Why would you want to make something unique? It just makes it less usable. I really don't understand who would buy this. It's quite a bit bulky, even for the time. You need a display, at minimum, black and white, non backlit would be fine. Non rechargeable is a deal breaker as well, again, even for the time. Non rechargeable devices were obsolete by 1995, before that even.
All the electronics and plastics are actually pretty resilient and wil probably still work in 10 years time. It's the batteries that go bad, so if it does not have an integrated (lithium) battery and someone hasn't left an alkaline inside it will probably work. Replacable batteries are considered 'wasteful' but they usually increase product life by an order of magnitude.
As someone who's never paid more than $5 for a VHS and gotten dozens for free it's so hard to believe that some were upwards of $80. My shelves would be holding thousands of dollars if they held their value.
Honestly this nugget is legitimately higher quality then like 99% of what you show us lmao, its actually its own product that isnt just the same chinese junk rebadged for whoever wants it
@@okankyoto IMO its more likely that the marketing team wanted it to look nice, but neither the marketing nor budget cared enough to fund a decent design for the innards.
At this point, wouldn't even be surprised if companies like Old Spice made mp3 players Edit: I want to apologize [not really] for the increase of Old Spice ads on this vid, prob bcuz of me
Yeah, I remember how expensive VHS tapes used to be. Especially official Disney VHS tapes. They would cost more than 2000 Belgian franks ($70 us) so the poor people in my village set up this whole piracy network where one family would go and buy an official tape and then make dozens of copies and sell them for just a few Franks to cover the cost of the original tape. When it was our turn to buy the tape, we got Aladdin. It was the only official Disney tape we had.
@@pear009 I've never really looked up if it was "franks" or "francs" in English since we haven't used that type of currency in 23 years, but it was written franks with a K in Flemish, so that's what I went with~
Credit where it's due, it's a different design, has unique dirty buds, and a great manual, this sits way above the bar compared to other stuff that's been on this channel
Wade doesn't give enough credit to blockbuster at least giving out an adapter in the first place, compared to other nuggets with mini jacks that just have their buds and nothing else.
4:44 genuinely shocked he didn't mention the absolute banger of a line "The BLOCKBUSTER MP3 player is definitely cool" on the general maintenance page.
The fact that a new injection mold was made for the casing amongst everything else (colour manual, consistent branding), suggests more effort than you think was put into this as a promotional item.
My mom used to manage a Blockbuster, when they went under, we had almost every game console under the sun but they later sold them at a garage sale sadly. Still very fond memories.
Every game console then, can be simulated on any modern computer. What an interesting time we live in. Glad I'm not a 10 year old kid now, I'd spent my entire childhood playing video games.
3:55 Fun fact: literally all of the discs you got with no-name MP3 players that just let you play files dragged on them was that disc. *Everyone* shipped the Win98 USB mass storage driver for some reason, even though 98 was hella obsolete at this point.
There's still a Blockbuster in business in Bend Oregon. Went in there the other day, they rent movies like they used to and sell "last blockbuster on earth" merch
How is it that all those other companies couldn't be bothered to put any actual effort in a nugget, and blockbuster goes as far as branding the driver disk and Manuel.
0:38 sorry mate, the tape says “duplication without written permission from zildjian strictly prohibited” but i just screenshotted it so now i have a copy. looks like ol zildjie is gonna be coming after one of us
I was surprised to see that the Blockbuster nugget was not... blockbusted. This unit is actually pretty decent other than the low max volume. Decent might be too strong or a word; rather, they actually put effort into this and I respect that.
My town actually had a vhs and video store for a long time. it only closed like a year or two ago. So sad that children this generation wont really know what its like to rent a game and try and beat it in a weekend.
Now the goal is to beat it before the steam refund time limit is up. (Seriously, let's not pretend those were good days. Its nostalgia, nothing more; nothing of value was lost and I say this as someone who _is_ old enough to remember those dvd and vhs rental days.)
I'm glad that younger generations won't get brainwashed by that sort of media any more. Unfortunately they'll be brainwashed by different forms on the internet but hey, one step at a time, at least there's a 2-way interaction and not just one-way like with movies.
