Video CDs are fairly popular in Asia, where bounties of discs are hawked by street vendors for the equivalent of a couple of American dollars, if that. There erupted a hullabaloo a few years back when "The Phantom Menace" broke out on pirate video-cd at the same time as the theatrical release in the States. If you didn't mind the background noise from the audience (Initial bootlegs were DV'ed from screenings), the movie quality was passably viewable. Or so we've heard. NCS tested today's DC VCD player with a copy of Virtua Fighter 2 CGMV, a collection of cinemas featuring Sega's 3-D battlers, and it ran fine. The rear of the packaging touts VGA-Box support and the availability of a special controller. A quick check with vendors in Hong Kong deny the availability of a controller at this time but perhaps it'll launch soon. Packaging includes VCD accessory and boot disc.

Finally you can also watch VCD (not DVD!) movies on your Dreamcast machine. The Dream VCD Player supports all usual functions such as forward, backward, volume control, etc. The attached remote allows wireless control of your movies.