One of the very few things I managed to get away with in getting my school’s IT department to give me all the resources I needed to do whatever I wanted was making a box set of VCDs with written and photographic evidence of the process. MPEG-1 is such an evil codec in today’s context. As a result, it may have kickstarted my current adventures in disc authoring- bringing me to making Blu-rays and 4K discs today! Interesting work, especially how obscure this format is.
Thanks, i appreciate it! I've been trying to find out how a lot of things like this work, it really feels like unearthing treasure when I finally get it running. I'm on the lookout for more add-ons, so please let me know if there's one in particular you'd like me to look at
It's funny, a few people got in touch to say that while the dongle existed, dreamcast supported vcd by itself? I'm gonna have to find one and take a look, there must be more to it than just a remote, and I'm really curious about it
I appreciate the update, the other guy I spoke to was pretty insistent about his but I'm skeptical. I wonder if it was a)modded, b) a weird regional thing i haven't come across yet, c) the adapter card for dreamcast, or d) shining me on. I don't actually have dreamcast yet, I'd really like to give it a whirl, especially for VCD playback
@OfficialSoundtracker my Dreamcast was modded, I think. I don't own a legitimate Dreamcast game at all. Sega Saturn played vcd though. There's no region locking on VCD's
The Dreamcast couldn’t play VCDs in its stock configuration, but it there was third party software to do so. The MPEG Sofdec codec which was the standard video library for DC is MPEG1 based with high resolution support and ADPCM derived audio so it’s no surprise the DC can decode MPEG in software with ease. The VCD hardware basically added a remote control iirc.
I'm from Indonesia and i can confirm that video CDs were the norm back in the day besides VHS cause they were cheaper and easier to produce. Also my memory is vague but i might had seen this accessory before when i was a kid.
Back in 1998 I saw a VCD card for PS1, so I was WOW that's cool! So I got the VCD card then I got PS1. My VCD card looked different, it was same size as Gameshark, but worked the same as yours. I sold it many years ago, but I just got it a month ago same as yours. I still have a big collection of VCDs, mostly Hong Kong movies.
I have one of these myself, but it says TOP VIEW on it rather than Sony Movie Card. I did a video on it, too. It's a rare piece of unlicensed PSX hardware. So awesome!
Just watched your video, you have quite a collection! The blue (teal?) dev Playstation i am curious about for sure, as for the card I have (aside from the vcd only card in this video) the Gamars card as well which is also similar in having the game shark abilities. I'd love to see that side of it as well!
@OfficialSoundtracker Oh nice, you also have the Gamars card, I think I came across it once or twice back in the day. Wish I would've bought it now. The PSX debugger unit is like a Net Yaroze, which I wish I owned. Only it boots CD-R backup games, too, without modification. I did a video on it as well. I also have a PS2 debug unit and a PS3 one. I did videos on them too.
Bought my adapter 24 years ago from Singapore airport during a flight changeover. Saw it while walking past, went in and had to have it. Still in the loft.
I wish the original Playstation had ram expansion module just like the Sega Saturn and even the Nintendo 64. That would plug into the I/O port on the back.
Agree. VCD was very popular in Asia and Middle East but not in the west like Australia, UK, USA etc. The spring trick for swapping the disc on startup was also used with those PS Harck cartridges that also connected to the serial port and allowed you to play backup/burned games. As well as add cheats to you games like a gameshark.
@@MattMcCarty1 thanks, I appreciate it! I wonder if that was to get around the wobble groove copy protection, if you swap out the disc fast enough the Playstation will mistake a copied disc for a legit one if you try to start a legit one first. It requires some slight of hand but it's doable
I’ve got a pretty good collection of VCD’s. Like a whole box full. They’re for my Sega Saturn. I use a CRT monitor and a Shinybow scart to component adapter to make the colors pop. When I play 3D games I switch back to composite so the mesh textures are dithered and transparent.
CED Laserdisc/Muse VideoCD DVD VHD VHS BETA Cartrivision U-Matic Its was overload in the 90s. The fact that the players were unreliable pretty much means (example format here) lost the war to (successful rival here). If you were lucky, you worked in a TV studio with all the cool gadgets to read all these crazy formats, and no one ever believed your story about HD being on Laserdisc.