@@SilverDragonJay You missed the whole point if you don't recognize the good in it. It was a more community centered activity - you go to your local blockbuster, grab a dvd or game to rent, have a limited time to play it, then return it. You spend a good chunk of time in the store browsing, you let some random person know "Hey, that's a really good movie" and you strike up conversation. It's not just nostalgia, it was a community hub like the diner or the movie theater/arcade/bowling alley/pizza place/mall/cd store. You go there with a goal in mind but the community having fun, interacting, congregating there is what made it special - with streaming you lose all of that. The limited playability/rewatch accessibility is what made these moments special because instant gratification cheapens everything. These community hubs shut down because they cant compete with immediate gratification, but despite being more technologically connected than ever: our communities are dwindling. Everything is more alienated and solitary without these things, infrastructure falters, and the world just seems so much more bleak on the whole. (Social media was a mistake but by and large I think the Internet was the biggest mistake. Cant put the lid back on it though; all we can do is try to be better at how we handle this stuff.
The decision to use 2.5mm headphone socket instead of 3.5mm would have yielded a not so insignificant saving on the cost of the PCB manufacture. But then to go and include a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adaptor as part of the retail package would have made its overall cost greater than had they went with 3.5mm in the first place.
Yeah, seems like the wimpy volume and crappy input grip would make it completely useless. Why would you want a portable mp3 player that needs a pre-amp and disconnects when you start moving around
Not really, this was the standard for mp3s at the time. Creative released garbo like this until Apple came around with a premium product and they had to actually try.
Long ago, I worked for Blockbuster. My store was one of the top stores in the country for Movie Pass sales when they were direct competing with the Netflix delivery before streaming services were common. This mp3 player was the reward we got along with I believe 4 other stores in the company. The backlash was so great, that Blockbuster reconsidered after about a month and gave us all 8GB ipods with the company logo stamped on the back.
Arduino nano, DAC module, SD card, battery and charger circuitry would fit in the gutted shell with little effort. If you bothered to get a PCB fabricated with all the modules on it, you could double the battery size/life and probably fit a Tb of NAND flash as well.
I remember when I turned 18 and could finally get my own Blockbuster card and rent whatever I wanted. Almost as exciting as getting my driver’s license! There was just something special about a video store, and I don’t feel the same thing when I scroll through streaming services.
I respect the commitment in making the player shaped like the ticket stub. But they shouldn't have. They REALLY shouldn't have. The one time a company should've NOT put effort into something.
There's one use case I can think of for the earbuds: Use them on Ti calculators that have a I/O port, this port, like the earbuds seem to be, is 2.5mm; people have programmed demos for said calculaors that let them output audio. The volume slider makes it even more well suited for the task; due to the nature of the I/O port it must output a binary PWM signal, which can only be one volume. IIRC, the volume of the calculator was significantly louder than the highest comfortable volume from a smartphone using headphones when looking at direct audio captures from both using Audacity.
They could have put the volume wheel in the ticket cutout, but no let's use that for an unusable headphone jack and break out from it with an adapter and then put the volume on an additional adapter on the headphones. With decisions like that, it's a wonder Blockbuster lasted as long as they did
I love you and your videos they make my days better I’ve been watching you on and off for years (i let videos build up then i binge them). You’re hands down my favorite creator i love you dank pods❤️🔥❤️🔥
There were plenty of mom and pop video stores in my area, until Blockbuster came along in a neighboring town. Sometime later, Hollywood Video showed up in my town, but all the little places were long gone already.
very long time viewer here i just want to say that i love your videos and your the reason i have wasted so much money on headphones. you also helped me get through a hard time
At least they came up with a unique design for the mp3 player, unlike *some* companies.
We didnt say they could program.@@caspay21
iBeat Blaxx.
Like apple, releasing the standard mp3 design and calling it their own
At least they had an MP3 player in there, unlike SOME companies.
