User:XanManYT/sandbox/VideoNow
The VideoNow is a portable video player produced by Hasbro and released by their subsidiary Tiger Electronics in 2003, and was considered the most popular product in Tiger's line of Now consumer products. The systems use discs called PVDs (which stands for Personal Video Disc), which can store about 30 minutes (half an hour) of video, the length of an average TV show with commercials (a typical TV episode is about 20–23 minutes without them), so each PVD contains only one episode, with trailers at the end to use the leftover time on most PVDs, including Nickelodeon PVDs. Video data is stored on the left audio channel with audio on the right channel, thus making it impossible to achieve stereo sound on the system, which only plays in black and white. The video plays at 15fps. Most of the shows were from Nickelodeon, such as SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly OddParents, and later they released shows from Cartoon Network, such as Ed, Edd n Eddy and Dexter's Laboratory, Disney only mostly released episodes of America’s Funniest Home Videos and one Hannah Montana music video. A small amount of movies were also released on the system, but due to the limited space on a PVD, said movies would have to be released on at least three discs, depending on the length of said film. It was discontinued in 2007.
Bad Qualities
- While it was well received and well sold at its time, it didn't age very well, especially with the first VideoNow player.
- It has very little skip protection. It was more prone to skipping if the VideoNow is touched, bumped, or shaken while playing a PVD.
- As mentioned above, the first VideoNow player's screen looks terrible and the black and white quality and 80X80 pixel resolution don't help either, not to mention that there's no backlight so it's hard to see in the dark, however, those issues were fixed when the VideoNow Color released in 2004.
- Although an official light was sold separately to allow the use of the device in dim lighting conditions, they should've just included it in the VideoNow Player instead.
- The VideoNow Color/Jr./XP while major improvements over the first VideoNow, still looks kinda mediocre, although the quality improved, it still looked terrible with its 240x160 pixel resolution.
- It did have some bad/mediocre shows like My Gym Partner's a Monkey.
- Some questionable shows like American Idol, America's Funnest Home Videos, and Fear Factor were added to the VideoNow library, even though they aren't necessarily aimed at kids, which is the device's target audience.
- It has limited shows/movies to include in the VideoNow/VideoNow Jr. although that could be understandable because of their discontinuation in 2007.
Good Qualities
- The idea of having a portable video player for kids is not a bad idea. However, it does manage to suffer some issues above
- While their selection of shows were limited, they still had PVDs of great TV shows like SpongeBob SquarePants, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, and lots more.
- Their Playskool version called "VideoNow Jr." was also decent too.
- It also had great shows, (mostly from Nick Jr.) like Blue's Clues, Dora the Explorer, Max & Ruby, and Sesame Street.
- The VideoNow Jr. discs were also playable on the VideoNow Color and XP players, which is pretty neat.
- The interactive features on the VideoNow Discs were also pretty decent, sadly they only work on the XP model.
- It also had movies included like Agent Cody Banks, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, Snoopy Come Home, etc. However they're split into 3 (or 4) discs depending on the length of the movie.
- Still better than Mattel's Juice Box