In a similar boat; I got a CD-I with the add-on MPEG-1 module (picked up for $20 for a floor-model clearance table in the late-90s), but in my eyes the big failure of VCD as a format was needing two discs per movie.
VCD's aren't that terrible though (a 4head Hifi VCR though would look better), here's a recording of the opening of the Matrix with some trailers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRElGEgHzEE
VCD's never really made it into piracy. If I recall at the time the Warez scene was using Vivo Active [1] (H.263 video and G.723 ADPCM audio) splitting videos at 650Mb, which gave greater fidelity than MPEG-1 in a smaller package. I think that only lasted a year or so until DiVX/Xvid came along.