Tell me about SVCD please

Many people are asking if their players can play SVCD's.
Am I right in thinking this is a way of playing back digital video clips?
Is it much better than VHS?
Can you convert VHS to digital format?
Is it then just burnt to CD-R? In what format?

I also read a interesting comment at vcdhelp.com by a user A chap called Ian (I tried to e-mail him) had burnt a slideshow of jpgs onto CD-R using Nero software. He was able to display his pictures on TV via his Wharfedale 750S!
Can anyone help me find out more about how to do this, please?

Thanks,
David

[Reiner]

Let's start from the basics:

First there were VCD (Video-CD) where video is recorded as MPEG-1 (ie *.MPG on PCs) and audio as MPEG-1 Layer 3, which is, believe it or not, equal to MP3.
VCDs might also store the files as *.AVI

Quality depends very much on the effort taken during encoding and can be somewhere between worst and acceptable, resolution is about the same as VHS.
Movies will usually come on two VCD as the space is limited to around 60-74 minutes (as with normal CD-Audio) per disc.

S-VCD (Super-Video CD) increases the resolution to about 350 lines (if I am not mistaken) and records in MPEG-2.

VCDs are very popular in Asia since the discs don't get "rotten" in this climate (tapes suffer from fungus grow due to the high humidity) and are very cheap to produce, ie pirated copies are swamping the market, sometimes showing movies much earlier before the release at the cinema. And those pirated ones sell for GBP1 only!

Anyhow, you could convert VHS to VCD (not much benefit for you) or SVCD which seems more appropiate and will give better quality.

Perhaps Jon Weaver can help to elaborate more on this ...

Thanks for that Reiner.
I have found the answers to most of my own questions at www.vcdhelp.com

[This message has been edited by dwsadler1 (edited 13-03-2001).]

[Jon Weaver]

Renier,

The horizontal resolution of SVCD is much more that 350 lines.. Its actually 576 (for PAL) or 480 (for NTSC).

As VHS is at maximum 300 lines, the resolution is far greater than VHS.. But, becuase its digital, it suffers problems with the compression, especially when there is fast movement.

dwsadler, 'vcdhelp' is a great source of resource.. But, you have have any question feel free to ask, as I have spent the last few weeks experimenting with SVCDs and pretty much have them sussed!

[Reiner]

Thanks, I think it's time that I have a look at that page myself ...