The VideoNow is a personal video player

Video player (software)

A video player is a kind of media player for playing back digital video data from media such as optical discs , as well as from files of appropriate formats such as MPEG, AVI, RealVideo, and QuickTime....

 distributed by Hasbro

Hasbro

Hasbro is a multinational toy and boardgame company from the United States of America. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States...

 through its Tiger Electronics

Tiger Electronics

Tiger Electronics is an American toy manufacturer, best known for its handheld LCD games, the Furby, and Giga Pets. When Tiger was an independent company, Tiger Electronics Inc., its headquarters were in Vernon Hills, Illinois....

 subsidiary. It is designed for children and operates using unusually sized 4" (108mm) PVD Disc

PVD Disc

A PVD Disc is a special format of discs created by Hasbro Inc. to be used only in their VideoNow product lines. The disc is 108 mm in diameter and reports to hold up to 450 Megabytes of data. In 2005 Hasbro introduced an electronic device called the VideoNow Media Wizard that would allow you...

s. The discs allow for about 30 minutes of video, so they are well suited for children's television shows. Video data is stored on the left audio channel with mono audio on the right channel. The video plays at about 15 frames per second. It was originally released with a black and white format, but was soon updated to the VideoNow Color. Game-playing functionality was added with the VideoNow XP, but abandoned with the most recent line, VideoNow Color FX.

It should also be noted that the VideoNow has very little skip protection.

Hasbro produced editing software for creating VideoNow PVDs called the VideoNow Media Wizard, which came with blank PVD media. as well as the VCamNow

VCamNow

The Hasbro/Tiger Electronics VCamNow is a digital tapeless camcorder targeted to children. It is designed as a complement to the VideoNow series of personal video players, and comes with editing software allowing users to create VideoNow videos on Microsoft Windows systems. It can also be used to...

 camera for shooting VideoNow footage. As the VideoNow will not accept standard 8 cm mini-CDs, some creative users have resorted to cutting down standard 12 cm CD-R discs, though not without problems. Hasbro made recordable PVDs available without the Media Wizard from their online store.

A number of solutions are available for creating the oddly-formatted VideoNow files, including a plug-in for the popular video processing program Virtual Dub. The files can then be burned to an audio CD-ROM

Red Book (audio CD standard)

Red Book is the standard for audio CDs . It is named after one of the Rainbow Books, a series of books that contain the technical specifications for all CD and CD-ROM formats.The first edition of the Red Book was released in 1980 by Philips and Sony; it was adopted by the Digital Audio Disc...

 using standard CD burning software, and the disc cut down to the required size.

However, at least one video has been posted at YouTube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

 showing how the newer Color FX players can be easily modified to accept standard-sized CDs with a bit of cutting and gluing. Full-sized CDs can hold roughly 42 minutes of total video, and play with no difference in the modified player.

Types

• VideoNow - Plays only in black and white.
• VideoNow Color - Plays in color.
• VideoNow Jr. - Distributed through Playskool, this is a variant of the VideoNow Color. VideoNow Jr.-branded PVDs were manufactured differently to be physically flexible to help prevent young children from scratching or breaking the regular ones.
• VideoNow XP - Plays in color, has a larger screen and includes game playing capabilities and controls.
• VideoNow Color FX - Translucent variation of the VideoNow Color.

Incomplete list of shows on VideoNow

• 5 Music Videos
• All Grown Up!
  All Grown Up!
  All Grown Up! is an American animated television series created by Arlene Klasky and Gábor Csupó. After the success of All Growed Up, the Rugrats 10th anniversary special, Nickelodeon commissioned All Grown Up! as a spin-off series based on the episode.The series ran from April 12, 2003 to August...
  
  
• The Amanda Show
  The Amanda Show
  The Amanda Show is an American live-action sketch comedy and variety show that aired on Nickelodeon from November 6, 1999 to September 21, 2002. It starred Amanda Bynes, Drake Bell, and Nancy Sullivan, along with several performing artists who came and left at different points, such as John Kassir,...
  
  
• America's Funniest Home Videos
  America's Funniest Home Videos
  America's Funniest Home Videos is an American reality television program on ABC in which viewers are able to send in humorous homemade videotapes. The most common videos usually feature slapstick physical comedy arising from incidents, accidents and mishaps...
  
