Game Boy Advance Video

Game Boy Advance Video is a format for putting full color, full-motion videos onto Game Boy Advance cartridges. These videos are playable using the Game Boy Advance system's screen and sound hardware. These video cartridges were developed and manufactured by Majesco Sales, except for the Pokémon Game Boy Advance Video cartridges, which were published by Nintendo. The video cartridges are colored white for easy identification and are sold as Game Boy Advance Video Paks. The Game Boy Advance Video game paks offer the same 240x160 resolution as standard Game Boy Advance games.^[1]

History[edit]

Game Boy Advance Video Paks first became available in North America in May 2004. In June 2004, Majesco had expanded its Game Boy Advance Video licenses into other categories. In November 2004, Majesco started to sell GBA Video Paks featuring several Disney Channel animated series, including Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, Kim Possible, Lilo & Stitch: The Series, and The Proud Family. In November 2005, Majesco began to sell GBA Video Paks featuring full-length animated movies like Shrek 2 and Shark Tale. A special GBA Video Pak containing the movies Shrek and Shark Tale were later combined into one cartridge, costing approximately US$29.99 MSRP as of April 2007. As of April 2007, the retail price of original GBA Video Paks was lowered to US$9.95.^{[citation needed]}

Copyright protection[edit]

Game Boy Advance Video Paks are viewable only on Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Micro, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo DS Lite systems, as the owners of copyright in the television shows requested that Majesco prevent people from using the Nintendo GameCube's Game Boy Player accessory to play and record the shows onto VHS or DVDs. However, the low resolution and mono sound would result in a low-quality video output on a TV regardless. Unlike Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox video game consoles, the Nintendo GameCube cannot output Macrovision gain-control copy distortion signals.^{[citation needed]} The GBA Video Paks perform a check when inserted into the Game Boy Player, using the same logo authentication method used by Game Boy Advance games that support controller rumble, and will freeze with the message "Not designed for Game Boy Player" if they detect the Game Boy Player in use.

Criticism[edit]

Because of the low capacity of Game Boy Advance cartridges (ranging from 4 to 32 MB) and the length of the video content (generally feature length movies and episodes), GBA Video Paks are heavily compressed, with visual artifacts marring nearly every frame. The image quality has a similar appearance to early Cinepak compression, and the "quilting" and color bleeding effect found in other compressed video formats is also present. Also, in cases where certain videos are available both as a 45-minute two-part episodes or a 22-minute edited version, the 22-minute version is used.

Additional information[edit]

Game Boy Advance Video Paks were the feature prize in Vol. 183 of Nintendo Power Magazine, as part of its players poll sweepstakes, in which five grand prize winners would receive a Game Boy Advance SP and twenty GBA Video Paks. Most GBA Video Paks cost US$9.95 and feature 40 to 45 minutes of video content. GBA Video Movie Paks cost US$19.99 and feature up to a 90 minute movie. Some GBA Video Movie Paks came packaged with headphones.