Game Boy Advance Video

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Game Boy Advance Video is a format for putting video onto Game Boy Advance cartridges. The video is played using the game system's screen and sound hardware. These games are from Majesco Sales. The video cartridges are colored white for easy identification, similar to how the Classic NES Series games were a light gray. Because of the low capacity of GBA cartridges (ranging from 32Mb to 256Mb) and the length of the video content (feature length movies), video is heavily compressed. The image quality has the appearance similar to early Cinepak compression, and the "quilting" and color bleeding effect present in many compressed video formats was rampant. Also, in the case of which the episode is available as a 45-minute two parter or a 22-minute edited version, the 22-minute version is used (this was noticable in the Strawberry Shortcake video, which when compared side-by-side to other formats on which the video is released, a noticable amount of missing scenes is apparent).

Available titles come from television shows such as:

Contents

[edit] Copy prevention

GBA Video paks are viewable only on Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy micro, Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite, as the owners of copyright in the television shows have requested that Majesco prevent people from using the GameCube's Game Boy Player accessory to record the shows onto VHS or DVD. (Unlike Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox video game console, the GameCube cannot output Macrovision gain-control copy distortion signals.) The paks check for the Game Boy Player, using the same logo authentication method used by GBA games that support controller rumble, and freeze with the message "Not designed for Game Boy Player" if they detect the Game Boy Player. However, there are a few Action Replay codes for the Game Boy Advance that do allowed some GBA videos to be view on the Game Boy Player, a few were the Sonic X episodes, the Strawberry Shortcake episodes, and Nickelodeon's Spongebob Square Pants as well as the Dragon Ball GT episodes. These codes were featured in a code site at GSCentrals.com in the Action Replay code section for GBA, the site is no longer accessible due to violation of using these codes for viewing GBA video paks on the GB Player and thus not only did the site is gone, but it also took all of its tested codes for every systems on every cheat devices along with it, Codejunkies as well as many other websites that offer secret codes for cheat device had to try to avoid using these codes to prevent their site from violation of the copyright.

[edit] History

GBA video paks became available in North America in May 2004. In June 2004 Majesco had expanded its GBA video categories. In November 2004, Majesco started to sell GBA video paks featuring Disney Channel animated series like: Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, Kim Possible, Lilo & Stitch: The Series, and The Proud Family. Then in November 2005, Majesco started to sell GBA video paks with full length movies like Shrek 2 and Shark Tale. A special GBA video features the movies Shrek and Shark Tale combined in one cartridge. This pak currently costs $29.99. Also the retail price of original GBA video paks lowered to $9.95.

[edit] Other Info

GBA video paks were the feature prize in Vol. 183 of Nintendo Power Magazine, as part of its players poll sweepstakes. In which 5 grand prize winners would get a GBA SP and 20 GBA video paks. Most GBA video paks cost $9.95 and feature 40 to 45 minutes of video content. Movie GBA video packs cost $19.99 and feature a 90 minute movie.

[edit] Criticism

Some fans have criticized the video paks as being inferior to DVDs of the shows in several ways. For example, the paks only contain two episodes; a single DVD can hold as many as thirteen. Additionally, there has been criticism on the limited amount of shows featured in the collection, all of which are popular kids' cartoons from the time the paks came out. Also, the resolution of the shows was criticized for being low.

Also, many sites have weighed criticisms that GBA Video was only playable on a GBA and Nintendo DS, thus forcing consumers to pay twice for the same product to watch it on a full screen. (Once on DVD/VHS, once again on GBAV) This is similar to the complaints lodged against Sony's UMD media format for movies.

It is noted that on the Strawberry Shortcake video, the episodes featured were versions edited down to 22 minutes each, while the release of the episodes in videos of other formats run for 45 minutes each. When compared side by side, scenes missing from the GBA video release becomes apparent.

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