  
• American Idol
  American Idol
  American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
  
  
• Beyblade (V-Force)
  Beyblade
  is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Takao Aoki. Originally serialized in CoroCoro Comic from 2000 to 2002, the individual chapters were collected and published in 14 tankōbon by Shogakukan...
  
  
• Blue's Clues
  Blue's Clues
  Blue's Clues is an American children's television show airing on the Nickelodeon family of channels. The show premiered on September 8, 1996 and airs on Nick Jr. and other channels, although production of new episodes ceased by 2006. Versions of the show have been produced in other countries,...
  
  
• Boy Meets World
  Boy Meets World
  Boy Meets World is an American comedy-drama series that chronicles the events and everyday life lessons of Cory Matthews, played by Ben Savage, a kid from suburban Philadelphia who grows up from a young boy to a married man. The show aired for seven seasons from 1993 to 2000 on ABC, part of the...
  
  
• The Brothers Garcia
  The Brothers Garcia
  The Brothers García is an American sitcom that premiered in 2000 on Nickelodeon and ended in 2004. It was among the first projects of Sí TV, an effort to produce programming featuring Latino characters, however being aimed at a diverse audience...
  
  
• Clifford the Big Red Dog
  Clifford the Big Red Dog (2000 animated series)
  Clifford The Big Red Dog is an American animated series based upon Norman Bridwell's famous children's book series of the same name. It was produced by Scholastic Studios, and aired on PBS Kids from September 4, 2000 to February 25, 2003...
  
  
• Clifford's Puppy Days
  Clifford's Puppy Days
  Clifford's Puppy Days is an animated television series on PBS Kids. It is a spin-off of the Clifford the Big Red Dog TV series, and it features Clifford the Big Red Dog, a popular cartoon character. It is set when Clifford was a puppy...
  
  
• Codename: Kids Next Door
  Codename: Kids Next Door
  Codename: Kids Next Door, also known as Kids Next Door or by its acronym KND, is an American animated television series created by Tom Warburton and produced by Curious Pictures in Santa Monica, California.. The series debuted on Cartoon Network on December 6, 2002 and aired its final episode on...
  
  
• Chalkzone
  ChalkZone
  ChalkZone is an American animated television series that aired on Nickelodeon. It was created by Bill Burnett and Larry Huber, and produced by Frederator Studios for the Nickelodeon TV channel...
  
  
• The Cramp Twins
  The Cramp Twins
  The Cramp Twins is an animated series created by cartoonist Brian Wood. The show was produced in association with Cartoon Network Europe. It is about Lucien Cramp and Wayne Cramp , not-so identical twins who live with their hygiene-obsessed mother and their Western-obsessed father in the...
  
  
• Danny Phantom
  Danny Phantom
  Danny Phantom is an American animated television series created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon, produced by Billionfold Studios. The show was about a teenage half-ghost boy, who frequently saves his town and the world from ghost attacks, while attempting to keep his ghost half a secret...
  
  
• Dexter's Laboratory
  Dexter's Laboratory
  Dexter's Laboratory is an American animated television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky and produced by Cartoon Network Studios . The show is about a boy named Dexter who has an enormous secret laboratory filled with an endless collection of his inventions...
  
  
• Dora the Explorer
  Dora the Explorer
  Dora the Explorer is an American animated television series created by Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh, and Eric Weiner. Dora the Explorer became a regular series in 2000. The show is carried on the Nickelodeon cable television network, including the associated Nick Jr. channel. It aired on CBS until...
  
  
• Drake & Josh
  Drake & Josh
  Drake & Josh is an American sitcom that premiered on the Nickelodeon television network on January 11, 2004, which follows the lives of two stepbrothers. It stars Drake Bell and Josh Peck as stepbrothers Drake Parker and Josh Nichols, respectively. Both actors had played roles in The Amanda Show,...
  
  
• Ed Edd n Eddy
• The Fairly OddParents
  The Fairly OddParents
  The Fairly OddParents is an American-Canadian animated television series created by Butch Hartman about the adventures of Timmy Turner, who is granted fairy godparents named Cosmo and Wanda. The series started out as cartoon segments that ran from September 4, 1998 to March 23, 2001 on Oh Yeah!...
  
