How to look at VCD on computer

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VCD player and play a VCD on computer

Both ways could play the VCD

Inside a VCD player, you put in the disk and it will play by itself

On a computer, if a VCD player software has been installed. After inserting the VCD into a CD-ROM drive, it could also start playing

VCD file compression

VCD files are in MPEG-1 format while DVD files are in MPEG-2 format.

Data inside both of them are compressed, providing a feasible way of accommodation of huge amount of video data into a disk.

This is done by “throwing” away sight-insensitive details of the video files.

VCD file structure

Usually in a normal VCD disk, there are some directories:

Mpegav Cdi Vcd

Video files in VCD

Inside the VCD file structure, the ones that matter the video playing on computer are the DAT files inside the Mpegav directory

They are in Mpeg-1 video compression.

VCD player

There are a lot of VCD player software available in market. The most popular one is the “Xing MPEG player”.

Playing VCD on computer when no VCD player installed

If we don’t have VCD player installed on computer, it is still very easy to view a VCD - use the “Window Media Player” which automatically comes with the Windows system.

How to use the Windows Media Player?

Press “開始” , “程式集” , “附屬應用程式” , “多謀體” , “Windows Media Player”.

How to use the Windows Media Player?

Then open the file “Avseq01.dat” inside the Mpegav directory of the VCD disk and play.