Ass#6: VCD and DVD

                In the era of technology, we have to deal with a huge bunch of data every day. That makes the data storage become more significant. Optical disc is the most widely use storage. Among the optical disc storages VCD and DVD are the most popular. These two have the same shape and the same size but, of course, there are some differences. This article will discuss about three differences of VCD and DVD, which are price, capacity, and quality.

            The price is a major concern for people who want to buy the disc storage. The price of VCD and DVD is according to the brand of the disc, the place you buy and the amount of discs you buy at a time. VCD or DVD of Sony or Phillips may have ten times higher price when compared to the local brand like Princo or EasyWrite. Besides, if you buy them at a department store, they are more expensive than buying at an IT shop such as Pantip Plaza. Moreover, buying a bunch of discs at a time is cheaper than buying two or three discs. The shops provide a box of fifty discs for selling and if you preferred just a disc, no box, they will give you some discount! However, those are the similarities of the price of VCD and DVD, but if we compare between VCD and DVD which have the same brand and sold at the same shop, the price per disc of VCD is much lower. In Thailand, Princo VCD’s price is about 4 baht per disc but the Princo DVD’s price is 9 baht per disc. Even though 9 baht is not expensive at all but if you buy DVDs a lot, it can be a big amount of money.

            Capacity is another difference between VCD and DVD. At the beginning, VCD can store up to 800 MB of data per disc while DVD can store up to 4.7 GB of data per disc (1 GB is about 1000 MB). As time goes by VCD still has only one type which capacity is about 800 MB as I mentioned, by contrast, DVD has developed up to three types, single-sided single-layer, single-sided double-layer, and double-sided double-layer. These three types of DVDs can store up to 4.7 GB, 8.5 GB, and 17 GB of data respectively. Anyway, in term of capacity, DVD has bigger space to store the data.

            Furthermore, another difference to be considered is quality. If we compare a media disc such as song or movie disc, DVD has much better quality. Physically, it has clearer pictures and better sound because DVD has more bit rate than VCD. Moreover, DVD seems to have a longer life and more difficult to break. On the other hand, if we focus on just a data file such as a document file or power point, VCD and DVD represent an equal quality. However, the movie that is on VCD and DVD is not so differ, not many people realize that difference.

            In conclusion, even though VCD has lower price, it has a smaller market share while DVD has the biggest market share of optical disc storage. That is because the price of DVD is not so high and it has much higher quality and capacity. Anyway, in my opinion, it is okay if you use VCD for a data file or anything except media data like songs or video clips. In the case of media data, I prefer DVD.