SuperVCD in detail

This article will give some technical detail about the Super VideoCD.

1. History

In the western world VideoCD was completely pushed from the market by the DVD. This was not the case in China. Reason for that is that DVD is a patented technology and the Chinese government did not like the idea that a lot of money would flow out of the country for DVD's and DVD equipment. So they embraced the VideoCD and even stimulated the China Recording Standards Committee to further develop it to a format with a higher quality and so the SuperVCD was born.

2. The Standard

SVCD is not (yet) an official IEC standard. However, in the table below, the most important characteristics of the SVCD "standard" are given.

Some features that are not available in the VCD standard but are in SVCD:

• variable bitrate, enabling a better size/quality compromise
• interlaced vs. progressive
• dual audio, enabling two different selectable languages
• Multi-Channel 5.1 surround audio
• up to four different selectable subtitles

3. Disc structure

Typical SVCD's with maximum quality is around 35-45 minutes. Browsing a SVCD you will see roughly the same folders as on a VideoCD:

You can actually view the movies and stills by opening the AVSEQxx.DAT and ITEMxxxx.DAT files in a media player.

Furthermore the root of an SVCD can contain an autoplay file,

4. Compatibility

A Super VideoCD can be played on the following devices:

• Special (S)VCD players, mostly found in the far east
• DVD players with SVCD capability
• CD/DVD drives in PC's using a software player with an MPEG-2 decoder installed