Why would you want to make something unique? It just makes it less usable. I really don't understand who would buy this. It's quite a bit bulky, even for the time. You need a display, at minimum, black and white, non backlit would be fine. Non rechargeable is a deal breaker as well, again, even for the time. Non rechargeable devices were obsolete by 1995, before that even.
I think this has to be the first nugget, not meant to be into the collection, that actually survived to see another day. What a miracle.
All the electronics and plastics are actually pretty resilient and wil probably still work in 10 years time. It's the batteries that go bad, so if it does not have an integrated (lithium) battery and someone hasn't left an alkaline inside it will probably work. Replacable batteries are considered 'wasteful' but they usually increase product life by an order of magnitude.
As someone who's never paid more than $5 for a VHS and gotten dozens for free it's so hard to believe that some were upwards of $80. My shelves would be holding thousands of dollars if they held their value.
@@roeljanssen1673 semiconductors also degrade over time. a single flipped bit inside the flash memory can be all it takes to kill a nugget
Honestly this nugget is legitimately higher quality then like 99% of what you show us lmao, its actually its own product that isnt just the same chinese junk rebadged for whoever wants it
Yeah it looks cool but it does a terrible job at actually playing music. Externals are higher quality, internals are bottom of the barrel.
@@OrbObserver Presumably one part of the design team cared, the other team did not
@@okankyoto IMO its more likely that the marketing team wanted it to look nice, but neither the marketing nor budget cared enough to fund a decent design for the innards.
@@OrbObserver😊
At this point, wouldn't even be surprised if companies like Old Spice made mp3 players
Edit: I want to apologize [not really] for the increase of Old Spice ads on this vid, prob bcuz of me
They did make Bluetooth earbuds, I have them and they're not good
Can't wait for Part 3
Can't wait for a Heinz MP3 player.
They most definitely made an mp3 at some point
@@f_worst_nightmare4499 It’s some dopey looking Russian. They don’t know how to do any different. 🤷♂️
Yeah, I remember how expensive VHS tapes used to be. Especially official Disney VHS tapes. They would cost more than 2000 Belgian franks ($70 us) so the poor people in my village set up this whole piracy network where one family would go and buy an official tape and then make dozens of copies and sell them for just a few Franks to cover the cost of the original tape. When it was our turn to buy the tape, we got Aladdin. It was the only official Disney tape we had.
The fact that dank's snake is named frank lmao
homemade p2p!
franks or francs..... if it's franks i would be surprised
@@pear009 I've never really looked up if it was "franks" or "francs" in English since we haven't used that type of currency in 23 years, but it was written franks with a K in Flemish, so that's what I went with~
@@brziperiod Little did you know that before the Euro was introduced, people in Belgium traded using chubby snakes.
This MP3 player has more attention to detail than I ever remember Blockbuster ever having when they existed.
Credit where it's due, it's a different design, has unique dirty buds, and a great manual, this sits way above the bar compared to other stuff that's been on this channel
I love how the PKCell perfectly matches the colour of the nugget.
same lmao
That had to be intentional
Wade doesn't give enough credit to blockbuster at least giving out an adapter in the first place, compared to other nuggets with mini jacks that just have their buds and nothing else.
4:44 genuinely shocked he didn't mention the absolute banger of a line "The BLOCKBUSTER MP3 player is definitely cool" on the general maintenance page.
The fact that a new injection mold was made for the casing amongst everything else (colour manual, consistent branding), suggests more effort than you think was put into this as a promotional item.
My mom used to manage a Blockbuster, when they went under, we had almost every game console under the sun but they later sold them at a garage sale sadly. Still very fond memories.
Every game console then, can be simulated on any modern computer. What an interesting time we live in. Glad I'm not a 10 year old kid now, I'd spent my entire childhood playing video games.
3:55 Fun fact: literally all of the discs you got with no-name MP3 players that just let you play files dragged on them was that disc. *Everyone* shipped the Win98 USB mass storage driver for some reason, even though 98 was hella obsolete at this point.
In 2003/2004? Lots of people were still clinging on to Windows 98 up until Vista.
