For more information about what an XSVCD is, read this article from DVDRhelp.
I have tried XSVCD compatibility with one XSVCD's downloaded from VCDHelp on the 10:th of July 2002:
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"XSVCD NTSC Sample, 720x480
3000kbit/s MPEG2 Constant Bitrate" |
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I have tested this XSVCD on the NorthQ 7100 and there were no
problems to play this disc! The only thing that is a bit strange is that the NorthQ stops playing about two seconds before the end of the clip. So you never get to see the last two seconds of the film. |
I have also made an XSVCD myself with four short movies in different bitrates, to see how high the NorthQ can go when playing XSVCD's.
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All four clips has 480x576 resolution. The bitrates are:
(The title is wrong in this menu, it should be SVCD/XSVCD) |
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This is a capture from when I played the 6Mbit/s clip. |
As far as I could tell, the NorthQ played the first three movies without any problems! But when I tried the 8Mbit/s movie, the picture and sound started to skip occasionally. So it seems that it may be wise to keep the bitrate below 8Mbit/s if you want to make your own XSVCD movies.
The XSVCD I made myself had the same problem with PBC that the SVCD's had. It seems that the NorthQ always disables PBC before staring to play an XSVCD disc. You have to manually enable it by pressing the "PBC" button on the remote control to get the menus working.
Another bad thing on the NorthQ when it comes to playing XSVCD's is that it has no "Return" (or "Back") key defined! Once I started playing one of the clips on my self-made XSVCD, there were no way to get back to the menu! If there had been a "Return" key on the remote control, this would not have been a problem.
During all these tests, the NorthQ stopped playing about two seconds before the end of the clip. So you never get to see the last two seconds of the film. I don't know what's causing this.