I only had a CD burner so I made a lot of vcd movies to watch in the DVD player. It was annoying changing the disc halfway through but it was still cool.
There would have been MORE vcd sales, sure........ but not by much. Markets where the format made sense had already adopted it and in the parts of the world where VHS dominated already most people would not want to buy into an inferior technology just because it was newer. Add DVD coming to market into the mix and it is clear to see why VCD didn’t penetrate these markets. On the topic of DVD, while Sony’s DVD player DID increase sales of the format this does not negate the fact that DVD was basically destined to become the new default media format. In a similar manner to THAT even if the ps3 didnt support blu ray playback the format was still more likely than HD-DVD to be adopted as the HD movie format. (Good thing too HD-DVDs are inferior in basically every way and are a massive pain to even use as they die if you look at them RIGHT let alone WRONG.)
VCDs were prominent in South East Asia. The pirated VCDs were rampant because they are easy and fast to duplicate, cheap as heck to get and you get the latest movies the same month it was shown in cinema (cam vid quality of course). Note that this is during the time when Streaming video on videos were really unheard of yet and not everyone have internet to begin with. VCD players were also so cheap and easy to get that I don't think any gamers thought of buying this VCD decoder for PS1. So when the pirate vendors selling a bunch of VCDs for as low as a dollar plus for one movie or less than 3 dollars for a 3 latest movies of your choice, you can see why people don't mind watching lower quality movie with VCDs.
@OfficialSoundtracker oh, I bought quite a few and rarely burnt any from rentals. They were pretty cheap back in the day. My copy of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is in great condition. Even kept the Toys R Us coupon for some reason.
There was an in-between format that was perhaps more widespread in popularity(but presumably much lower in quantity), but for home burnt disks - SVCD / Super VideoCD. It just used the same mpeg-2 encoding as DVDs(and plays on most if not all DVD players), and started shortly after DVD released. People could burn them on relatively cheap CD burners and disks, until DVD burners became cheap enough. There were some cool devices that worked in a somewhat similar way. I had a unit that also plugged into the IO Port unit, but instead of playing CDs, it played....Gameboy cartridges, and even supported "Super Gameboy" games that added some colour to what would normally just be monochrome. It also allowed you to pick any colours you liked to replace any shade in the game. There was no audio, but it did make up for that in a clever way, by letting you play an audio cd in the playstation at the same time.
It's true, I bought some burning software to mess around with it recently, SVCD is pretty interesting as well. I think it is less common because while the quality is better, the higher MPEG2 data rate means it can only store about 30 mins of video, so I think people were choosing run time over quality with regular vcd. Wonder what it would be like to own a tv series where every episode had its own disc. I've seen that card on ebay as well, the gameboy adapter? I'd love to find one, I didn't know it had the audio limitation? Did it have a menu system too or just fire right up?
@@OfficialSoundtracker I'm only going from memory, but I think you could also encode SVCD still using mpeg2 but with a lower bitrate to fit a decent amount of time on one CD. I'm pretty sure there's free software that can make an SVCD/the files to burn for an SVCD. Yep, the gameboy adaptor has a menu. The one I had at least was sold as a "Game Booster", but there's at least 2 brands/labels they were sold under. There's some videos on youtube about them. If you find one, I have some old additional instructions that may be somewhat helpful. Mine randomly died a long time ago(could've just been something simple though), so I don't know how many are in working condition.
I own vcd capable playstation, saturn, 3do and cdi systems. Sega Saturn has the best experience as it supports more features such ad vcd 2.0 features that the others lack.
I've been curious about the other systems that support it, I've also heard some thing about games for the saturn that required the same card to operate in photo CD mode? I'm also surprised Saturn uses PBC, I haven't seen many consoles do that or digest mode
I own the MPEG-1 decoder for the SEGA Saturn. Very first film i bought was a Singapore release of the Disney Atlantis movie. (Still disappointed that i cant get that film on Laservision)
when i was in the U.S. Navy back in 1999 we pulled into Jebul-Ali , Bahrain and Dubai. each port sold these Playstation 1s with that similar attachment permanently secured to the rear. I bought one and tons and tons of bootleg ps1 games. It all worked out just fine and my game collection was giant! movie quality even on CRTs still looked like crap. similar to Laser Disc. sounds cool, but quality was kinda horrible. VHS is a better video format than Laser Disc.
