SVCD compatibility

For more information about what an SVCD is, read this article from DVDRhelp.

I have tried SVCD compatibility with three SVCD's downloaded from VCDHelp on the 10:th of July 2002:

	"SVCD NTSC Sample with CVD selectable subtitles, 1 audio track, menus, chapters"
	"SVCD NTSC Sample with SVCD selectable subtitles, 2 audio tracks"
	"SVCD PAL Sample with CVD selectable subtitles, 2 audio tracks, menus, chapters"

I have tested these on my NorthQ 7100 and here are the results I got:

SVCD #1:

When I inserted this SVCD into the NorthQ, the player recognized the CD as an SVCD.

For some reason, the player then turns PBC off.

Then it immediately starts playing the clip on the SVCD instead of going to the SVCD menu on the disc.

But if I now press the "PBC" button on the remote control, the playback is stopped and the PBC is activated.

However, I have to press "PLAY" (or "ENTER") to start the playback again.

Now I get to the "correct" SVCD starting point.

After a couple of seconds, I get to the main menu of the SVCD.

When I tried the different menu alternatives, all went well except for choice "#5: play 3 secs from each entry point". When I tried this, the player didn't do anything at all.

I also tried to change subtitles on the SVCD by pressing the "SUBTITLE" button on the remote control. As this is an NTSC SVCD and I usually use PAL output, the subtitles worked a little strange:

	If I set the output from the player to PAL (the player has to convert from NTSC to PAL), I could not see any subtitles at all.
	If I set the output from the player to NTSC, I could see the subtitles, but not all of them. It seems that the subtitles are located very "low" on this film, so if there is only one line of text in a subtitle, it is not visible on screen. But if there are two lines, the upper line is visible on screen.

Here the player is set to output NTSC, and to show subtitle #1. As you can see, the subtitles seems to be located very "low", but at least it shows that the NorthQ is capable of showing CVD selectable subtitles!

If I try the same clip but with the player set to output PAL, I cannot see the subtitle at all.

This is he same clip (in NTSC mode) but now showing subtitle #2.

This clip seems to play all the way to the end. The two SVCD clips below both stops playing a couple of seconds before the end of the clip.

SVCD #2:

	When I inserted this SVCD into the NorthQ, the player recognized the CD as an SVCD.
	Again, the player decided to turn off PBC.
	Then it immediately starts playing the clip on the SVCD. As there don't appear to be a menu on this SVCD, this is correct.
The movie played fine, but I could only one listen to one audio track. When I pressed the "LANGUAGE" button on the remote control, I did not get any sound from audio track 2. The only audio track that produced any sound was number 1. Also, I did not get any subtitles at all. When I pressed the "SUBTITLE" button on the remote control, none of the four available subtitles produced any text at all.
	If I had pressed the "PBC" button to set the player in PBC mode, this image was displayed after the clip. If PBC was off, the clip just stopped and the player returned to the default NorthQ background.
The NorthQ stops playing this clip about three seconds before the end of the clip. So you never get to see the last three seconds of the film.

SVCD #3:

	When I inserted this SVCD into the NorthQ, the player recognized the CD as an SVCD.
	Again, the player decided to turn off PBC.
	Then it immediately starts playing the clip on the SVCD instead of going to the SVCD menu on the disc.
	But if I now press the "PBC" button on the remote control, the playback is stopped and the PBC is activated. However, I have to press "PLAY" (or "ENTER") to start the playback again.
	Now I get to the "correct" SVCD starting point.
	After a couple of seconds, I get to the main menu of the SVCD.
When I tried the different menu alternatives, all went well except for choice "#5: play 3 secs from each entry point". When I tried this, the player didn't do anything at all. The movie played fine, and I could change between two audio tracks using the "LANGUAGE" button on the remote control. The first audio track was in German, and the second in English. I also tried to change subtitles on the SVCD by pressing the "SUBTITLE" button on the remote control. This worked without problems, and I got subtitles in four different languages.
	Here you see subtitle 1, Dutch.
	Subtitle 2, English.
	Subtitle 3, German.
	Subtitle 4, Swedish.
The NorthQ stops playing this clip about five seconds before the end of the clip. So you never get to see the last five seconds of the film.

I also tested the NorthQ with an SVCD that I have made myself with Nero. It had the same "problem" with PBC as the three above, when I inserted the SVCD into the player it turned PBC off and started playing the clips directly. After pressing the "PBC" button on the remote control to turn PBC on, I could start the SVCD and get to the main menu on the disc.

Another bad thing on the NorthQ when it comes to playing SVCD's is that it has no "Return" (or "Back") key defined! Once I had chosen a clip from the menu, there were no way to get back to the menu again! If there had been a "Return" key on the remote control, this would not have been a problem.

So, to sum up how the NorthQ 7000/7100 plays SVCD's:

	Seems to always disable PBC before staring to play an SVCD disc.
	Supports up to four CVD selectable subtitles.
	Supports two audio tracks.
	Does not support SVCD selectable subtitles.
	Sometimes it stops playing a couple of seconds before the end of the clip.
	No "Return" key available.

If anybody has some comments about the SVCD capabilities of the NorthQ, just send me a mail and tell me what you think.

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