Topics

61

Local Forecast / Here is the April 2008 Playlist

« on: April 01, 2008, 11:10:00 AM »

Daytime
Title      Artist     CD
Coastlines     Mark Krurnowski     N/A
Fountain Of Youth     Chris Geith     Prime Time
Without a Doubt     Boney James     Seduction
Journey To The Light     Ryan Farish     Selected Works Xpanded
Groovity     CC Gilmore     N/A
Desert Trippin'     Bobby Adams     Desert Trippin'
Both Sides     Roger Smith     Both Sides
Breaking Out     Rik Pfeninger     N/A
Green Shadow     Chris Geith     N/A
Camouflage     Boney James     Seduction
Native Tongue     Craig Chaquico     Panorama
Holding Hands     Ryan Farish     The Weather Channel Presents Smooth Jazz
Agent of Destiny     Chris Geith     Prime Time
L.A.     Joseph Diamond     Island Garden
It's Not Supposed To Be That Way     E Power     N/A

Primetime
Title      Artist     CD
Oasis     Ryan Farish     Selected Works Xpanded
Besame Mucho     Kenny G     Rythym Romance
From The Redwoods to the Rockies     Craig Chaquico & Russ Freeman     From the Redwoods to the Rockies
Lights Down Low     Boney James     Seduction
Fountain Of Youth     Chris Geith     Prime Time
Lights Out San Francisco     Craig Chaquico     Panorama
Breaking Out     Rik Pfeninger     N/A
Burned By The Moon     Norman Fisk     Due Point
Little Past Midnight     Joseph Diamond     Not Your Typical New Yorker
Day's End     Robert A Geresti Jr     Geresti

Overnight
Title      Artist     CD
North West     Doug Markley     N/A
Crystal Snow     Jim Couchenour     Quiet Canvas
Border Winds     Norman Fisk     Due Point
Modality     Artie Traum     Acoustic Jazz Guitar
Back on Track     Mick Mahan     N/A
Train song     Main Gazane     N/A
Lullaby For A Rainy Night     Dave Koz     Off The Beaten Path
The Maiden and the Warrior     Craig Chaquico & Russ Freeman     From the Redwoods to the Rockies
Eye Of The Storm     Ken Gregory     Solid State - Natural Process
Seattle Child     Craig Chaquico & Russ Freeman     From the Redwoods to the Rockies

62

General Discussion / Happy Birthday Derek and Travis

« on: March 30, 2008, 01:16:25 AM »

Happy birthday, Derek and Travisallen. Hope both of you have wonderful days!

63

Everything Else TWC / Several suitors show interest in The Weather Channel

« on: March 29, 2008, 12:49:48 AM »

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Several suitors show interest in The Weather Channel

By KRISTI E. SWARTZ
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/26/08

Early bids are in for the Atlanta-based Weather Channel, and speculation about the likely buyer abounds. Family-owned Landmark Communications Inc. is said to want $5 billion for the weather-forecasting enterprise, which includes the coveted weather.com. But analysts say that the company should expect a disappointing price because the economy is so sour and credit is tight.

Landmark is keeping mum about the names of, or number of, suitors. But the reported list is a who's-who in the media world, though analysts say some of the companies may just be using the sale as an opportunity to look at each other's financials in private. The finalists may go through one or two additional bidding rounds unless one particular company's price is significantly higher than the others'. A decision probably won't be made for the next couple of months.

Favorites

• News Corp.: News Corp. has the money as well as the history of combining traditional media — television — with new media, experts say. And, its popular Fox News Channel and foxnews.com are chief competitors to Atlanta's CNN, whose parent company may also be in the hunt. But News Corp. just paid a lot for Dow Jones, and media reports say it has submitted a bid to buy Newsday from Tribune Co.

&bulll; NBC Universal: NBC has made good money off of its cable networks, which include Bravo and USA, and could stand to do so with this purchase. What's more, Weather Channel's TV network and Web site could tie in with NBC's own operation, Weather Plus. However NBC's parent company, General Electric Co., is going to be too worried about its earnings to do such a deal at the purported asking price, analysts say.

