Messages

1

Local Forecast / Re: Weather Star 4000 Hardware

« on: October 08, 2022, 01:20:23 AM »

You know what, I'm more than two years late to the party but just now happened to catch wind of your reverse-engineering efforts (unfortunately, I haven't logged into this forum in ages and never received a notification on this thread—in fact, I no longer remember writing my above post!). Anyway, incredibly cool stuff, and I'm still in the process of going through all the blog posts and YouTube videos, trying to catch up on all the gory details!

2

Local Forecast / Re: Local Update LFs/vs. narration & mid-1997 4000 graphical curiosity

« on: February 20, 2013, 06:08:36 PM »

I remember that, and I also missed the transitions and gradient background. But what I'm referring to took place some time between Apr 13, 1997 and May 6, 1997. I've seen it on at least two STAR systems, so it wasn't just mine.
Here's a side-by-side comparison image below—note the lower edge and right corner just above the top of the LDL border.

3

Everything Else Classic TWC / Favorite blooper era?

« on: February 20, 2013, 09:06:45 AM »

So what time period of classic TWC do you all think of as having the highest frequency of or most interesting technical glitches?

For me, it was 1996–1997. This could be because I watched it a lot more during that time than other years and/or remember it better (especially since I only started video recording in '96—before it was just audio, since I mainly just cared about collecting the music). But it almost seemed at times that one couldn't go a day or two without at least some minor oddity occurring.

I'm starting to realize that many 4000-related glitches I saw during this period were actually not terribly uncommon ever since the 4000's debut, though they seemed particularly frequent here. Additionally, all throughout this period there were various sound/ad-cuing glitches, ETFs that were consistently interrupted a couple of cities in by a commercial break, and LFs that frequently ran well over the time allotted for some reason or another. On my footage, J flavors' TCF failed to finish pre-rendering in time, resulting in the third page being visibly drawn over the previous screen, then scrolling starting back with the second page, with the first never showing. Often the LFs would abruptly abort partway through and restart from the beginning for no apparent reason (usually with an associated music change or restart), causing them to run 2–3 minutes over the next segment. I don't even have a 100% glitch-free J anywhere in my footage. 

With that kind of excitement it's probably no wonder I ended up recording as much as I did at the time. And even then I kind of regret not recording even more material.

4

Local Forecast / Local Update LFs/vs. narration & mid-1997 4000 graphical curiosity

« on: February 20, 2013, 07:57:18 AM »

Going through some old footage lately has made me wonder about a couple of things. First, apparently the special “local update/severe weather”-mode 4000 LFs were introduced much earlier in time than I realized,  while Dan's narration was still used. How did this work, exactly? I'm assuming it just used the narrationless audio feed for the duration of these customized flavors when they occurred.

Also, I'm wondering if anyone noticed the subtle graphical change (apparently a minor glitch) in the lower border of the big blue background box used on the text product screens. Around mid '97 (somewhere between May-June, IIRC; I'd have to check again), the gradient changed to a solid blue color for just that border. You kind of have to look carefully to see it; compare it to the top border and the lower corners and you should see that it doesn't quite match up like it did before. I'm wondering if this corresponded to a 4000 software update of some sort. Are there any other known 4000-related changes that coincided with this? Was the glitch ever repaired after this point?

5

Contributions / Re: Suggestions for archiving/restoring analog video to digital?

« on: February 20, 2013, 06:46:28 AM »

Yes, a lot of this stuff isn't always an exact science; truly effective equipment and methods to clean up the video can easily fall way outside of most people's budgets. Best compromise, in my experience, is to round up as many working VCRs as you can of various brands and ages (recent models especially tend to be designed and built outrageously poorly and can be a total crapshoot even when brand new) because usually each unit will handle particular tapes better than others (this is especially true of EP/SLP-recorded tapes using HiFi audio). Do some experimenting to find out which one handles each tape (or portion of a tape) best and use it for that dub. It can quickly become time consuming, but if you can manage to get an acceptable dub once, you hopefully won't have to go through it again. However, it's generally a good idea to continue to hold onto the original tapes as long as possible just in case something goes wrong with your new copies or you come across an even better solution someday.