I have a "Doctor V64" from Bung Enterprises. It's an add-on drive for the N64, attaching to the bottom of the system, and it is bananas. It can also play VCDs. You think playing a VCD is strange on a PS1, try playing it on an N64.
I seriously doubt VCD would have taken off in the USA even if the PlayStation could play them. There was no advantage over VHS. Plus VHS could record and VCD came out too late.. VCDs came out in 1993 and VHS had already overtaken Beta at the time... Even if the VCD format did take off in the USA, it would have been very short lived because DVD was right around the corner.
I bought the Gamars version in Thailand in '99. Besides VCD playback it has a cheat engine compatible with Gameshark and I think another format with a library of built in cheats and the ability to save more. It also has a disc viewer that will display pictures and play back video and audio from game discs. The video output is not as good as straight from the ps1, it's dark/weaker. It didn't come with a spring though my ps1 is modded so I'm not sure if one is needed or not or if a unmodded ps1 would need to jump start with a legit disc.
Nice video thanks for sharing, VCD feels like the worst of all home media worlds, low quality low resolution digital video with multiple discs, a fun footnote in history for sure. Massive in asia due to Karaoke features, visiting thailand even during the mid 2000's. VCD was still everywhere!
I think they were also popular in Asia due to high humidity not being very friendly with VHS tapes, and perhaps as bootlegs were easy/cheap. They really weren't that bad though, the only real issue was swapping disks. The video quality was at least similar to VHS on a CRT(a small one at least), and there was no image quality loss with repeated plays etc. Also take up a lot smaller space, and could be filed in the same cabinets as made for audio CDs.
It's funny, for every reason I may have found to dislike it (low video quality, swapping discs) there were also a lot of different ways I found respect for what was created (pbc, digest mode, photo slide shows, karaoke) there was a lot that I found intriguing about it. What is the latest disc you've run across? I found one from about 2016 recently
The original PSX has a few add-ons. This movie card, the game enhancer, the PS-X-change boot CD, the breaker pro boot CD, the GameShark, and the ever so elusive FAR (front action replay). There also might be 1 or 2 more I'm not thinking of right now.
One of the very few things I managed to get away with in getting my school’s IT department to give me all the resources I needed to do whatever I wanted was making a box set of VCDs with written and photographic evidence of the process. MPEG-1 is such an evil codec in today’s context. As a result, it may have kickstarted my current adventures in disc authoring- bringing me to making Blu-rays and 4K discs today! Interesting work, especially how obscure this format is.
I'm so happy to finally see a video about these weird addons! They're just so obscure that there's little to no info online on how they work.
Thanks, i appreciate it! I've been trying to find out how a lot of things like this work, it really feels like unearthing treasure when I finally get it running. I'm on the lookout for more add-ons, so please let me know if there's one in particular you'd like me to look at
@@OfficialSoundtrackerI have had one of these for the better part of 20 years. I know all about it. If you have questions, I have answers.
IIRC, there was a dongle for the Dreamcast in much the same way as this device, it was popular in Asia as VCD's were extremely common there.
It's funny, a few people got in touch to say that while the dongle existed, dreamcast supported vcd by itself? I'm gonna have to find one and take a look, there must be more to it than just a remote, and I'm really curious about it
@@OfficialSoundtrackerI don't think the Dreamcast supports vcd. Tried it myself
I appreciate the update, the other guy I spoke to was pretty insistent about his but I'm skeptical. I wonder if it was a)modded, b) a weird regional thing i haven't come across yet, c) the adapter card for dreamcast, or d) shining me on. I don't actually have dreamcast yet, I'd really like to give it a whirl, especially for VCD playback
@OfficialSoundtracker my Dreamcast was modded, I think. I don't own a legitimate Dreamcast game at all. Sega Saturn played vcd though. There's no region locking on VCD's
The Dreamcast couldn’t play VCDs in its stock configuration, but it there was third party software to do so. The MPEG Sofdec codec which was the standard video library for DC is MPEG1 based with high resolution support and ADPCM derived audio so it’s no surprise the DC can decode MPEG in software with ease.
