VCD vs DVD quality

[patyoda]

Hi guys, I know a lot of you are experienced in burning DVDs to VCD and DVD and I was just wondering how much worse is VCD quality than DVD. I hear audio quality isn't nearly as good on VCD and you can't get 5.1 sound? Also, is the decrease in picture quality highly noticeable?

Thanks in advance!

[Droppyale]

I've made a lot of DVD to DVDR copies, but never DVD to VCD....

this site might help you.

www.dvdrhelp.com

lots of usefull guides and articles.

[DanU]

The loss of picture quality depends on how good your TV is. On a cheap little TV, you probably won't notice much of a difference. On a big screen HDTV, the picture quality is worlds apart. That's not to say that VCDs are bad. They compare favorably to VHS tapes.

[patyoda]

Thanks guys, I had no idea the TV size had anything to do with it. Any word on sound quality?

[Ruler2112]

A VCD has a single standard MP2 sound, whereas a DVD can have multiple sound tracks and be encoded differently. (DTS is IMO better, but dolby digital is another.)

[muno]

VCD quality is horrible, you don't want to convert to that. SVCD doesn't produce much larger files but has far superior sound/video quality.

Check the link dropylae gave, it has some excellent info.
-M

[kpnet]

VCD is actually worse quality than VHS, although it will last longer.

[Ruler2112]

I've encoded some TV shows as VCD and some as SVCD and the SVCD ones are about twice as big as the VCD. Am I doing something wrong? (All the documentation I've seen indicates something similar.)

[muno]

Check here
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/vcd

browse down for 'video file comparison'.

If you set the bitrate correctly, the file won't be much larger.
-M

[PSU2Fan]

muno is right on, if your hardware will support svcds, then take a look at www.dvd2svcd.org
the quality is MUCH better than vcd