Windows 10 is older than Win98 was when this thing was released lol
This is such a high effort and yet still fully phoned in nugget, I love it
Thanks crazy Aussie man for the review! I have a whole DVD collection and I didn't spend one dime on any of em at Blockbuster lol 😂
MY NIGGA DANK!!!!!
@@N_g_erbro😂
@@Memetime2022 are you black?
Weird flex but okay
@@DrBagPhD damn buddy
There's still a Blockbuster in business in Bend Oregon. Went in there the other day, they rent movies like they used to and sell "last blockbuster on earth" merch
How is it that all those other companies couldn't be bothered to put any actual effort in a nugget, and blockbuster goes as far as branding the driver disk and Manuel.
What about Manuel? I'm intrigued
@@franki1990 They branded him, those bastards
@@pollin522The scars are still very visible, despite his best efforts to hide em
0:38 sorry mate, the tape says “duplication without written permission from zildjian strictly prohibited” but i just screenshotted it so now i have a copy. looks like ol zildjie is gonna be coming after one of us
Wade yelling at Frank will always be hilarious to me
I can't stop rewatching it
His name is Wade?
@@Poever yea
Wait, I thought his parents actually called him DankPods.
The stream was Frank's idea.
I was surprised to see that the Blockbuster nugget was not... blockbusted. This unit is actually pretty decent other than the low max volume. Decent might be too strong or a word; rather, they actually put effort into this and I respect that.
My town actually had a vhs and video store for a long time. it only closed like a year or two ago. So sad that children this generation wont really know what its like to rent a game and try and beat it in a weekend.
Now the goal is to beat it before the steam refund time limit is up.
(Seriously, let's not pretend those were good days. Its nostalgia, nothing more; nothing of value was lost and I say this as someone who _is_ old enough to remember those dvd and vhs rental days.)
I'm glad that younger generations won't get brainwashed by that sort of media any more. Unfortunately they'll be brainwashed by different forms on the internet but hey, one step at a time, at least there's a 2-way interaction and not just one-way like with movies.
Or to want to rent a game, but couldn't, because it was ALWAYS out!
@@SilverDragonJay You missed the whole point if you don't recognize the good in it.
It was a more community centered activity - you go to your local blockbuster, grab a dvd or game to rent, have a limited time to play it, then return it. You spend a good chunk of time in the store browsing, you let some random person know "Hey, that's a really good movie" and you strike up conversation.
It's not just nostalgia, it was a community hub like the diner or the movie theater/arcade/bowling alley/pizza place/mall/cd store. You go there with a goal in mind but the community having fun, interacting, congregating there is what made it special - with streaming you lose all of that. The limited playability/rewatch accessibility is what made these moments special because instant gratification cheapens everything. These community hubs shut down because they cant compete with immediate gratification, but despite being more technologically connected than ever: our communities are dwindling. Everything is more alienated and solitary without these things, infrastructure falters, and the world just seems so much more bleak on the whole.
(Social media was a mistake but by and large I think the Internet was the biggest mistake. Cant put the lid back on it though; all we can do is try to be better at how we handle this stuff.
@@SilverDragonJay 2 hours is a lot harder than a weekend too lol
I honestly love how goofy it looks. If you could make one of the portable fiio dacs look like that, I'd use it.
The PKcell really matched the color scheme here, truly showing the PKcell magic
4:04 Whoa whoa whoa, hold on a minute, 1.2MBps i need to get my breath back from that stunning speed
I'm still awaiting the day Dank plugs in an ancient MP3 player or driver install CD that is just ancient malware.
0:36 JUST DO IT! DO IT! DO IT NOW! DO THE THING!
We need to encourage every company to make mp3 players
We need more dankpods content
You have to give credit where due, they genuinely made an attempt to make it pretty good.
Came for the blockbuster mp3 player, stayed for the blockbuster mp3 player, left for the blockbuster mp3 player
i actually owned a really old block busters vhs tape cleaner it cleans your vhs player and i would love to send it to ya dankpods mate
Should have been shaped like a VHS tape. The battery could be stored under the tape hinge.