The VCD hardware basically added a remote control iirc.
This reminds me of that HD-DVD add on made for the Xbox 360 to show Microsoft's support of the format during the format war between that and Blu-ray.
I'm from Indonesia and i can confirm that video CDs were the norm back in the day besides VHS cause they were cheaper and easier to produce. Also my memory is vague but i might had seen this accessory before when i was a kid.
7:24 in japan (and probably the rest of asia), circle selects instead of cross.
Back in 1998 I saw a VCD card for PS1, so I was WOW that's cool! So I got the VCD card then I got PS1. My VCD card looked different, it was same size as Gameshark, but worked the same as yours. I sold it many years ago, but I just got it a month ago same as yours.
I still have a big collection of VCDs, mostly Hong Kong movies.
Don't sell again 😁
I have one of these myself, but it says TOP VIEW on it rather than Sony Movie Card. I did a video on it, too. It's a rare piece of unlicensed PSX hardware. So awesome!
Just watched your video, you have quite a collection! The blue (teal?) dev Playstation i am curious about for sure, as for the card I have (aside from the vcd only card in this video) the Gamars card as well which is also similar in having the game shark abilities. I'd love to see that side of it as well!
@OfficialSoundtracker Oh nice, you also have the Gamars card, I think I came across it once or twice back in the day. Wish I would've bought it now.
The PSX debugger unit is like a Net Yaroze, which I wish I owned. Only it boots CD-R backup games, too, without modification. I did a video on it as well. I also have a PS2 debug unit and a PS3 one. I did videos on them too.
Bought my adapter 24 years ago from Singapore airport during a flight changeover. Saw it while walking past, went in and had to have it.
Still in the loft.
I wish the original Playstation had ram expansion module just like the Sega Saturn and even the Nintendo 64. That would plug into the I/O port on the back.
Agree. VCD was very popular in Asia and Middle East but not in the west like Australia, UK, USA etc. The spring trick for swapping the disc on startup was also used with those PS Harck cartridges that also connected to the serial port and allowed you to play backup/burned games. As well as add cheats to you games like a gameshark.
Great video. I had no idea that accessory existed. I remember a friend having a spring in his Playstation to play Dragon Ball GT from Japan.
@@MattMcCarty1 thanks, I appreciate it! I wonder if that was to get around the wobble groove copy protection, if you swap out the disc fast enough the Playstation will mistake a copied disc for a legit one if you try to start a legit one first. It requires some slight of hand but it's doable
10:20 VCDs were huge in the US in the warez scene... but that was mostly in the early 2000s and i dont know when this hardware released.
I’ve got a pretty good collection of VCD’s. Like a whole box full. They’re for my Sega Saturn. I use a CRT monitor and a Shinybow scart to component adapter to make the colors pop. When I play 3D games I switch back to composite so the mesh textures are dithered and transparent.
This was a fun informative video and well put together so i have subscribed.
Thanks, I appreciate it!
CED Laserdisc/Muse VideoCD DVD VHD VHS BETA Cartrivision U-Matic
Its was overload in the 90s. The fact that the players were unreliable pretty much means (example format here) lost the war to (successful rival here).
If you were lucky, you worked in a TV studio with all the cool gadgets to read all these crazy formats, and no one ever believed your story about HD being on Laserdisc.
I used to have that add-on. A must if your family was from Asian regions and we bought bootleg VCDs off a street vendor in the 90s.
Wasn't long ago I found Video CDs were even a thing. In the UK we just went directly from VHS to DVD for video. Afaik VCD never existed here.
Damn that's pretty cool I had no idea!
Thanks, i appreciate it! I had a lot of fun with this one
I knew about these addons but never saw enough info about them. Wouldn't mind having one since I got some VCDs from childhood
finally, i know what video cd is now
about 4:33 there are internal Movie card that has it own bios and you can choice vcd or gaming or others
great informative video. I love the psx
I only had a CD burner so I made a lot of vcd movies to watch in the DVD player. It was annoying changing the disc halfway through but it was still cool.
