Those ubiquitous cardboard trading cards of your youth? Yeah, those sure were nice, especially how thin they were and the way they didn’t require a charger to operate when they ran low on power.

But the Panini HRX, in what is being touted as the world’ first video trading card, sure does need its own power supply. That’s so it can store enough juice to play the up-to-30 minutes of HD video stored on its 2-gigabyte flash drive. But don’t worry. Technically, it’s still made of cardboard.

Jason Howarth, the company’s VP of marketing, said they “wanted to make sure that there was a level of uniqueness and collectibility.” I’d say they’re aces on that one, as the cards are slated to be inserted randomly into the company’s Totally Certified Basketball line. It’ll debut in June, just as the NBA Finals are wrapping up, and a pack of five cards will retail for $20. (Mind you, that still doesn’t guarantee you get one.)

It’s just a prototype in the promotional video seen above, but the final version should have a button in front that will start/stop video playback, while a micro-USB port on the side will be used for charging and connecting to standard USB cables. Footage shown on the card will be shot exclusively for Panini, and the card can also be used as an external drive when you plug it into your computer.

It’s a shame that Los Angeles Clippers star and reigning Slam Dunk champ Blake Griffin couldn’t seem any less interested, as he and three other players — Kobe Bryant, Washington’s John Wall and Oklahoma City’s Kevin — will be the guinea pig participants hoping to get this initial effort off the ground.

Although, that Panini and Recom Group (which provided the tech know-how for this operation) couldn’t produce a final, fleshed-out product for Griffin after 18 months of R&D many not bode well for the future of video trading cards.

Personally, I thought it was revolutionary when 8-year-old me got his hands on a Baseball Talk system, which featured super-sized baseball cards that had a little vinyl recording glued to the back. Yes, this was 1989, but if you put the card into the proprietary audio player and closed the lid, you heard Mel Allen interview the player on that “card.” At the time, that seemed like a true technological breakthrough.

But with video embedded and available everywhere these days, we’ll see if video-enabled pieces of cardboard are really what consumers demand.