VCD and DVD

[TKBowman at aol.com]

d-desser at uiuc.edu wrote:
> For anyone who has or is thinking of purchasing a DVD player:  
> DVD players will play VCDs.  The superiority of DVD over tape, 
> of course, makes purchase of this machine very desirable.  
> The fact that it plays VCDs was a happy discovery!

Just a small warning/note about playing Hong Kong VCDs on a DVD player. A
number of HK VCDs are mastered in the PAL format, not the US NTSC standard,
and will come out cropped when played on a US television with a DVD player.
Essentially the top and bottom of the image get chopped off to compensate for
the higher PAL resolution. Unfortunately the bottom portion that gets trimmed
often contains the English subtitles. I've heard that dedicated VCD players
will correct this problem and play the VCDs correctly.

I own 4 Japanese films on VCD and have only had a problem with one of them,
the film "Focus." My copies of "Swallowtail Butterfly," "Paradise Lost," and
"119: Quiet Days of Firemen" all play beautifully.

I would be very interested in seeing a complete list of all the Japanese film
released on VCD as most of the websites I've looked at either have a small
selection or make it difficult to browse just the Japanese titles. In addition
to the titles mentioned so far I've also heard that Naoto Takenaka's "Tokyo
Biyori," "The Jinkembo of Young Kindaichi," and the French film (but shot in
Japan and featuring Takeshi Kitano in a small part) "Tokyo Eyes" have recently
been released on VCD.

Todd
tkbowman at aol.com