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Using Video CDs For Education
Phil Shapiro writes: "Video CDs offer one of the lowest-cost ways of distributing training and instruction. They can be duplicated much faster than VHS videotapes, the media is much cheaper and the postage costs are much cheaper. Learn how and why we ought to be exploring the educational potential of this new media."
One great thing about VCD is that they work in standard DVD players (NTSC and PAL VCD discs only work in players for the respective formats, of course; a limitation not seen on computers). However, lots of older DVD players can't read CD-R media, because of an incompatibiliity with the DVD laser. Duplicated VCDs on normal CD media work just fine, of course. All DVD players in the market today should work, AFAIK.
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A good place to learn how to convert various media to burnable (S)VCD format can be found at http://www.vcdhelp.com
Regarding your comment on the price of VHS players VS DVD players. Here in the Philippines, where VCD is the standard distribution method for movies, you can buy standalone VCD players for around 1000PHP (about $20 US dollars) and they play VCDs, CDs, and mp3 CDs.
You should say "old medium." VCDs have been around for quite some time. The only reason they are new to you is because the MPAA prevented them from being used much in the US. At the same time, VCDs were very popular in Asia (where the piracy of organizations like the MPAA is less palatable) for most of the last decade.
However, I agree that this old medium has become cheaper and more advantageous for teaching than probably any other.
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Many people are posting on how DVDs are better than VCDs... while this may be true in some cases, in other ways they're the same thing
DVD = 4.7GB
CD = 650-700MB
(NTSC)
DVD = Mpeg2 video 720x480
VCD = Mpeg2 video 352x240 - 720x480 (xvcd)
Were really talking about storage capacity and video resolution as the main differences here.
My point being that a VCDs with educational content can be produced with DVD video quality, at a cheaper price and still maintain compatibility with standalone DVD players.
Our high school has a program called Real Science where some students volunteer to work on an interacive cd with movies on an area of science. The project is student run and is of fairly high quality.
I live in Singapore, and VCDs have already been widely used in schools to replace VHS tapes, for quite some time now. If I'm not wrong, VCDs and CD-ROMs have already been in use in schools here since about 5 years ago.
I suspect the reason why the US has not yet widely adopted VCDs is due to the large size of the country, hence the disability to change standards every once in a while, as compared to Asian countries. This is probably also why the handphone standards in US still lag behind Asian countries in general, which normally use the GSM digital standard.
A good development, nonetheless. At least VCDs don't have all the restrictions like region coding or encryption that DVDs suffer from. No RIAA or MPAA or whatever to try to reap profits from the education system.
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I didn't have to Google it. I lived it.
What you Googled is CD Video (CD-V), which happens to use a 12cm disc. This bastardized combination of PCM audio (20 minutes) and Laserdisc video (about 5 minutes) is a Pioneer creation that never really took hold.
Video CD is a very different thing. Video CD (White Book) was introduced in about 1992 by JVC and Sony (NOT Philips.)
Just to confuse things further, Philips also introduced a competing format called CD-i Video, which was playable only on CD-i players with a special expansion cartridge (although most Video CD players could find the MPEG program stream and muddle through.) CD-i is a considerably more powerful interactive format than even DVD, and because of this had some success in the education market. However, it's all but orphaned with no new players having been introduced in many years.
Both VCD and CD-i Video are based on ISO 11172. That standard was developed in '91 - early '92, heavily influenced by C-Cube and JVC.
JVC introduced the first Video CD product in early 1992 - a karaoke jukebox system for the Japanese market. Sony followed soon after with a home player.
During 1995-1996 the format really began to catch on in Asia as player prices dipped below $200, driven by low-cost A/V decoder chips from C-Cube and also by relatively low-cost encoders coming available from Sonic, FutureTel and others.
Now, as far as what format would be suitable for education, Video CD has a weak navigation system and only 352 x 240/288 resolution for video (stills are 720 x 480.) SVCD (Chaoji) improves both and adds two more audio channels, while retaining the cheap CD medium and low-cost authoring tools. DVD further improves presentation and of course offers more play time.
Speaking of DVD, DVD-R (General Media) blanks are getting cheap enough (maybe $6 now?) that the media cost isn't a significant a factor in short-run duplication when compared to production and post-production cost. In mid-volume production (1000-2000 discs), the DVD-CD cost difference becomes even less. Despite this, there is some sproadic interest in using DVD Video on CD media. The catch is, no standalone DVD player that I know of will support DVD-on-CD.
Bottom line, Video CD, SVCD and DVD are all worthy replacements for the VCR in education. They all are cheaper to own than videotape and have features that make them better presentation tools than tape. Even better, authoring systems (like Sonic's) tend to support all three disc formats, offering a range of choices depending on quality needed and available authoring skills.