Another thing to keep in mind is that depending on the condition of the tape, some problems simply are not feasible to fix, at least not without a prohibitive amount of time and money. Chances are that you will have to live with at least some glitches.

6

Contributions / Re: Local forecasts every 4 minutes

« on: January 27, 2013, 08:35:47 PM »

Aww, kitty <3

I'm definitely seeing back then how the focus was on variety, with each channel being unique. Too bad I didn't know then to enjoy it while it lasted. :-( And focus on ratings is pretty annoying. It's hard to imagine most people actually watch the only crap TV networks show nowadays. (And they want us to pay ever-increasing prices anyway?!)

I haven't purposely checked TWC out in a long time (why bother? it's not like it's going to miraculously change back to the “good ol' days”), so I have no idea whether they even show full LF segments with music anymore (and don't care either, since I've long given up on them, which is sad). I have gotten some glimpses of the “L-shaped” LFs or whatever they're called, where the LF actually happens during the programming. It's pretty sad that it's come to the point where these things don't surprise or freak me out at all since it's just the order of the day now. Also, I'd never use it for weather anyway since it's always some show or commercial when I tune in, not weather info. I just jump on a website or local station or something instead.

7

The Game Room / Re: "In my pants" Game

« on: January 08, 2013, 03:27:05 PM »

Incredible… after six or seven long years, this game is still taking place in my pants?  Anyway, what are you guys doing in my pants? 

8

Local Forecast / Re: Early 90s-era music rotation schedule

« on: January 08, 2013, 03:10:51 PM »

Admittedly, this is going from audio cassettes, so I don't have exact date/time stamps. However, I do have a pretty good memory on some of these of roughly how I recorded them, and the only way I can see the song order I experienced having occurred would be if there were many long breaks in time between several LFs, which I doubt actually occurred. In other words, I can't find any other likely explanation.

There was in one case a J/LL LF that played a TCF song in the evening, so possibly that had something to do with it. But I saw some apparent discrepancies the following morning as well. In case anyone actually happens to have footage, this particular date would have been evening June 25, 1993 and morning June 26, 1993, from what my records tell me.

9

Local Forecast / Early 90s-era music rotation schedule

« on: January 07, 2013, 04:12:06 PM »

Hopefully some of the TWC “oldtimers” are still around for this one. Some time back on the old twcclassics forum, there was a discussion about the hourly music rotation scheme used around the early 90s (92-93 especially; I don't know which other years this also applied to). On this scheme, music supposedly played in a predictable order over an hour (or in some cases, longer) period. On my old tapes from this period, I can confirm that this largely appeared to be the case.

What's puzzled me, though, and what had not been mentioned in that thread, was that judging from my tapes it seems as though there were some occasional discrepancies in the schedule. Sometimes the songs didn't always play in the exact usual order; e.g. a couple of songs would swap places or one flavor's songs would be a playlist step or two out of sync with the others.

Maybe I'd have to try to put together some notes to show what I'm talking about, but before I do, does anyone happen to know what I'm talking about? Anyone able to shed some light on this for me?

10

Local Forecast / Re: Weather Star 4000 Hardware

« on: January 07, 2013, 03:10:29 PM »

I've heard a rare story or two about someone getting their hands on a 4000. What would be really cool is if someone managed to reverse-engineer it and maybe find a way to load their own homebrew software on it. That'd be a tall order and may require expensive equipment (I don't know much about the specifics), but with so many other devices being reverse-engineered/jailbroken, I wouldn't call it impossible. Of course, the general non-availability of the 4000s would be an obstacle as well.

11

General Discussion / Re: Introduce Yourself! (For New Members)

« on: January 07, 2013, 03:04:50 PM »

Ah, I see. I noticed there was apparently some merge that had taken place, and the older posts unfortunately don't appear to be here anymore. I haven't yet looked around much at this forum or the site, so I still have a lot to catch up on.

12

General Discussion / Re: Introduce Yourself! (For New Members)

« on: January 07, 2013, 02:56:09 PM »

Okay, so I'm technically not a new member, but I sure feel like one. I've been on hiatus for about… what was it?… at least 6, 7, 8 years?! And now I've finally found my way back to this forum and my account, which amazingly is still here! Checking out a few videos on the site, and I guess I'll now see if I can somehow manage to catch up on the last half-decade's worth of forum posts.