  
• Fear Factor
  Fear Factor
  Fear Factor is an American stunt/dare reality game show. The original Dutch version was called Now or Neverland. When Endemol USA and NBC adapted it to the American market in 2001, they changed the name to Fear Factor. The show pits contestants against each other in a variety of stunts for a...
  
  
• Hannah Montana
  Hannah Montana
  Hannah Montana is an American television series, which debuted on March 24, 2006 on the Disney Channel. The series focuses on a girl who lives a double life as an average teenage school girl named Miley Stewart by day and a famous pop singer named Hannah Montana by night, concealing her real...
  
  
• Hilary Duff: A Day In My Life
• I Dream
  I Dream
  I Dream is a British children's musical television comedy programme aimed at and mostly about teenagers, which aired in 2004 . It was set at an esteemed performing arts college near Barcelona, Spain, and focuses on thirteen youths who are invited to enrol at the college, Avalon Heights, over the...
  
  
• The Jeff Corwin Experience
  The Jeff Corwin Experience
  The Jeff Corwin Experience is an American television show about mostly tropical animals airing on the Animal Planet cable channel since 2001...
  
  
• Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
  The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
  The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, often shortened to just Jimmy Neutron, is an American animated television series, and spin-off of the Academy Award-nominated computer-animated movie, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. The series first officially aired on July 20, 2002, on Nickelodeon...
  
  
• Johnny Bravo
  Johnny Bravo
  Johnny Bravo is an American animated television series created by Van Partible for Cartoon Network. The series stars a muscular beefcake young man named Johnny Bravo who dons a pompadour hairstyle and an Elvis Presley-like voice and has a forward, woman-chasing personality...
  
  
• LazyTown
  LazyTown
  LazyTown is a children's television program that was produced in Iceland with a cast and crew from Iceland, the United Kingdom and the United States. It was created by Magnús Scheving, a gymnastics champion and CEO of LazyTown Entertainment, who also stars in the show...
  
  
• Max and Ruby
  Max and Ruby
  Max and Ruby is a Canadian animated series that debuted in 2002 that is aimed at a preschool audience. Created by children's book author/illustrator Rosemary Wells and based on the world of her Max and Ruby books, the episodes present stories about Max, a rambunctious and determined three-year-old...
  
  
• My Life as a Teenage Robot
  My Life as a Teenage Robot
  My Life as a Teenage Robot is an American animated television series, created by Rob Renzetti for Nickelodeon. The series follows the adventures of XJ-9, better known as Jenny Wakeman, a female robot designed to protect Earth, who is excessively addicted to teen-related activities, which are almost...
  
  
• My Little Pony
  My Little Pony (TV series)
  My Little Pony is an American animated television series based on the My Little Pony toys released by Hasbro. The series featured as the first segment of a program called My Little Pony 'n Friends. The second segment would be an unrelated cartoon based on another Hasbro franchise - either Glo...
  
  
• Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide
  Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide
  Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, commonly called Ned's Declassified for short, is an American live-action situation comedy on Nickelodeon that debuted in the channel's Sunday night TEENick scheduling block on September 12, 2004. The series' actual pilot episode aired on September 7, 2003...
  
  
• The Powerpuff Girls
  The Powerpuff Girls
  The Powerpuff Girls is an American animated television series created by animator Craig McCracken and produced by Hanna-Barbera for Cartoon Network...
  
  
• Rocket Power
  Rocket Power
  Rocket Power is an American animated television series that aired on Nickelodeon.-Premise:Rocket Power involves the daily situations of a group of best friends named Oswald "Otto" Rocket, Regina "Reggie" Rocket, Maurice "Twister" Rodriguez, and Sam "Squid" Dullard, as they live in the fictional...
  
  
• Romeo!
  Romeo!
  Romeo! is an American/Canadian television series that aired on Nickelodeon from 2003 to 2006, totaling 53 episodes. The filming was done in Vancouver, British Columbia, while the show takes place in Seattle, Washington....
  
  
• The Saddle Club
  The Saddle Club
  The Saddle Club is a children's television series based on the books written by Bonnie Bryant and is an Australia/Canada co-production. Like the book series, the scripted live action series follows the lives of three teenage girls in training to compete in equestrian competitions at the fictional...
  
  
• Scooby Doo
• Sesame Street
  Sesame Street
  Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...
  
