Messages

16

Local Forecast / Re: How to find a NWS Zone, like on the 3000?

« on: June 24, 2014, 02:27:01 PM »

The NWS did change the layout of the zones in 1993. They were once a group of counties instead of a single or part of a county. TWC did display the new zone numbers on the 3000 for a short time (about half a month).

17

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: Comcast to buy Time Warner Cable

« on: February 18, 2014, 01:14:35 AM »

Good grief, it sounds like Comcast wants to take over all the other cable companies. 

Pretty soon you won't call it by a name, just simply "the cable company".

18

Local Forecast / Re: Requesting Help With Finding A Song

« on: January 25, 2014, 01:19:59 PM »

"You Won't Let Me Go" by Josh White Jr. from "Jazz, Ballads & Blues"

19

OCMs & Personalities / Re: New OCM Kait Parker

« on: January 21, 2014, 01:33:02 AM »

Looks like it will be today (Tuesday)

DC, here I come! Covering Winter Storm Janus with Jim Cantore in the Capitol tomorrow! (I'll be on appx. 10am-3pm +)

20

Local Forecast / Re: Christmas playlist 2013

« on: December 17, 2013, 04:05:11 PM »

I bet those two songs play until the next relaunch 

21

Programming and Graphics / Re: New Graphics coming to TWC

« on: December 02, 2013, 10:26:19 PM »

Does anyone know how many background pictures they use on the IS2? Seems like every time I watch, I see a new picture.

22

Programming and Graphics / Re: New Graphics coming to TWC

« on: November 18, 2013, 02:20:45 PM »

Caught this tornado video yesterday. Notice how the banner is covering up the tornado. Saw this shown a few times with the banner in the same place each time.

23

Programming and Graphics / Re: New Graphics coming to TWC

« on: November 16, 2013, 01:13:53 PM »

Saw this happen yesterday:

White squares instead if icons (in some instances):

New Intellistar 2 HD with bad icons

Then the IS2 displayed the local weather, but without a local background:

Local Intellistar 2 over National video

After that, the national Lot8s was shown:

National Local on the 8s

I'm left to assume there was a software update and a reboot of some kind.

24

Programming and Graphics / Re: New Graphics coming to TWC

« on: November 13, 2013, 11:20:05 PM »

Here's what I'm getting in Cincinnati during "programming hours", during the shows and commercials.

25

Programming and Graphics / Re: New Graphics coming to TWC

« on: November 13, 2013, 04:23:15 PM »

Spoke to Melissa, the production music is temporary as Martin mentioned before. A new playlist will start soon but all she said was "LOT8s will sound different".

Gangsta Rap!


It looks like the font used on the new Intellistar graphics is Akko Pro Light (result from What The Font). You can see it here http://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/akko/light#try-it-out

26

Programming and Graphics / Re: New Graphics coming to TWC

« on: November 13, 2013, 02:05:31 AM »

Here's videos of the first hour from this morning. I do like the changing backgrounds, but find the contrast to be bad on some screens, especially the extended forecast with some of the backgrounds (attached one of them at the bottom). The radar background needs work. Also the general presentation had too much white/light grays during the national broadcast.


4:07

New Local on the 8s - 407am 11/12/13

4:18

New Local on the 8s - 418am 11/12/13

4:28

New Local on the 8s - 428am 11/12/13

4:38

New Local on the 8s - 438am 11/12/13

4:48

New Local on the 8s - 448am 11/12/13

4:58

New Local on the 8s - 458am 11/12/13

27

General Discussion / Re: NWS Radar Source Files

« on: November 03, 2013, 02:34:09 PM »

N0R is the legacy reflectivity product that is limited to 124 miles from the radar site. NOZ goes out to 248 miles, but is lower resolution.

Iowa State offers single site images in the newer 8-bit/256 color format (which by default is full range).

http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/GIS/ridge.phtml

The product you'll want is called N0Q.

I checked the Ridge 2 directories on the NWS website, but the single site ones are empty.

Then there's mosaic images.

http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/Conus/RadarImg/
http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/docs/nexrad_composites/

28

Local Forecast / Re: Why no narration in WeatherSTAR XL V1 in 2000-2001?

« on: September 26, 2013, 04:25:11 PM »

Why does it make you mad? My recollection is it was introduced on March 27, 2000.

I don't know if the voice over was always planned, but there was another weather channel that was going to launch that summer (Weather Plus, not related to the NBC version). They said their locals would be narrated, similar to what eventually was done with the Intellistar. It was a company in Europe and never ended up launching in the U.S.

29

Local Forecast / Re: Question About WeatherStar4000 BG and Radar Font

« on: August 19, 2013, 05:08:07 PM »

The original background was solid colors with a noise pattern bordering the transition between the colors. The current one uses a similar scheme, but it gives a much smoother look. When I recreated it for the emulator, I created a standard Photoshop gradient, then exported it through the "save for web & devices" option, set output to GIF, color reduction algorithm to "selective", dithering algorithm to "noise" and colors to "12". The video adapter only displayed 256 colors (8 bit), which was somewhat common at the time.

The big blue box is actually five concentric rectangles with a border color that makes it appear smooth.

No idea on the radar banner fonts. I did look through font libraries and tried the Bitstream's "what the font", but never found a good match. On the emulator's banners, the letters were traced out on a separate layer since I couldn't find a suitable font. Keep in mind the font looks the way it does because the image is sent at about half size and is enlarged for display by the 4000 (same with the radar maps and data).

30

Local Forecast / Re: Weather Star III/3000

« on: April 30, 2013, 01:24:19 PM »

No idea on how the cities/locations were selected, but the original ordering of the locations was north to south (instead of alphabetical). The exception being the forecast table, which was alphabetical.