DVD movies is very popular for people who like to enjoy the movie at home using there own home theater system or on the computer, here you will find out what's the different between the Video CD(VCD) and DVD format on the movies before you buy.

What's a Video CD (VCD)? VCD stands for 'Video Compact Disc' and basically it is a CD that contains moving pictures and sound instead of a software/audio/music CDs, then you will know what a VCD looks like. A VCD has the capacity can hold up to 74/80 minutes on 650MB/700MB CDs respectively of full-motion video along with quality stereo sound. A single disc can only hold 55 minutes of video, so it need two discs for a typical movie. VCDs use a compression standard called MPEG to store the video and audio. can be played on almost all standalone DVD Players and of course on all computers with a DVD-ROM or CD-ROM drive with the help of a software based decoder player. It is also possible to use menus and chapters, similiar to DVDs, on a VCD and also simple photo album/slide shows with background audio. The quality of a VCD is about the same as VHS tape.

What's the difference between Video CD and DVD? DVD, which is stands for Digital Versatile Disc, is a new technology in March 1997. It's not just for movies: it's essentially a successor to the CD. It has the same physical appearance, but it provides several times as much up to 4.7 gigabytes on one disc. That's enough for more than two hours of video movies. Compared to VCDs, movies on DVD provide much higher quality, DVD movies use MPEG-2 compression, rather than the MPEG-1 compression used by Video CDs.

VCDs are quite popular in Asia, particularly China, which has more than 100 domestic manufacturers producing around 2 million VCD/DVD players annually. They're practically unheard of in North America, but there's a couple of reasons that people in North America may be interested in VCDs.

1. There is many movies around the world but they may not be available in your country, even when you find one on the internet, it may not be work on your DVD Player because in a different Region or on different PAL/NTSC format, but VCDs can play in several DVD players and computer because there is no region code control on VCDs.

2. There's a significant number of North American fans of Asia films who can't rent them easily. Because VCDs are so popular in Asia, almost all Asia films released in the last few years are available on VCD only, $10-20 per movie, in some place VCDs are even cheaper, you can get them for US $10 or less.

How can I play VCDs on my Computer? There are two options for playing VCDs on your computer.

1. Windows Media Player, which is installed on most Windows systems. First, insert the VCD into your CD or DVD-ROM drive. Then, navigate to the MPEGAV directory on the VCD. 

2. If you have a DVD drive on your computer, then you probably already have DVD player software (such as WinDVD or PowerDVD) on your computer as well. Start up this software, insert your VCD, and the VCD should play automatically.

Which DVD players can also play Video CDs? Panasonic, RCA, Samsung, Pioneer, and Sony models can play Video CDs. but this is the early research for those Brand DVD Player, for now, 99.9% DVD Player can play VCDs and also can play in  both PAL/NTSC format.

What about PAL/ NTSC format? The PAL/NTSC problem isn't an issue on the computer, the computer will displays the whole thing. But if you want to play VCD on your DVD Player, you need to buy a VCDs in NTSC format, they usually have both format for sale.

Finally, hope you understanding the two different format on the discs. Thank you