It's like they came up with the coolest ideas but had to go with the absolute cheapest execution possible. I love it.
The decision to use 2.5mm headphone socket instead of 3.5mm would have yielded a not so insignificant saving on the cost of the PCB manufacture. But then to go and include a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adaptor as part of the retail package would have made its overall cost greater than had they went with 3.5mm in the first place.
9:05 bro going to cook some delicious music 🔥🔥🔥
"The BLOCKBUSTER MP3 player is definitely cool. These are some tips to take care of your device and ensure that it continues to work properly."
That driver CD looks suspiciously like a Craig disc, but with one extra ring
To be fair, it could only be mini because micro didn't come out until 2007
I love that my town to this day still has a video rental store, wonderful nostalgia going there
When she claims she's a "virgin" but feels like a blockbuster mp3 headphone jack.
0:53 started life on the Amiga, which is also the best version.
'High-speed USB data transport (sic)', a whopping 1.2MB/s, hold on to your hats, folks!
Chimkin samwich
I liked your comment
I liked your comment
I liked my comment.
Shut up
bro tryna get popular like the other 1000 people
people wont belive the 90s & 2ks were a real time when we talk about the products we used growing up, i constantly use this channel as proof
Another prime example of
"The biggest companies make the worst junk"
@CrescencioHenry huh
@@dhl-96 its a bot my dude
@@dhl-96don't interact with them, ignore or report and leave.
Yeah, seems like the wimpy volume and crappy input grip would make it completely useless. Why would you want a portable mp3 player that needs a pre-amp and disconnects when you start moving around
Not really, this was the standard for mp3s at the time. Creative released garbo like this until Apple came around with a premium product and they had to actually try.
I always loved how wide the range of content is! Even though it started with ipods, I like that you weren't scared to diversify.
We all happy when Dankpods posts🎉🎉
MY NIGGA DANK!!!!!!!
Its a nice touch that the page numbers on the manual are also making the shape of a ticket stub.
Our favorite nugget really goes out of his way to find other, funnier nuggets for us to laugh at 😆
Long ago, I worked for Blockbuster. My store was one of the top stores in the country for Movie Pass sales when they were direct competing with the Netflix delivery before streaming services were common. This mp3 player was the reward we got along with I believe 4 other stores in the company. The backlash was so great, that Blockbuster reconsidered after about a month and gave us all 8GB ipods with the company logo stamped on the back.
5:10 Look at that positive terminal depiction. 🤨😄
The joy these videos bring! Love seeing relics from my childhood
I remember thinking Dads 256mb flash drive was cool. The cap was held on a braided steel cable.
To be fair I would appreciate a modernized version of this thing.
Arduino nano, DAC module, SD card, battery and charger circuitry would fit in the gutted shell with little effort. If you bothered to get a PCB fabricated with all the modules on it, you could double the battery size/life and probably fit a Tb of NAND flash as well.
I remember when I turned 18 and could finally get my own Blockbuster card and rent whatever I wanted. Almost as exciting as getting my driver’s license! There was just something special about a video store, and I don’t feel the same thing when I scroll through streaming services.
do you have to return it the next day though
Im genuinely happy the blockbuster headphones survived
I respect the commitment in making the player shaped like the ticket stub. But they shouldn't have. They REALLY shouldn't have. The one time a company should've NOT put effort into something.
They should’ve made it look like a VHS tape.
@@naikigutierrez4279 tbf it was made before vhs was considered nostalgic and everyone was more focused on dvd.
@@naikigutierrez4279 That would've been so much better honestly.
@@panqueque445 another example of "the biggest companies make the worst junk"
2:02 I KNEW they started that small! I could only find a 64MB in the archives but I swore up and down my first was also 32!
I wonder if blockbuster could make a comeback
Probably not, as the only reason people go to the one in Bend Oregon is for the novelty.
MY NIGGA DANK!!!@@qwerty_5760
Can't see what the replies are, but, no. DISH owns the assets and uses them in their VOD library.
