Digital videos encoded using high-quality formats/containers like .MKV are .AVI are the norm today with almost Blu Ray quality pirated videos available in torrent sites if you choose carefully. VCDs experience a very brief period of popularity in Asia as a cheaper alternative to DVDs almost ten years ago. They were half the price of DVDs way back when but retailers struggled to get rid of their racks of endless VCDs once Internet piracy exploded and broadband became more available. VCDs eventually went the way of Laserdisc and VHS though you're still likely to see VCDs in places like Bangkok or Manila.
Admittedly, I had my own stash of original VCDs plus a few bootlegged ones. Although the quality is a few notches below DVDs (and a few kilometers from today's hi-def videos), they were cheap, available anywhere, and often had rare videos such as Richard Grieco's If Looks Could Kill (1991). The production costs were so cheap for VCDs that manufacturers often produced VCDs of B movies (including more popular ones like the original 1968 Barbarella , 1980s classic Flash Gordon, and the 1983 fantasy epic Krull). Moreover, unlike DVDs, they weren't region-locked and had no restrictions. Walk Hong Kong in any of the night markets back in 2004 and you would see stashes of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Run Run Shaw movies you might never heard of which you can bring home and play with just about any VCD or even some DVD players. Most of the lower quality obscure torrent videos that don't get much seeds are actually ripped from VCDs.
I managed to procure my old VCDs from back home and it wasn't much work ripping them using openSUSE 12.2's K3b. No video conversions are necessary. K3b creates the video on-the-fly. On K3b's toolbar, click Tools then Rip Video CD... Select the MPEG Tracks you want to extract and click Start Ripping. The file size is pretty reasonable and the aspect ratio is just enough to be viewed on your iPod Touch or Creative Zen. Plus, the videos play on just about any Linux video applications like VLC, SMPlayer (screenshot above), and Kaffeine. So if you have a stack of VCDs hidden somewhere and want to back them up, using K3b is a quick and easy way to do just that.
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