VCD Players?

where can i get one new?
How much will it cost?
Can they play cd-i's?
Why are they mainly used in the far east?
Where can you buy LEGAL VCD Discs?
Is the quality better than VHS? (but poorer than dvd)
Can you have menus's/chapters etc?
Can you have subtitles?

Thanks for any help

i cant answer most of those however i heard the reason they are so popular in the far east is because the climate over there is different to ours and the VHS tapes degrade very quickly, so VCD's store a lot better than tapes.

As Exulus says the VCD format only gained acceptance in the far east as a substitute for VHS, it's a pathetic format compared to DVD and certainly no cheaper to buy the discs and or hardware for playback.
The majority of DVD players in the UK will playback both original and home made VCD disks anyway with chapters/menus etc but not sure about subtitles.
Quality is at best on par with VHS, I can make a VCD that looks pretty good but you need a top notch source and you will always be running up against the physical limits of the format both in terms of resolution and disk capacity.

As for the disks themselves do a Google search, it'll turn up many far east online stores that sell original and legal content plus some shady products

as long as ure source is really good, u can burn it as Svcd, its MPEG2 format and equal in quality as DVD.
but the draw back is it will only hold 50-60 minutes on a disk- also the bitrate can be altered.

do u really think u can get many legal vcd's, most of em are pirate movies

there are many many many legit vcd's for sale.

e.g http://coolvcd.com/

aha!

you can buy some VCD Players that are like portable CD Players, they have a remote contol and cost about £30, you see them at computer fairs etc!

i bought one of these portable vcd players it was a napa dav311 it plays vcds and mp3 as well as normal cds although i only bought it for its mp3 function but it didnt run well battery wise so i never use it ,i always used www.videocds.com to buy them from but like other people have said the quality is comparable to video.but it is watchable as i have the star wars trilogy on vcd and i watch it and you can only tell it is a vcd when there is a lot of action on the screen

does anyone know where i can buy the players (i allready have a DVD Player that can play VCD's)

but i want to give vcd's to my friends (legal vcd's - stuff i have camcordered)