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What is the quality of movies on the CD-i?...

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2012 9:43 pm
by dave4shmups
Compared to VHS and DVD?

Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2012 1:32 pm
by qw4tt0r
Somewhere between the both, better than VHS, worse than DVD. ;)

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 6:29 pm
by dave4shmups
qw4tt0r wrote:Somewhere between the both, better than VHS, worse than DVD. ;)
Gotcha; thanks! :D

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2012 11:48 am
by revvin
I never thought the video quality was very good, and depending on how well it was encoded, its where i first started using the term "mpeggy"... my own description of the noise / blocks that appear on early mpeg digital video.

But it was the first video format to introduce Digital Audio to the home consumer. I think it stopped short at Dolby Pro Logic, but the sound quality was infinitely superior to VHS at the time. :)

Format - Vertical Lines x Horizontal Lines

NTSC TV - 640 x 480
NTSC VHS - 486 x 240
NTSC SVHS - 560 x 480
NTSC VCD - 352 x 240
NTSC DVD - 720 × 480

PAL TV - 768 x 576
PAL VHS - 576 x 240
PAL VCD - 352 x 288
PAL DVD - 720 × 576

I have pulled these from various sources, and because Analog lines doent translate into pixel resolution - it seems a bit confusing. I am not entirely sure how accurate these figures are - but it helps me demonstrate a fact I do know of...

In NTSC region, DVD took much longer to dominate the market and make VHS obsolete - because the difference was minimal over the most widely used S-VHS format.

S-VHS and NTSC-DVD have the same Horizontal resolution, but because DVD display is capped by the limited display of NTSC-TV, the diference between SVHS and DVD was only around 80 vertical lines.

In PAL (UK at least) region, the difference between the commonly used VHS format, and DVDs was HUGE visually. Not being capped by PAL-TV displays, the difference between PAL-VHS and PAL-DVD was a whopping 144 Vertical Lines AND 336 Horizontal lines!

Of course everything is digital now and these regional differences aren't really a factor anymore.

But it does explain why PAL DVD took over the market so quickly, whilst NTSC sales of DVD were years behind.

Sorry this is a little off topic - it kinda jumped into my brain and I wanted to share it! lol.

Back to the original question - firstly it depends on whether you are NTSC or PAL... if you are NTSC, DVD is better, VHS is marginally better video quality.

If you are PAL, DVD is MUCH better, VHS is marginally better video quality.

Sound quality of the CD-i will be MUCH better than VHS. It will be nearly as good as a DVD with just DD 2.0 Stereo, but of course nowhere near as good as any DVD with DD5.1 or greater.

Although... then you have to take into account what equipment you are using... if you are just playing it through your TV - it probably wont sound any different to DVD, and maybe sound clearer than VHS or SVHS.... but if you run it through a separate A/V Amplifier.....

sorry - thats really confused matters...

It all comes down to what region you are in, and what equipment you are using. :)

Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2012 6:38 pm
by Trev
Action films fare worse on vcd w/break up, artifacts, etc ... So quality also depends on the genre of movie.