Maybe, but issues

• Time Warner Inc.; A weather-focused station would fit in nicely with Time Warner's CNN and give the company a leg up over key rival News Corp. But analysts aren't sure whether the new CEO Jeff Bewkes is going to want to pay $5 billion for another cable station.

• Comcast Corp: As the nation's No. 1 cable provider, Comcast is also the Weather Channel's biggest customer. On top of that, Comcast may want to add a weather channel to its other networks, which include E! Entertainment Television, The Golf Channel and TV One. As with NBC and Time Warner, analysts say Wall Street also likely wouldn't support this deal unless Comcast does it for dirt cheap.

Probably not

• CBS Corp.: Even though CEO Les Moonves recently said he'd be interested in the Weather Channel at the right price, analysts say Wall Street would punish the company severely if such an expensive deal was done.

• Discovery Communications: The Weather Channel's new high-definition studio could be considered an asset for the HD-heavy Discovery Communications, which has captured viewers through core nonfiction channels, such as Animal Planet and the Military Channel. Discovery also bought the Atlanta-based HowStuffWorks last year, giving the company somewhat of a local tie.

Analysts value this company at about $5 billion, which means it would be trying to buy a company of roughly equal size.

What some of the experts are predicting:

• Alan Breznik, senior analyst with Heavy Reading:

"It makes more sense for an NBC or a Time Warner or a Fox and News Corp. because they have news networks, and NBC has a weather network... it has more in common with a news network than entertainment programming."

• Alan Gould, media analyst with Natixis Blechroeder:

"The best fit would be News Corp. Weather is news, it's not one of the critical news items, but something that at the right price, News Corp. would be interested in."

• Joe Bonner, a media and telecom analyst with Argus Research

Despite the skepticism of some other observers, "CBS is certainly a leading candidate because they are hungry for the Internet property — that's a good part of the Weather Channel."

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/business/stories/2008/03/26/twc_0326.html

64

Everything Else TWC / "Find that front" and Steph's little games

« on: March 28, 2008, 07:10:14 PM »

Anyone notice that Stephanie Abrams likes to show the current temperatures map and then ask the viewers  if they can "find the front?" She seems to ask this quite often, at least once a week it seems, and if she's not asking about the front, she seems to be comparing the layers of the atmosphere to the layers of a hamburger. Anyone notice this before?

65

Everything Else TWC / The Weather Channel YouTube channel?

« on: March 24, 2008, 08:09:00 PM »

Just came across this: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheWeatherChannel

Apparently, TWC now has their own channel on YouTube. Anyone know if this is actually officially TWC here?

66

Local Forecast / Nightly IntelliStar Jitters

« on: March 24, 2008, 01:10:40 AM »

Anyone with the IntelliStar notice that from maybe 12 AM ET through about 3 AM ET, the IntelliStar tends to skip, jump, or freeze up during the local forecast? It seems to be a fairly new thing, only popping up within the past few months. It can get so bad that at times the STAR will totally quit midway through the forecast, and cut to the satellite feed.

Just a few minutes ago, at 12:58 AM ET, the STAR froze about five different times for about 10 seconds total, and while it didn't cut to the satellite feed, it ran over the beginning of Forecast Earth. And at the same time the past two nights the STAR had a hard freeze and cut to the satellite feed.

Anyone else experience this, or know what might cause it to happen at approximately the same time each night? Could it be a bad satellite uplink between the headend between TWC?

67

Programming and Graphics / How many nights a week do you watch Storm Stories?

« on: March 10, 2008, 02:20:28 PM »

I was just looking at the Storm Stories site on weather.com, and they're running a quite amusing poll asking "How many nights a week do you watch Storm Stories?"

