VCD stands for 'Video Compact Disc' and basically it is a CD that contains moving pictures and sound. If you're familiar with regular audio/music CDs, then you will know what a VCD looks like. A VCD has the capacity to hold up to 74/80 minutes on 650MB/700MB CDs respectively of full-motion video along with quality stereo sound. VCDs use a compression standard called MPEG to store the video and audio. A VCD can be played on almost all standalone DVD Players and of course on all computers with a DVD-ROM or CD-ROM drive with the help of a software based decoder / player. It is also possible to use menus and chapters, similiar to DVDs, on a VCD and also simple photo album/slide shows with background audio. The quality of a very good VCD is about the same as a VHS tape based movie but VCD is usually a bit more blurry. If you want better quality checkout SVCD,CVD or DVD.
Just to give you an idea of what you can get into, a full length DVD, movie only, can take up about 4 or 5 CDs being transcoded in SVCD format. It depends on the quality and compression of the software in use. The more compression, the lower the quality. DivX is another option that can be recorded to CD and it fares better with compression. PCs with the DivXcodec and newer standalone players will support the format. Only the newer standalone players, and not all of them, support CDs. Until recently, standalone players only played DVD ROM, -R and +R formats. Until recently DVD RW wasn't a supported standalone format. I picked up a little Philips this past year that will play most anything round and shiny. Just be aware of the formats supported by the player(s) you have or intend to purchase. So, DVD is better with DVD DL being the best when it works right (no compression).
