VideoNow

VideoNow…

This is a gizmo that I hold close to my heart, as I have a lot of nostalgia for it. When I was a lad, we didn’t have cable, which meant most of our time was spent TWIDDLING our thumbs and breaking glass bottles in the street. Not actually. Our grandparents would record nickelodeon on VHS tapes, commercials and everything included, and we’d watch them like TV.



However; One Christmas, our parents got us THIS. The VideoNow. Ours was this cool maroon color, and came with a light. Why does it need a light? We’ll get there.

But this thing was AWESOME (as a kid). It was a portable VIDEO player. I would watch SpongeBob, Fairly Odd Parents, and Jimmy Neutron all the time on this little thing and it was GREAT.



The shows, movies, and even music videos they released for the VideoNow came on these tiny little 85mm discs, called PVDs (Personal Video Discs). They’re adorable little things that can hold 30 minutes of video, which was fine for TV shows, but movies had to be split up on separate discs. This wasn’t an issue for me growing up, as we never had any movies for this thing.

The REAL issue was that they were played on a tiny, black and white, non-backlit display… And I do mean tiny. The screen is an extremely small 80 x 80 resolution. Yeah.. That’s also where the light comes in. It can be hard to see anything in a dark room without one.



Despite this flaw, I loved using the VideoNow as a kid. It gave me a sense of freedom in what I watched… Not limited by commercials, and what just happened to be recorded on the tapes we had. I could watch SPONGEBOB whenever the HELL I wanted, WHEREVER the HELL I wanted.



This one that I have in my possession is a nice SILVER color. I found it at work. I also have a bunch of discs that I have picked up while thrifting over the years. This has given me the opportunity to try it as a grown up here in the far off year of 2025.

I’d say that using the VideoNow in the modern era is still kind of a cozy experience for me. I still find myself coming back to it every now and again, laying in bed with my bedside lamp pointed down illuminating the screen. The speaker is cheap, tinny, and quiet, but that is more than okay, because I don’t want mom and dad to hear me watching Jimmy Neutron past my bedtime. There’s no bright blue light to mess up my circadian rhythm. It works, and it’s nice.

Does it make sense? No. Why would you watch a show on a postage stamp when you can watch it on your giant 50 inch plasma screen TV? I just like it, that’s why.



Does this thing have a place in the world today? Not really. And neither did it have much of a place in the world when it came out. It didn’t cost that much more to just buy a portable DVD player, but I don’t care.

I have a lot of fond memories for this thing, and I hold it close to my heart because of its close ties to my childhood. And I will never let those memories go… God bless you, VideoNow… God bless you…