We had a vcd player since 1997. We have over 300 discs
If sony had kept it in, there would have been way more vcd sales, the same way ps2 did for dvd and ps3 for bluray winning format war.
There would have been MORE vcd sales, sure........ but not by much. Markets where the format made sense had already adopted it and in the parts of the world where VHS dominated already most people would not want to buy into an inferior technology just because it was newer. Add DVD coming to market into the mix and it is clear to see why VCD didn’t penetrate these markets.
On the topic of DVD, while Sony’s DVD player DID increase sales of the format this does not negate the fact that DVD was basically destined to become the new default media format.
In a similar manner to THAT even if the ps3 didnt support blu ray playback the format was still more likely than HD-DVD to be adopted as the HD movie format. (Good thing too HD-DVDs are inferior in basically every way and are a massive pain to even use as they die if you look at them RIGHT let alone WRONG.)
A lot of disney movies games use cutscenes from the movies in their ps1 games: Hercules, Tarazn, Emperors New groove, and Atlantis
1:17 seeing an Indonesia sub was really surprising coming from an Indonesian myself.
VCDs were prominent in South East Asia. The pirated VCDs were rampant because they are easy and fast to duplicate, cheap as heck to get and you get the latest movies the same month it was shown in cinema (cam vid quality of course). Note that this is during the time when Streaming video on videos were really unheard of yet and not everyone have internet to begin with. VCD players were also so cheap and easy to get that I don't think any gamers thought of buying this VCD decoder for PS1.
So when the pirate vendors selling a bunch of VCDs for as low as a dollar plus for one movie or less than 3 dollars for a 3 latest movies of your choice, you can see why people don't mind watching lower quality movie with VCDs.
Omg...I had something like that when I owned a PS1. I had a huge vcd collection back in the day.
That's awesome! I'm curious did you burn your own as well or stick to the video shop?
@OfficialSoundtracker oh, I bought quite a few and rarely burnt any from rentals. They were pretty cheap back in the day. My copy of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is in great condition. Even kept the Toys R Us coupon for some reason.
There was an in-between format that was perhaps more widespread in popularity(but presumably much lower in quantity), but for home burnt disks - SVCD / Super VideoCD. It just used the same mpeg-2 encoding as DVDs(and plays on most if not all DVD players), and started shortly after DVD released. People could burn them on relatively cheap CD burners and disks, until DVD burners became cheap enough.
There were some cool devices that worked in a somewhat similar way. I had a unit that also plugged into the IO Port unit, but instead of playing CDs, it played....Gameboy cartridges, and even supported "Super Gameboy" games that added some colour to what would normally just be monochrome. It also allowed you to pick any colours you liked to replace any shade in the game. There was no audio, but it did make up for that in a clever way, by letting you play an audio cd in the playstation at the same time.
It's true, I bought some burning software to mess around with it recently, SVCD is pretty interesting as well. I think it is less common because while the quality is better, the higher MPEG2 data rate means it can only store about 30 mins of video, so I think people were choosing run time over quality with regular vcd. Wonder what it would be like to own a tv series where every episode had its own disc.
I've seen that card on ebay as well, the gameboy adapter? I'd love to find one, I didn't know it had the audio limitation? Did it have a menu system too or just fire right up?
@@OfficialSoundtracker I'm only going from memory, but I think you could also encode SVCD still using mpeg2 but with a lower bitrate to fit a decent amount of time on one CD. I'm pretty sure there's free software that can make an SVCD/the files to burn for an SVCD.
Yep, the gameboy adaptor has a menu. The one I had at least was sold as a "Game Booster", but there's at least 2 brands/labels they were sold under. There's some videos on youtube about them. If you find one, I have some old additional instructions that may be somewhat helpful. Mine randomly died a long time ago(could've just been something simple though), so I don't know how many are in working condition.
@@OfficialSoundtracker
>bought some burning software
why lmao just use k3b or brasero or smthing
I own vcd capable playstation, saturn, 3do and cdi systems. Sega Saturn has the best experience as it supports more features such ad vcd 2.0 features that the others lack.
