Hi all,

Managed to get hold of a VCD to try with my AV5.

Managed to get into the CD Menu (after going through the service menu!) and have tried various combinations of PAL and NTSC and still can't get it to reconise the VCD.

Thought I check it wasn't the disc and stuck it in a DVD 1 and it worked fine!

The VCD is a Hong Kong / Macau (DVD - Region 3)one so is there a chance it's neither PAL (DVD - Region 2) or NTSC (DVD - Region 1)?

Cheers

GUY

Are you sure the AV5 plays VCDs? I thought it plays only audio CDs.

I have never come across a region locked VCD, so this is unlikely ot be the problem. CD players conform to "books" of various colours. If the AV5 CD player does not support the VCD book (I think that's the green one) it will not decode VCDs.

Mark

Well the AV5 was designed to be a CD-i player and I had the impression that Video CD is a subset of that, so it should work...

Do you have any suitable DVD player software on a computer? They usually tell more about the disc and might reveal if it is a region problem. On a PC, you might also try ISOBuster (most useful functions are free).

Hi all,

Quick update after doing some usrfing on this last night...

CDi - is Green Book Spec, VCD - is White Book Spec.

PAL vs NTSC is for different screen dimensions and fprs so technical as opposed to regional. Although the quality is only about half of DVD's!

VCD's don't have the region protection that DVD's do.

It looks like it should play the newer VCD's but this one doesn't want to know. Maybe I'll try getting a CDi (as opposed to this VCD) and try it.

Be good to see it in action at least!

Cheers

I think I should have just one real CD-i (Top Gun ) somewhere in the dungeons at the office... If I can find it without turning the whole place around, you're welcome to it!

I had a bunch of VCDs imported from Hong Kong when I had my AV5, and it worked great, (as great as VCDs can work ), so it seems odd that it won't play.

Hi all, update for everyone, MIKA very kindly sent me a CDi film and I've tried to play in on the AV5.

It accepts the disc format ok (it didn't on the VCD's) but when I try to play it it tells me a need a Digital Cartridge to play it??????

I can get past the warning to see the disc menus but when I try to play from there it comes up with the same message?

Any ideas?

Do I need to update the SW etc? is this possible?

Cheers

I've been slowly reading the Jarmans' book and only now got to the section that talks about the AV5. They say that near the end of its life, it was sold at a greatly reduced price without the actual CD-i functionality, meaning that it would only play audio CDs. Could it be that you have one of these? One would expect that it couldn't even show the menus in that case, but who knows...

I presume there would be a CD-i logo somewhere at least on the type sticker if the actual capability is there, that being another techonology licenced from Philips.