IK Dish is planning on doing something related to reviving Blockbuster as a brand, sooooo maybe???????
I think Redbox has pretty much cornered the market on physical rental, and it's tough to beat the operating cost of a vending machine.
That MP3 player was the reason Blockbuster died. 😂
2:29 Looks like a taser....⚡⚡
I know that ol' Grit is going to do it's thing but here, paused at 0:01, I really hope Dank preserves this one.
3:12 - "Can you BELIEVE no one bought this?" is one o fmy favourite phrases in a DankPods video.
1:05 Avgn Finished it
I frowned so hard when you touched that battery right in the corrosion, that I legitimately pulled a muscle in my face.
That was painful~!
MP3 players are legendary devices. I swear our kids will be taught about them at history lessons.
I... Feel so dumb for not realizing Drum Thing was also Dank Pods. I have watched both channels...
At this point, I expect there to be a Target branded MP3 player. Almost no other branding, just 95% Target.
I have a shrek dvd with donkey on it sticking out of the dvd player on my 2011 mac
2:22 looks like the right side of the state of iowa
Been in hospital for like a month now and dankpods' videos have been getting me through it
Ah a relic from Blockbuster's short lived stint into "MP3 Rentals."
There's one use case I can think of for the earbuds: Use them on Ti calculators that have a I/O port, this port, like the earbuds seem to be, is 2.5mm; people have programmed demos for said calculaors that let them output audio. The volume slider makes it even more well suited for the task; due to the nature of the I/O port it must output a binary PWM signal, which can only be one volume. IIRC, the volume of the calculator was significantly louder than the highest comfortable volume from a smartphone using headphones when looking at direct audio captures from both using Audacity.
Amazing video, loved every minute of it!
it hasnt even been out for 9 mins
This is actually why Blockbuster went under. It thought it would come out on top of the MP3 player wars so sunk everything into RnD for this.
They could have put the volume wheel in the ticket cutout, but no let's use that for an unusable headphone jack and break out from it with an adapter and then put the volume on an additional adapter on the headphones. With decisions like that, it's a wonder Blockbuster lasted as long as they did
you know it’s concerning when it’s short
It’s always a great day when DankPods uploads!!
Still a blockbuster around where I live happens to be the last one on the planet here in little Bend OR
same here haha. i visit there often
Hey Dank, just came across Kmicic cymbals. Stainless steel cymbals that actually sound super complex. Maybe something to look at for the drum thing? ❤
That is a weird thing to do to your cymbals
I love it! I seen one of these recently for sale on ebay and was thinking about buying it for my Blockbuster collection.
0:10 out of date movies?
Really needed this today. Thanks mate.
5:45 Bro doesn't know that not all MP3 players pop up with a name in MacOS💀
Dankpods: watch ->3:22
Me: the flavors are melting on my tongue
The hi-hats??
dank should make an mp3 player at this point
What in the actual garbage is that burn it with fire
At least it’s drag and drop. The newer nuggets didn’t let you even do that without the cursed CD
could've been a decent usb memory stick for the time lol
"muster the buster"
It's really funny that its actually one of the more(very slightly)nicely made nuggets.
Page 20 in the instruction manual, can't believe you let that slide, "The Blockbuster MP3 Player is definitely cool." Yikes
you know, netflix should make an mp3
Im sick rn and having your videos to occupy me is just amazing. I love what you do and your so funny man
Holy hell you Aussies got shafted. VHS movies were never that expensive in Canada...
I love you and your videos they make my days better I’ve been watching you on and off for years (i let videos build up then i binge them). You’re hands down my favorite creator i love you dank pods❤️🔥❤️🔥
There were plenty of mom and pop video stores in my area, until Blockbuster came along in a neighboring town. Sometime later, Hollywood Video showed up in my town, but all the little places were long gone already.
very long time viewer here i just want to say that i love your videos and your the reason i have wasted so much money on headphones. you also helped me get through a hard time
Surprised that the usb flap didn't just disintegrated.
I remember going in block buster with my dad to get a PS3 game once a week
visits from Frank are a highlight of my week