Michael Lyon wrote:
> 
> VCD's are Video CD's, the files are .mpg video's with lot's of
> compression and the quality of the video isn't so great and rather
> pixally.  But they are very common in China and Japan and cheap.

Uhmm... No... NOT very common in Japan, for anime... for "junk" type
adult video, or remake version of adult video, it's becomming more
common (but not yet that big...) It's more common in coutries which
specializes in piracy and copy right violation (uhmm... not pointing out
any specific coutry... but most of you can take a guess, I assume).

The retail price for the OFFICIAL copies of a VCD is outrageously high
in comparison to it's quality, unless, except, of course, that is, you
buy 1)pirate, or 2)"junk" type VCD. For anime, unless it's pirate, or
purely for kids, don't exepect to find anything cheap (not to mention,
it's hard to find one anyway)

The quality is much lower then even a normal class VHS...

The only reasons why you'd want to get VCD might be
1)you hate VHS, and hi8, since they take up space (CDs are thin.....)

2)you're blind, so you don't care about quality, and you don't care
about sound  quality either

3)You like the shiny silver color coating of a CD....

4)You want to drive Animation out of business (this is since most, or
all Japanese animation is first released in LD/DVVD, etc... VCD formats
are usually done when licenced out to second part, etc. so doesn't bring
as much $$$ to the original anime creators... (gee, they are
starving...?)), or LD/DVD/tapes makers out of business, or retaliers out
of business....

5)you're broke, and you love to be a criminal by buying a pirate VCD

6)you also want to use all your anime as a frezbee (sp?) as well as a
VCD....

7)you never heard of LDs or DVDs, or tapes....

8)you love to spend hours and days looking for an anime VCD, just to
find out they don't have an official one exsisting.... (true only in
Japan. Go to HKG, or Taipei and you can find tons of pirate, at the
right part of town... HKG gov. seems to be raiding tons of stores now...
^_^;;;)

9)you love how the image quality is deteriorates amazingly, as soon as
they put out the subtitle... (for example... the official ah!
megami-sama VCD out in Chinese, the quality is acceptable as a VCD when
it's playing the OP, etc... but as soon as the characters starts to
talk, and they put the Chinese subtitle, the quality of the picture
suddenly drops.... (gee... what kind of technology do they use? ^_^;;;)
This becomes really apparent when playing the VCD on a large projector
TV, in a multi-disk player.... on a PC, you'd need a large screen
(maybe) to sense this... if you live with like a small 15 inch monitor,
maybe you won't feel anything... then again, your Belldandy will be
smaller then a garage kit size belldandy (LOL)
(Note. The AMG VCD (official Chinese re-release) comes in a box, doesn't
it? The design looked OK)

10)You can't speak/understand Japanese, and the only official translated
thing out in your language is a VCD.... (gee, this would suck.... no
other choice but to buy the trash quality VCD....)

Kenji Shimizu