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Crusade VCD Review - (bought from ebay)

Recoil

Recoil

Regular
I finally got my VCD's in the mail Saturday and had a chance to look at them. As promised, I will give a brief review of them for those who were interested in getting them:

Picture Quality:
These are not as good as DVDs of course. At first glance I thought they were actually a bit worse than VHS tapes, as I seemed to be getting some artifacts, and it almost looked like an MPEG movie (which is not how these VCDs are coded). However very quickly the picture cleared up, and while it wasn't near as sharp as DVD, it was at least as good as VHS. I did some adjusting to fine tune things, and afterwards it seemed fine.

Sound Quality:
The sound quality was also easily as good as VHS. At points it seemed a bit off here and there, but overall the quality came through great.

Product Quality:
This was the only issue I had. When I got them (in the mail) EVERY CD case was damaged, inside and out. They seemed to be made of one of the cheesier brittle jewel cases, and they simply didnt survive the trip from overseas. Some were damaged worse than others. This, however, was easily fixed. I went to the local CompUSA, and for $8 bought a 10 pack of dual CD jewel cases (which looked identical to the original ones), and just swapped the cases out. The actual inserts were fine.

Ok so overall, at times it seemed like quality was just a shade less than VHS, but most of the time it was better. Also, keep in mind that currently this is the only medium that we can get this series on. So you are left with 2 options:

1) Tape it off TV with a VCR
2) Get these VCDs

The sources on ebay are very reliable. Just do a search for Crusade VCD and they will come up. Getting these was a great option as they are more of an official release, and they wont wear out as VHS tapes were. I to me, for the $85 it cost me (after shipping) it was worth it.

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'I don't believe in the no-win scenario' - JTK
 
Sounds interesting, these VCD's...

Another advantage VCD's should have over VHS, depending on how they're structured, is the ability to move in a non-linear manner whereas VHS is linear (fast forward from one point to through all others in between that and the one you're heading to). Were you in fact able to skip around? Was each episode broken into tracks as is done on a VCD?

BTW, according to www.vcdhelp.com, which has all sorts of tutorial information about VCD's and DVD's, they say that VCD employs the MPEG-1 coding and DVD employs the MPEG-2 coding. And, BTW, MP-3 is not MPEG-3.

I take it there was no problem with region codes on the VCD's? Or did you deactivate that feature on your DVD player? The website above provides instructions for deactivating that feature on many different DVD players.

Cheers,

Eirik

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It never ends; it only changes!
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by eirik:
Sounds interesting, these VCD's...

Another advantage VCD's should have over VHS, depending on how they're structured, is the ability to move in a non-linear manner whereas VHS is linear (fast forward from one point to through all others in between that and the one you're heading to). Were you in fact able to skip around? Was each episode broken into tracks as is done on a VCD?

BTW, according to www.vcdhelp.com, which has all sorts of tutorial information about VCD's and DVD's, they say that VCD employs the MPEG-1 coding and DVD employs the MPEG-2 coding. And, BTW, MP-3 is not MPEG-3.

I take it there was no problem with region codes on the VCD's? Or did you deactivate that feature on your DVD player? The website above provides instructions for deactivating that feature on many different DVD players.

Cheers,

Eirik

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

they do indeed have tracks, although a rather limiting (IMO) four tracks per disc.

apparently part of the problem with VCDs thru DVD players is that because the encoding/decoding process is different some of the images are a bit poor - hence the artifacting. certainly some shots (most notably CGI heavy with spaceships roaring across the screen) can judder something chronic... i guess my dvd player just struggles!

as for region coding: there ain't no such animal with VCDs. as long as your DVD player will play VCDs (not all of them will) you're fine... alternatively you can watch 'em thru media player (or similar) on your PC...

cheers!


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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>apparently part of the problem with VCDs thru DVD players is that because the encoding/decoding process is different some of the images are a bit poor<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The problem is all on the encoding side, and has nothing to do with your player. You're seeing the difference between MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. MPEG-1 uses a fixed bit-rate, -2 uses a variable one. So -2 can compress the hell out of relatively static scenes, and use a higher bit-rate for the action-packed ones to preserve the picture quality.

MPEG-1 treats all scenes equally, using whatever arbitrary bit-rate is chosen to squeeze a given amount of material onto a disc. So it tends to fall apart on complicated scenes (and also has trouble with large blocks of similar color, like red drapery with lots of subtle variations. This is where you're likely to see blockiness, because it displays similar colors as one big block of a single color.)

All of this is one of the reasons that VCD never caught on over here. (Another is the time limitation. Even at sub-DVD quality a 2 hour movie has to be split over two discs.)

Regards,

Joe

------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net
 
Well, there is of course the SVCD format. Compressed/encoded in MPEG-2 but stored on a CD disk. This format is rarely used, but used nevertheless. Official publications needing decent quality are done on DVD.

The quality of SVCD plentyfully exceeds VCD and never reaches that of DVD (due to space limitations). A movie requires at least two disks, and sometimes three. Even after that, there is no extra space for the additional features people have come to expect from DVD.

------------------
"We are the universe, trying to figure itself out.
Unfortunately we as software lack any coherent documentation."
-- Delenn
 
By all accounts SVCD is superior to VCD, but I'm not sure that anybody is using it commercially. It seems to be more of a home hobbyist format, one of those good ideas that arrived too late. (By the time it was widely available, DVD was already here, so it has few attractions outside the "homebrew" community.)

It is rather like laserdisc in that respect. By the time big screen TVs, and audio-video sound systems were cheap enough and common enough, which created the mass market for a high-quality, playback-only movie system, DVD was emerging. What should have been the rebirth of laserdisc turned into the coup de grace.

Regards,

Joe

------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net
 
I was considering buying some of those. I'd never seen a VCD, and the seller was from the Phillipeans of something. But, I'm glad to hear from someone who has bought them.
 
It'd be interesting to see how they compare to my SVHS SP copies of Crusade off of the Sci-Fi Channel.
 
I am toying around with DivX and trying to burn into SVCD or even DVD formats if possible. You can get about anything in newsgroups in DivX format --- If you have the bandwidth.
 
Probably the same seller as mine then *sigh* My problem is that Customs and Excise confiscated the damn things on their way into the UK and the Fedartion Against Copyright Theft have given a sworn statement that they're counterfeit.

I'm now left trying to get evidence to prove that they're not pirated! The seller insists they're OK, but this is such a pain!

For anyone buying from the Far East, this is one to watch out for.
 
There were several people selling them in the Philipenes. It may be the same person, or we may have bought from a different one.
 
So did mine! And she is insistant the the VCD's are genuine and has even put me in touch with someone at Warner Bros responsible for Anti-Piracy. But it doesn't prevent the whole thing sbeing a hassle, even if the VCD's ARE genuine. The assumption by Customs seems to be that ALL VCD's are counterfeit /ubbthreads/images/icons/frown.gif
 
<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr>

The assumption by Customs seems to be that ALL VCD's are counterfeit /ubbthreads/images/icons/frown.gif

<hr></blockquote>

Sadly, many of them are, especially those coming from Aisa. But chances are your Crusade discs are quite genuine. I know for a fact that Warner Bros. released the entire B5 series (with the possible exception of some of the movies) on VCD in various Asian countries. I would not be at all surprised if they also released Crusade. Customs should have no problem verifying the fact if this is the case.

Regards,

Joe
 
The problem is that they're not interested in verifying it. They have a statement from FACT saying the VCDs are counterfeit. The ball's now in my court to prove that they're genuine. But I'm not allowed access to the VCDs to enable me to do that. Total pain!
 
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