I was wondering how the quality of a vcd compared to the quality of a laser disk. I am looking to purchase the "star wars" triolgy on vcd since it is not available on dvd yet and I wanted to know if it is worth the money. I will be viewing it with a Sony DVD player and on a 32" Sony television. Please let me know as soon as possible. It was going to be a surprise gift for my dad for the holiday. Thanks Everyone. Samplewebsite@aol.com

-- christopher pasatieri (samplewebsite@aol.com), December 08, 2000

Answers

Laser disk is much nicer than VCDs...resolution wise LD is higher...since VCD uses mpeg1 encoding, you should expect microblock problem for scenes with fast actions....so for star wars you should expect a pretty bad picture quality for a lot of the action scenes. LD is pretty much uncompressed video...so picture quality is usually much nicer...even copared to dvd...some badly encoded dvd have those annoying interlacing problem.

-- Lan (lan4t@ihavepms.com), December 08, 2000.

VCD's are best viewed on a 20 inch tv or less (computer). Wait for the dvd as far as star wars goes. George Lucas caved in and said he will release it soon. The FANS were heard!!!!
just because your sony says it will play a vcd, don't just think it can play a cdr or cdrw. You are most likely the proud owner of a sony dvd player that can not read cdr or cdrw. Kiss your homemade cd stuff off (audio/video) or get another player. www.vcdhelper.com has a list of players and what will play what.

-- lurker (lurker@oj.net), December 08, 2000.

Hey,

I can confirm Sonys do not play VCDS or SVCDS, I spent 300 on what looks a really nice player, only to find I could get a Panasonic one that did VCD/SVCDS for 100 less :(

Although one thing I discorverd you can play burnt VCDS on a Sony player if you burn it to a rewritable disk.

Hope that helps a bit :-)

-Alex

-- Alex (alex_goodhind@hotmail.com), April 29, 2002.