I've been curious about the other systems that support it, I've also heard some thing about games for the saturn that required the same card to operate in photo CD mode? I'm also surprised Saturn uses PBC, I haven't seen many consoles do that or digest mode
I didn't know the PS1 had accessories like that. 😮
It's not an official Sony product. It's unlicensed hardware like the Game Enhancers and Gold Fingers.
I have a "gamars" v3
it wasn't needed the step of the original ps1 disc, just flip the switch to vcd and started palying!
I own the MPEG-1 decoder for the SEGA Saturn.
Very first film i bought was a Singapore release of the Disney Atlantis movie.
(Still disappointed that i cant get that film on Laservision)
when i was in the U.S. Navy back in 1999 we pulled into Jebul-Ali , Bahrain and Dubai. each port sold these Playstation 1s with that similar attachment permanently secured to the rear. I bought one and tons and tons of bootleg ps1 games. It all worked out just fine and my game collection was giant! movie quality even on CRTs still looked like crap. similar to Laser Disc. sounds cool, but quality was kinda horrible. VHS is a better video format than Laser Disc.
I have a "Doctor V64" from Bung Enterprises. It's an add-on drive for the N64, attaching to the bottom of the system, and it is bananas. It can also play VCDs. You think playing a VCD is strange on a PS1, try playing it on an N64.
I had no idea video CDs existed
I need to find the Digital Video cartridge for my CDi haha
I seriously doubt VCD would have taken off in the USA even if the PlayStation could play them. There was no advantage over VHS. Plus VHS could record and VCD came out too late.. VCDs came out in 1993 and VHS had already overtaken Beta at the time... Even if the VCD format did take off in the USA, it would have been very short lived because DVD was right around the corner.
I bought the Gamars version in Thailand in '99. Besides VCD playback it has a cheat engine compatible with Gameshark and I think another format with a library of built in cheats and the ability to save more. It also has a disc viewer that will display pictures and play back video and audio from game discs. The video output is not as good as straight from the ps1, it's dark/weaker. It didn't come with a spring though my ps1 is modded so I'm not sure if one is needed or not or if a unmodded ps1 would need to jump start with a legit disc.
5:23 that's the same TV I have sitting in front of me
i had a Japan import ps3 and circle was the default button on all games 😩
I like how bro has a Thai version of lord of the rings
Hey you could improve this there’s a debug command to unlock the drive; without needing an offical disc!
Nice video thanks for sharing, VCD feels like the worst of all home media worlds, low quality low resolution digital video with multiple discs, a fun footnote in history for sure. Massive in asia due to Karaoke features, visiting thailand even during the mid 2000's. VCD was still everywhere!
I think they were also popular in Asia due to high humidity not being very friendly with VHS tapes, and perhaps as bootlegs were easy/cheap.
They really weren't that bad though, the only real issue was swapping disks. The video quality was at least similar to VHS on a CRT(a small one at least), and there was no image quality loss with repeated plays etc. Also take up a lot smaller space, and could be filed in the same cabinets as made for audio CDs.
It's funny, for every reason I may have found to dislike it (low video quality, swapping discs) there were also a lot of different ways I found respect for what was created (pbc, digest mode, photo slide shows, karaoke) there was a lot that I found intriguing about it. What is the latest disc you've run across? I found one from about 2016 recently
im from new zealand and own like 60 vcd movies
Hey, how come when I use newer CDs, my PlayStation won’t read them? Older CDs work just fine
1:16 Malay subtitles
Persona 3 portable is my favorite persona game which one is yours, i haven't played one or the two versions on 2 before.
can you run pirate game with this what happened if you put a burned game in it because its just the swap methods with extra steps
Wait... Indonesian Subtitle?
Say what???? Is this actually original?????
HOW?!!
Good video trchnically. Useless product.
I didn't know the PS1 had accessories like that. 😮
It's pretty prolific accessories-wise, I've run across a lot of parallel port items and I'm hoping to take a look at more of them
The original PSX has a few add-ons. This movie card, the game enhancer, the PS-X-change boot CD, the breaker pro boot CD, the GameShark, and the ever so elusive FAR (front action replay). There also might be 1 or 2 more I'm not thinking of right now.