05, 1999.

personnally I don't really notice much difference in sound quality. as far as what I heard and somewhat experienced, the Audio is about the same comparable to MP3.

as for video, VHS is somewhat better. If you capture yoru own VCD video, vhs is better, but some of the VCD that comes from Legit companies is very high quality and comparable to VHS. I would say the quality of vhs is a little better but if a VCD is done right the image is very comparable.

-- jay farris (GENIV@FREEWWWEB.COM), May 13, 1999.

According to my customers...VCD is much better. They like the fact that a previously viewed movie on VCD is still clear and free of all the defects of a used VHS movie. Also the sound is clearer and Dolby Digital and Dolby Surround is cleaner and louder than an analog source. Many films that sya Digitally Mastered on VHS lose some of the digital clarity due to the analog source. A lot of films Digitally Authored on VCD look gorgous thanks to the digital medium. That is why DVD is getting a head start in the US. Better pictures in digital formatting and much louder and cleaner audio...in fact Goldeneye(Chinese-subtitled version) Video CD's audio is so good we (me and the employees) voted it as the best sound ever for a movie (beat the DVD far and away). Another movie with great Video clarity (not sound but near DVD quality)was Titanic. For VHS we chose Braveheart as best sound and picture over it's VCD companion(the VHS was in widescreen attributing to our choice) Actually in all fairness, it depends on your equipment and prespective. We used DVD players(reference edition by Sony and a dual-laser Philips), A stand- alone Sony VCD player and a portable Panasonic player, and for VHS we used a JVC studio master VCR and a Toshiba refence model. All of these units are used to test quality of movies before we order more for sale. On the dinky computer we had, DVD looked really ugly (reasoning was easy: shoddy Video Card and software playback), VCD looked worse, and lining in a VHS just made it awful. So if you use a computer to view your films...then your movies may not look as good as VHS but not because of the source just becuase of the Video Card, the smae holds true for sound, a bad sound card can make MONO sound like ONO. It is just in your perspective. I use,at home, a stand- alone dual-laser Philips and the VCDs and DVDs look almost alike and alot better than VHS...yes even pirated VCDs. Play around with them and make sure your player is decent or computer is good enoguh for 16- Bit color at 640x480.

-- Will Shakes (soldier0081@hotmail.com), May 13, 1999.

My experience supports VCD. Generally VCDs are easy to store than VHS. Don't expect the CDs affected by fungus! Also if you use a Video Cassette affected by fungus, it destroys the head also. The stills in the VCD is very good. The conly con I see in VCD is that the fast forward is not so fast. Some players offer variable speed fast forward. Also, in some players, of the power fails while watching a movie, it do not remember the last played track. You can have interactive menus in VCDs. Overall VCD is very good.

-- Jojan T. Antony (jojan_antony@rediffmail.com), May 28, 2001.

dvd because I like it better!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- nicholas michael sarnie (jsarnie10@msn.com), July 05, 2002.

VHS has slightly better quality, but VCD's are far cheaper. I paid only $13 for my Love Hina Christmas VCD compared to the Americans who will soon have to pay $30 for it on DVD ^_^ At the end, though, I'd say VHS wins, as I am FAR more used to

-- Tim Jones (tailspower5@aol.com), November 27, 2002.

Basicly, DVD is a clear winner in quality, but, it is far more expensive to buy the gear than VHS or VCD and the the palyers don't have the old type of video out which I think is a pain in the ass. VHS...the old favourite. While it lacks a bit in quality, this particualar format's quality greatly depends on the VCR that you are using. I myself use a 20 year old National NV-870A stereo Hi-Fi VCR, and it is an amazing machine because alot of the time I cant tell the difference between it and a DVD, but, when this model came out it cost well over $500US. So the quality of the picture is determined by the machine, not the tape, so it comes down to the amount of cash you have lying around the home. VCD is the econemy version of home entertainment. VCD cons - reduced sound and picture quality. - can be hard to track down the right movie in this format. VCD pros - can be run on a computer and has low requirments - can be run on a DVD player - can be made from videos or video cams with a regular CD burner I think that DVD is better than VHS, and, VHS is better than VCD.

-- Andrew Young (ayoung@emailaccount.com), December 06, 2002.

Andrew, where do you live? I'm in the states and here, I've seen DVD players for as little as $29 (yes, twenty nine dollars) and brand name players for $59-$79. So IMO, I don't think that the equipment is a barrier to entry for the average American consumer. This may be different in other parts, obviously.

On a small set or with RF connections, viewers will be hard pressed to see the difference between DVD and VHS. However, using proper connections and with larger screens, VHS (even on the nice machines) can't even begin to compare to DVD.

As for VHS vs VCD, a new VHS tape will show a better picture on average than what the low bit rate of VCD is capable. For example, I was watching a VCD stage musical from Korea that had beaucoup strobes and wide detail shots. OK, they were supposed to be detail shots-- mostly the screen was a mess of large blocks. VHS would have shown this detail.

However, my son's Shrek VHS is now unwatchable (and flips in and out of surround most annoyingly) after ap. 40 viewings in the last year. My The Cure at Orange VCD looks the same as when I bought it after roughly the same number of views.

It's also /a lot/ cheaper and faster to share test edits/dailies on VCD than it is on either VHS or DVD.

Cheers,

-- No One (no@one.com), December 06, 2002.