  
• Sonic X
  Sonic X
  is an anime series based on the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series. It was produced in Japan by TMS Entertainment with the partnership of Sega and was created by Sonic Team and Sonic Project. In the United States, 4Kids currently owns and manages copyright and branding of the series.- Series 1 ...
  
  
• SpongeBob SquarePants
  SpongeBob SquarePants
  SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series, created by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg. Much of the series centers on the exploits and adventures of the title character and his various friends in the underwater city of "Bikini Bottom"...
  
  
• Taina
  Taina (TV series)
  Taina is an American sitcom that aired on Nickelodeon and was one of the last live-action comedy shows taped at Nickelodeon Studios but later moved to the Nickelodeon On Sunset in Hollywood, for its second season. The show aired from January 14, 2001 to May 11, 2002.-Premise:Taina Morales is a...
  
  
• The Story of Star Wars
  The Story of Star Wars
  The Story Of Star Wars was a 1977 record album presenting an abridged version of the events depicted in the film Star Wars, using dialogue and sound effects from the original film. The recording was produced by George Lucas and Alan Livingston, and was narrated by Roscoe Lee Browne. The script was...
  
  
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003 TV series)
  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is an American animated series, mainly set in New York City. It first aired on February 8, 2003 and ended on November 21, 2009...
  
  
• That's So Raven
  That's So Raven
  That's So Raven is an American cable television teen sitcom/fantasy series. The show premiered on the Disney Channel on January 17, 2003, and ended on November 10, 2007. The show spawned Disney Channel's first spin-off series: Cory in the House...
  
  
• Trading Spaces
  Trading Spaces
  Trading Spaces is an hour-long American television reality program that aired from 2000 to 2008 on the cable channels TLC and Discovery Home. The format of the show was based on the BBC TV series Changing Rooms. The show ran for eight seasons....
  
  
• Transformers Armada
• Transformers Cybertron
• Transformers Energon
• Unfabulous
  Unfabulous
  Unfabulous is an American children's television series that aired on Nickelodeon The series is about an "unfabulous" junior high school student, played by Emma Roberts...
  
  
• The Wild Thornberrys
  The Wild Thornberrys
  The Wild Thornberrys is an American animated television series that aired on Nickelodeon. It was rerun in the USA on Nickelodeon and occasionally The N until 2009 and Nicktoons until 2007...
  
  
• Winx Club
  Winx Club
  Winx Club is a 2004 Italian animated television series, created by Iginio Straffi and produced by Rainbow S.r.l.. The series is aimed toward children between the ages of five and twelve, but is also popular among teens...
  
  
• Yu-Gi-Oh!
  Yu-Gi-Oh! (second series anime)
  Yu-Gi-Oh!, known in Japan and the rest of East Asia as is an anime based on the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga. It is produced by Studio Gallop and Nihon Ad Systems, and the English-language adaptation was distributed by 4Kids Entertainment until March 29, 2011 when TV Tokyo and Nihon Ad Systems sued 4Kids...
  
  
• Zoey 101
  Zoey 101
  Zoey 101 is an American television series that ran from January 9, 2005 to May 2, 2008 starring Jamie Lynn Spears as teenager Zoey Brooks, produced for Nickelodeon and syndicated worldwide. The show was initially filmed at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, then at stages in Valencia,...
  
  
• Zoids
  Zoids
  is a multi-media model-kit-based franchise originating from Japanese toy company Tomy ; though now produced by various companies through licenses. The majority of the franchise is built around and focused on the various model kit series...
  
  

In the UK a different range of Disks were produced - presumably for licensing reasons. The PVDs are interchangeable and have no region protection.
They included most of the Nickelodeon shows from the US plus:
Manchester United Football
Arsenal Football
A series of three action sport PVDs including Tony Hawks US issue.

The lower age group disks from Disney and Nick Jr were in general not available through UK outlets.

PVDs were issued in waves to retailers - 6 to a box, generally comprising 3 titles. There were 6 waves of PVDs released in the UK, although some popular titles appeared in more than one box.

External links

• VideoThen, a freeware tool to create black and white discs
• PVDTools, another freeware program to create black and white discs
• Source for Media Wizard blank PVDs, Hasbro FAX-in order form for blank Media Wizard PVD's
• VideoNow.dk
• VideoHelp.com forum discussion of VDN video conversion tools, including VideoNowDude's Virtual Dub plugin.