The immediate successor to VCD. It offers significantly higher resolution (720x480 for NTSC) and better MPEG-2 compression compared to VCD's MPEG-1 [1]. MP4 (H.264/AVC):
AV1 is the open-source future. It is the best for web streaming.
Combined video and audio bitrate of roughly 1350 Kbps.
Before we dive into the alternatives, it's essential to understand what VCD quality entails. VCDs typically offer a video resolution of 352x288 pixels (for PAL) or 352x240 pixels (for NTSC), with a frame rate of 25 fps (frames per second) for PAL and 29.97 fps for NTSC. The video is usually encoded in MPEG-1, which provides a relatively low bitrate and decent compression efficiency. The audio is often encoded in MPEG-1 Audio Layer 2 (MP2) or PCM (uncompressed).
If you prefer keeping your collection on tangible discs, several generations of physical formats offer vastly superior quality. 1. Super Video CD (SVCD)
Standard DVDs offer a massive leap in quality, utilizing a resolution of 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL). Moving from VCD to DVD standard increases pixel density by more than four times, drastically reducing compression artifacts and blockiness.