As soon as I saw that, I chuckled, because first off, Storm Stories doesn't run at night anymore, secondly, after viewing the results, the majority of voters (38%) chose None. One and Three are nearly tied with 18%, and Five and Seven are slightly lesser amounts (with 8% and 16%, respectively).

If the majority of people who visit the site don't watch the show, I believe it's safe to say TWC should cancel it.  It'd be really nice to have the 2:00 PM ET hour of programming back.

68

General Weather Chat / NOAA Weather Radios

« on: March 02, 2008, 11:28:44 PM »

I'm thinking about getting a Weather Radio so I can be alerted to severe weather watches and warnings in my area. Does anyone have a weather radio or have any recommendations of what to look for in a weather radio? Thanks.

69

Programming and Graphics / What happened to Weather Classroom?

« on: March 02, 2008, 12:32:42 PM »

I was up this morning at 4:00 am et hoping to see The Weather Classroom and they end up showing an old episode of Forecast Earth with Hedi Cullen. Did TWC finally pull the plug on the Weather Classroom or is it on at some other obscure time?

70

General Discussion / Happy Birthday, Matt

« on: February 27, 2008, 12:18:54 PM »

Happy birthday, Matt (tpirfan28). Hope you have a good one!

71

Local Forecast / The Award-Winning IntelliStar

« on: February 23, 2008, 01:29:08 AM »

Ok, this is probably really old news, but it was new to me, so I decided to post it...

I was just browsing Wind River's site (the company whom designed the IntelliStar), and it appears that the IntelliStar actually wan an award back in the 2004 Electronica USA Embedded Systems Conference. The IntelliStar won a best-of-show award in the communications division of the show.

ALAMEDA, Calif.--April 01, 2004--Wind River Systems (WIND, Trade), the global leader in device software optimization (DSO), today announced that its device software that powers NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Exploration Rovers -- Spirit and Opportunity -- won the overall "Best of Show" award, as well as the best aerospace and defense product. The Weather Channel's Intellistar won "Best of Show" within the communications category. Wind River enabled its customers -- NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and The Weather Channel -- to develop and run the software that powers their respective devices faster, better, at a lower cost and more reliably.

[...]

The Weather Channel's Intellistar is the next generation, geography-specific TV programming system and device. By relying on Wind River to develop the Thunderstorm PCI card -- the brains of the IntelliStar -- The Weather Channel leveraged Wind River's device software expertise and technology portfolio to architect, develop, deliver and field test the IntelliStar. IntelliStar will be used by TV program distributors nationally, including Cox Communications, Comcast Communications, DirecTV, Charter Cable, and National Cable Television Cooperative.

"Wind River provided us with the device software and services expertise that were required to reach a new level of programming advances that include robust content and sophisticated localization capabilities," said Brian Shield, executive vice president and chief information officer at The Weather Channel. "The IntelliStar provides our customers with immediate enhancements and opens the way for future programming advances and support for new revenue services. We are honored that this innovative technology received kudos at a conference that is so well-known for being on the forefront of technological advancements."

http://www.windriver.com/news/press/pr.html?ID=69

72

Local Forecast / Satellite LF Sightings

« on: February 19, 2008, 11:33:00 AM »

I didn't see a topic for this already, so I thought I'd create one.

Saw a satellite LF with IntelliStar LDL at 11:28 AM ET.

73

Contributions / Here are the January and March 2007 Playlists

« on: February 14, 2008, 06:17:55 PM »

Just got them from Chris Hoitsma and they're in XLS format!

74

Questions, Comments, Suggestions / Some Wrong/Broken Links

« on: February 13, 2008, 05:09:27 PM »

On the playlists page, most all of the 2007 playlists point to the 2002 playlists, and on the 2006 page, the "October 2006" link points to the September 2006 playlist.

75

Local Forecast / Satellite IntelliStar Ski Conditions

« on: February 08, 2008, 03:46:40 PM »

Do the Dish and/or DirecTV IntelliStars show Ski Conditions at :53 or :54 after the hour like all the other cable STARs show? And if so, what ski locations are shown?

Thanks.