Playing VCD on PC

[IztokT]

I'm think about future when I will have standalone DVD player, that is why I think of making VCD instead of DivX CDs. But how to play VCD on a computer? Is there any software?

Iztok

[setarip]

There's no need for any special software for playing VCDs (NOT SVCDs) on your PC.

Start the Windows Media Player. Then, from within Explorer, open the VCD's "MPEGAV" folder. Simply "drag and drop" the "AVSEQ01.DAT" file onto the Windows Media Player and it will automatically begin to play.

Let us know of your success ;>}

[EvoSx]

Well if you're going to buy a DVD in the future, you might want to consider one that will play SVCD.

The MPEG-2 (SVCD) format has better compression with higher resolution making the quality better than with MPEG-1 (VCD)

If you would want to view the SVCD movies on your computer, than you could use PowerDVD. But the movies would only play if you've burned them on a CD.

/Evo

[Enchanter]

This is the one thing that's really bugging me. My PC is incapable of playing certain VCDs. As Setarip pointed out (and as I have been doing so since long ago), I keep double-clicking on the .dat files in the MPEGAV folder, and WMP (both 6.4 & 7) refuse to play it, giving various reasons, from unable to find filter combination, incorrect function & need to restart to complete a downloaded component (which I don't recall ever doing). Manually copying the file to my HD or opening the file (on CD) using Virtualdub always end up in failure. However, the discs play without a glitch in my VCD (Not DVD) player.

How can this be? Is there a VCD player out there that can tackle VCDs better than WMP? Thanks a lot!

[Enchanter]

Here's more info from the back of the box:

VCD
Dolby Digital (Marketing Gimmicks, I suppose)
MPEG-2
Color (Of course)
NTSC/PAL (Can't really find out until I can see the framerate)

Bought the set in Singapore. Any clues now?

[abdul]

I might be completely off here but isn't MPEG-2 Svcd ?

Maybe this has something to do with it.

[Enchanter]

I might be completely off here but isn't MPEG-2 Svcd ?

Maybe, but the same VCD player can't play the SVCDs I created myself (Or maybe I just screwed up somewhere).
Is there a specific SVCD player I could use? I heard that WMP can't play SVCDs.

[setarip]

WinDVD...

[Enchanter]

Thanks. Will try that later.

By the way, can PowerDVD do likewise? That's what I've got installed for now anyway.

[Enchanter]

It works!!!

Now. Any idea how I can copy the .dat file into my HD? I can't extract them, even if the file is around 400MB or 750MB+ (Some cryptic and strange compression technology, huh?)

[setarip]

"Any idea how I can copy the .dat file into my HD? I can't extract them"

You're kidding around, aren't you?

Simply open two windows in Explorer - one for your hard drive and the other for your CD/DVD player. "Drag and drop" the "AVSEQ01.dat" (or similar) file onto your hard drive...

[Enchanter]

Kidding I'm not.

Everytime I try to copy the file into my HD, I keep getting this error: "Cannot Open [Filename] : The Paramater is Incorrect"

Other VCDs (The ones that play without a problem with WMP) do not give me this problem though.

[synchron]

I once had a problem similar to yours in which I would burn a VCD and then try to play the .DAT file in WMP or PowerDVD. I kept getting errors and nothing would play it. Trying to copy the dat to the hard drive via explorer also caused errors. I was able to get the Dat onto the harddrive via a program called Isobuster which you can get at

http://www.smart-projects.net/isobuster/

When I reformatted my 15GB drive and installed clean copies of both Win98 and XPPro, both OS's could now read these VCD's fine and I can play them in all players.

Synchron.

[Enchanter]

Thanks. Will try that later.

By the way, I still have this problem after quite a number of reinstallations of Win98SE and Win2K and lately, WinXP. Probably it's a setting somewhere...