VideoNow

[Cobra!]

In the latest of my retrotech rabbit holes, I’ve decided to get myself VideoNow Devices and discs!

For those unfamiliar, VideoNow was a CD-based video format initially launched in 2003, and featured up to 20-minutes of low resolution monochrome video.

That’s something that sounded absurd even back then according to anecdotal accounts of it I’ve read, but it apparently sold well enough.

The discs, named Personal Video Discs (PVDs), were smaller than CDs but bigger than miniCDs.

A year later they came out with a Color variant. The discs were bigger than the originals and the videos were higher resolution. VideoNow Color devices were backwards compatible with the monochrome discs.

Then a year later still, in 2005, they brought out the VideoNow! XP, which added interactivity and by extension limited games, mostly trivia quizzes, to the format.

Those who do know about it but never owned one probably learned about it from Techmoan’s video.

I got myself a Color player and a broken XP model as well as a couple of discs.

The thing that fascinates me about the format is the fact it’s possible to author your own discs! I am a sucker for obscure tech you can make your own media for!
Originally, you had to buy a program called the “Media Wizard” to do so, but people figured out how to do do without!

The only issue there is the discs are too big, so you’d either need to find a way to keep the disc lid open whilst the player thinks it’s closed, or physically cut the CDs down to size. That second option sounds ridiculous and would never work in a million years, but apparently, some people have done it successfully!

I’m gonna take the former route when I get my player, and have 3D printed a notch to fool the player into always thinking it’s closed. Maybe try the latter one day if I can do it safely.

So has anyone here ever had experience with this format back in the day? What were your thoughts?

[purelyconstructive]

Ah yes, VideoNow. I had one of the plain grey first generation models as a child. Other than the preview disc that it came with, I only had a 3 episode SpongeBob set. (I picked it because it had "Prehibernation Week," one of my favorite episodes.)

It was a fun idea, but the video quality was often so low to the point of being unwatchable. I still would have loved to be able to author my own discs back then. I actually spent a lot of time trying to figure it out, burning greyscaled MPEG-1 videos to mini-CDRs without success.

The Mattel Juice Box was released ~1-2 years later, at the same time as Game Boy Advance Video cartridges. Instead of a disc, it also stores video on a chip. [Not too surprising as Mattel had already done something similar with HitClips, putting audio onto tiny carts.] The device was relatively small and had a built-in stand / screen protector. Videos had decent resolution and were in color. It even had an extra add-on that allowed one to read a SD card and use it as an MP3 player.

When they started going on sale, it became popular to hack them into a cheap digital photo frame. It is possible to run software on it using Pixecutor.

It is funny to think that both Mini-DVDs and UMDs were released shortly thereafter.

[Cobra!]

I got my colour player and am enjoying it! I learned how to make my own discs for it and managed to get them cut down and working. (I know I said I’d try and mod my player, but I can’t get it opened up as one of the screws is in a very awkward location!)
I got The Amazing Digital Circus episodes 4 & 5 onto VideoNow.

I had my girlfriend up the other night, and we just sat down and watched the entirety of episode 4 on VideoNow, despite literally being in front of a 4k smart TV with Youtube. That kinda felt special. Something just felt right about watching TADC on VideoNow.

It was a fun idea, but the video quality was often so low to the point of being unwatchable. I still would have loved to be able to author my own discs back then. I actually spent a lot of time trying to figure it out, burning greyscaled MPEG-1 videos to mini-CDRs without success.

The Mattel Juice Box was released ~1-2 years later, at the same time as Game Boy Advance Video cartridges. Instead of a disc, it also stores video on a chip. [Not too surprising as Mattel had already done something similar with HitClips, putting audio onto tiny carts.] The device was relatively small and had a built-in stand / screen protector. Videos had decent resolution and were in color. It even had an extra add-on that allowed one to read a SD card and use it as an MP3 player.

When they started going on sale, it became popular to hack them into a cheap digital photo frame. It is possible to run software on it using Pixecutor.

It is funny to think that both Mini-DVDs and UMDs were released shortly thereafter.

Yeah, I’m aware of GBA Video and Juicebox. I think VideoNow stands out because it used an optical format (and I’m a sucker for those) based off Audio CD that decodes one of the stereo tracks to video whereas the others seem like they’re just video files on a cart. (Good to see Juicebox has something of a hacking community, though!)

That and imo it still looked sharper than the other 2, which look like badly compressed MPEGs (probably because they are?) or like when you watch a Twitch at the lowest possible quality. I think VideoNow also sounded better, which is to be expected.
VideoNow is only 80p, but it somehow looks marginally better than that?

[purelyconstructive]

I had my girlfriend up the other night, and we just sat down and watched the entirety of episode 4 on VideoNow, despite literally being in front of a 4k smart TV with Youtube. That kinda felt special. Something just felt right about watching TADC on VideoNow.

What an awesome experience! Haha!

Yeah, I’m aware of GBA Video and Juicebox. I think VideoNow stands out because it used an optical format (and I’m a sucker for those) based off Audio CD that decodes one of the stereo tracks to video whereas the others seem like they’re just video files on a cart. (Good to see Juicebox has something of a hacking community, though!)

That and imo it still looked sharper than the other 2, which look like badly compressed MPEGs (probably because they are?) or like when you watch a Twitch at the lowest possible quality. I think VideoNow also sounded better, which is to be expected.
VideoNow is only 80p, but it somehow looks marginally better than that?

Yes, if I'm not mistaken, the audio output of the first generation player was mono. Despite that, the audio quality was quite good. It stood in stark contrast to the blurry mess of large grey pixels that made up the video.

While I haven't seen or heard the video/audio quality of the VideoNow Color, I do remember being surprised by how clear the JuiceBox videos were. Granted, there was still pixelation and motion blur, but I generally found it easier to follow what was going on. I have a feeling that all three formats (VideoNow Color, JuiceBox, and GBA Video) are probably fairly comparable in quality, although I haven't looked at the specs of each to make sure. GBA Video probably had the most power behind it.

I agree that optical formats tend to be better all around. I still have fond memories of looking through catalogs of Video CDs and dreaming about modding my PSOne to play them. I never got the chance to follow through on that. Thinking about making VideoNow discs gives me similar feelings. Thanks for sharing!