New Graphics coming to TWC

[Charismatic Applesauce]

Is it true that our local forecasts on The Weather Channel are getting shorter and local forecasts on Canada's Weather Network are getting longer? These new local forecasts on The Weather Channel do remind me of The Weather Network as there are maybe only two songs that are played and each one has a few variations to them.

speaking of songs, does anyone know the name of the song playing in the LOT8s? I have not seen the "song ID" screen some people claim to see

There is no song ID during the actual LF. It was only used for the shows played before going to commercials. That's how I found out the name of a song they played that I hated, because it sounded like a car playing extremely loud, bass-heavy music that rattles the entire block. But now I forgot it.

The songs in the LF are part of a sonic branding produced by Man Made Music. They also designed the sonic branding for the rebrandings of Univision and UniMás earlier this year.

[Spring Rubber]

Still tonight, Satellite viewers are not getting any Weather All The Time. The SD feed still has that ugly blank LDL while the HD feed simply has nothing.

[Localonthe8s]

Hmm, I see. Maybe it's just me but the LF music sounds a lot like something you'd hear from McDonalds..

[Eric]

I was getting tired of it, I mean, Come on! 5 years of the same thing! Unacceptable!

The original WeatherStar lasted, what, five years?  Then the WeatherStar III came out with expanded products, and that lasted about another couple of years to a few years, depending on when you got the 4000.  Then the 4000 lasted most of the '90s until the XL came out, followed by the IntelliStar.  Systems weren't so easy to update, so what was released had to last for a while with very few cosmetic changes.

As another example, during the "Weather You Can Always Turn To" era, fonts, graphics, maps, title banners, etc., stayed pretty much the same for years with hardly any changes at all.

It's really only lately that people demand constant changes, everything new, and everything now.  Unfortunately for the broadcasters, it's their job to keep up with public demand, so they have to spend money making changes, releasing updates as soon as possible, and so on.  We saw the little glitches that plagued The Weather Channel throughout the day today.  Microsoft Windows is guaranteed to never be in 100% working condition when a new version is released because they're so anxious to get something new on the market as soon as possible.

Sometimes change for the sake of change isn't necessarily the best thing.

[Eric]

There's something I wanted to have clarified about the IS2, did the design remain the same as before or did it also get graphically overhauled like it's IS counterpart?

The LDL and local forecast segments on the IS2 are identical to the IS.  So identical, in fact, that the IS2 local forecast just has a lot of empty space on the right third of the screen, since there's nothing extra (yet) in the widescreen space that the IS doesn't have.

The only difference between the two is that the IS2 overlays local information on the lower half of the new sidebar.

[Eric]

Is it true that our local forecasts on The Weather Channel are getting shorter and local forecasts on Canada's Weather Network are getting longer? These new local forecasts on The Weather Channel do remind me of The Weather Network as there are maybe only two songs that are played and each one has a few variations to them.

Today, The Weather Network remains an informational channel, while The Weather Channel is trying to become an entertainment channel.  Big difference in terms of the remits the two channels give to themselves.  It's a shame.

Even when The Weather Network used the WeatherStar 4000 they got so much more out of it in terms of graphics capabilities.  The way they did this was nationally-broadcast backgrounds, so the WS simply had to cue the graphics and text over them without drawing any backgrounds of its own.  The graphics and text looked much better than The Weather Channel's output, too, though TWC gave a small preview of what the 4000 was capable of in other modes during "Prime Time Tonight" - same WeatherStar, different fonts.  On the other hand, satellite viewers of The Weather Network, or those with a malfunctioning (or no) Star, just got to watch nothing but empty boxes on the screen during the entire local forecast segments.  TWN got national forecasts much, much later...

[Eric]

Is the local radar always going to show now regardless if there's precip or not? What happened to the forecast maps we saw in the previews?

The local radar always showed, whether there was precipitation or not.  At least in Daytona Beach, as well as the videos I've seen posted here, the metro radar has only shown when there was precipitation in the area.  As far as the forecast maps on the local forecast, I do miss those.  I suppose time is a factor, and TWC doesn't seem to be interested in making local forecasts longer than 60 seconds anymore.   Oh, to go back to the days of 3 minute local forecasts...

[Nick]

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

[IceManNYR]

"Our first objective is to ensure our fans get their weather, all the time, on our screen, even during commercial breaks and when watching our shows."

Except if you have a cable system that does not have an IS2 and you get nothing on screen during longform and the longform commercial breaks. I get why it's not on screen, technically it's not weather all the time.

"Weather Center Live starts at 10 a.m. ET giving you all the weather stories around our globe and hosted by the most talented meteorologists today."
Huh? A rebroadcast of "Wake Up With Al" was on at 10am ET Tuesday.

"Starting at 8 p.m. ET and throughout the night, every night, we will provide our fans the most engaging stories of real people tackling the natural drama of lives lived in the elements.  Shows in November and December at night include Prospectors at 9 p.m. ET and Freaks of Nature at 10 p.m. ET every Sunday."

BS! Prospectors has nothing to do with weather and should be on another channel.
I am happy though that other non weather reality shows are no longer on the schedule.

TWC still does not have a set OCM schedule. Jen was on 4am Tuesday with Alex Walice and today Julie is on with Alex at 4am.

Same music is back under all forecast segments

TWCHD 20131113 0359

[gt1racerlHDl]

New Bedford Local Forecast: 11/13/13 Arctic Blast

[jrhtwc]

"Our first objective is to ensure our fans get their weather, all the time, on our screen, even during commercial breaks and when watching our shows."

Except if you have a cable system that does not have an IS2 and you get nothing on screen during longform and the longform commercial breaks. I get why it's not on screen, technically it's not weather all the time.

"Weather Center Live starts at 10 a.m. ET giving you all the weather stories around our globe and hosted by the most talented meteorologists today."
Huh? A rebroadcast of "Wake Up With Al" was on at 10am ET Tuesday.

"Starting at 8 p.m. ET and throughout the night, every night, we will provide our fans the most engaging stories of real people tackling the natural drama of lives lived in the elements.  Shows in November and December at night include Prospectors at 9 p.m. ET and Freaks of Nature at 10 p.m. ET every Sunday."

BS! Prospectors has nothing to do with weather and should be on another channel.
I am happy though that other non weather reality shows are no longer on the schedule.

TWC still does not have a set OCM schedule. Jen was on 4am Tuesday with Alex Walice and today Julie is on with Alex at 4am.

Same music is back under all forecast segments
TWCHD 20131113 0359

The SD feed should have WATT right? That's how it is with my hometown cable system. As of a few weeks ago when I checked the cable store in one of our malls, we had the national HD feed because we didn't have IS2 yet. Don't know if they got an IS2 with the Relaunch. Hoping to check Friday.

No Rundown from 6:15AM CT, it worked during Chris' WCL Last Night. Anyone know if we got the LDL during longform before WCL this morning?

[gt1racerlHDl]

1 addition they should do to the SD intelliStar, where the time is over the TWC logo on the LDL add the current temp and rotate it with the clock.

and i caught this yesterday during the graphics conversion

[TWCmatthew]

1 addition they should do to the SD intelliStar, where the time is over the TWC logo on the LDL add the current temp and rotate it with the clock.

and i caught this yesterday during the graphics conversion

I like that basemap much, much better. The only think they could do is change the text color on the cities from transparent gray to white.

[toxictwister00]

This might be weird, but I think the old IS radar maps work better on there, while these newer radar maps work better on the IS2.

EDIT: I say this because the newer radar maps look clearer and easier to see/read on the IS2 than they do on the IS. It looks blurry on the IS.

[Localonthe8s]

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".