Video CD is a very popular format in Asia, and has almost replaced VCR's as the standard medium for home entertainment. Video CD or VCD is a standard Mpeg 1 format, in which 70 minutes of Video can be fit onto a standard CD. This is basically the predessor to DVD.
Video Cd's can be played on any Video CD player, or a DVD player with Video CD support, However not ALL Models of VCD/DVD Players can play CD-R Media (Our site trades most movies on CD-R Media). Sony S3000 and S7000 DVD Players as well as Pioneer DV-414 can play CD-R Media Video CD's, no problems. Please ensure you get a player that is compatible with CD-R Media as well as Video CD. CD-R Media seems only to be a problem with lower-end or first generation DVD players. New players coming out today have a dual-beam system, and have no trouble reading CD-R Media, but you may want to consult your manual if you have a player that is not listed above. This applies to Standalone players ONLY.

The following Players have been tested for CD-R Compatibility:

APEX AD600A - OK
Panasonic A100 - FAILED
Panasonic A110 - FAILED
Panasonic A300 - FAILED
Panasonic A330 - FAILED
Pioneer 515 - OK
Pioneer 717 - OK
Pioneer 414 - OK
Philips 170 - OK
Raite AVPhile 702 - OK
Sony DVP-3000 - OK
Sony DVP-7000 - OK
Sony DVP-7700 - OK
Sony DVP-315 - OK
Sony DVP-715 - OK
Toshiba 3109 - FAILED

Full Compatibility List Here - Courtesy of VCDhelp.com

* Remeber all CDR-VCDS on this site will play on a computer with a CD-ROM

Which DVD players can also play Video CDs?

From the DVD FAQ:

Panasonic, RCA, Samsung, and Sony models play Video CDs. Toshiba players don't play Video CDs.

If you want to buy a DVD player and be able to watch Hong Kong VCDs on it, be careful. There's two TV standards, NTSC and PAL; NTSC is used in North America, PAL is used in Hong Kong. Hong Kong VCDs are sometimes encoded in PAL format and sometimes in NTSC format -- people in Hong Kong usually have dual-standard TVs.

VCD resolution is 352x288 for PAL and 352x240 for NTSC. Video CD players can handle the PAL-to-NTSC conversion, but most DVD players cannot. If you play a PAL VCD on a Panasonic or RCA DVD player, it will cut off the entire 48 lines off the bottom of the image, which is enough to cut off the subtitles for a Hong Kong movie.

If you play a PAL VCD on the Sony 7000 DVD player, it will cut some lines off the top of the image and some off the bottom (presumably 24 each). This is somewhat better, since the subtitles probably won't be cut off if the movie is letterboxed, but it still doesn't do the PAL-to-NTSC conversion that most VCD players will do. From John Charles:

It varies from disc to disc. Non-scope films usually don't look too bad but the squeezing lops off the top and bottom of the picture, and can wipe out the English subs completely (like on CASINO TYCOON II and THE KIDNAP OF WONG CHAK-FAI) or almost completely (QUEEN OF GAMBLE, DANCING BULL). The Mei Ah version of PROJECT A (a scope film) is so incredibly squeezed, it looks ridiculous; PROJECT A II is a little better.

The PAL/NTSC problem isn't an issue on PCs: the PC just displays the whole thing.

How can I play it on my computer?

You have two choices.

If you have a fast PC (at least Pentium 120), a CD-ROM drive, and a good video card, you can use a software-only MPEG decoder. There are three that I know of:

Microsoft Media Player (Free). http://www.microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer/

XingMPEG, $29, from Xing Technology. http://www.xingtech.com

PowerVCD Player. http://www.cyberlink.com.tw/english_version/Products/VCD_PowerPlayer.htm SoftPEG, $30, from CompCore Multimedia, now part of Zoran.

ActiveMovie, free with Internet Explorer, from Microsoft.

* once you install any MPEG decoder (ie. Xing) you can use Active Movie/Windows Media Player, and from what I've seen, Active movie gives a better performace.

Your second choice is to get an add-on hardware MPEG decoder for your video card. I haven't done this, so I don't have much information about this option, but apparently it'll work well even on a 486.

* Many parts taken from the DVD FAQ and the VCD Faq *