A data file for Prevue Networks, Inc.

[joseph_sobora]

Here's something I found recently, a website that has a .pdf data file for information on Prevue and Sneak Prevue, from Febraury, 19, 1997.
http://ecfsdocs.fcc.gov/filings/1997/02/28/178749.html

[woddfellow2]

It said that they could not do closed captioning... I noticed that TV Guide Channel/TV Guide Network has used closed captioning with its long-form programming since at least the mid-2000s, and it covers/covered the listings grid.

[AriX]

Nice find! This was interesting to read. Prevue Networks is obviously exactly right about both the technical difficulties and limited utility of enforcing closed captioning on their channels.

[joseph_sobora]

I remember they were putting closed-captioning on some local ads, but I think they were doing that once it became "TV Guide Channel".

[nwgatwcfan]

I wonder if this is the reason that TV Guide Channel got rid of the double video feeds at the top of the screen when they rolled out the Yellow grid?

[AriX]

I wonder if this is the reason that TV Guide Channel got rid of the double video feeds at the top of the screen when they rolled out the Yellow grid?

Nope. That's because over time, they moved the video content to widescreen. It was still a dual video feed, but one was on the top and one on the bottom instead of two on the top.

[tin]

I also presume the hardware got better at moving things around the screen, the power of the Amiga hardware meant it was limited to just blanking one or other side of the video. BTW the Amiga could easily have done widescreen if it was programmed to do so, and I'm not entirely sure it couldn't have done the closed captioning!

[AriX]

I also presume the hardware got better at moving things around the screen, the power of the Amiga hardware meant it was limited to just blanking one or other side of the video. BTW the Amiga could easily have done widescreen if it was programmed to do so, and I'm not entirely sure it couldn't have done the closed captioning!

It would have been able to generate the text, but it would not have been able to encode it into the closed captioned format, which involves putting the captions into the VBI of the outputted video. Expensive hardware would be needed for that; normally it could just be encoded in the video delivered over satellite, but the Amiga's genlock renders that useless.

[woddfellow2]

I wonder if this is the reason that TV Guide Channel got rid of the double video feeds at the top of the screen when they rolled out the Yellow grid?

Nope. That's because over time, they moved the video content to widescreen. It was still a dual video feed, but one was on the top and one on the bottom instead of two on the top.

I found a mention of that in this post:

When TV Guide Channel still ran split screen -- instead of 75/25 or 80/20 or whatever it is now -- the video was divided in half vertically, so each local NT machine could choose which vertical half to show in its local top half.)

That means that instead of looking like this, as with the Prevue C-Band feed:


...it probably looked something like this?:

[AriX]

That means that instead of looking like this, as with the Prevue C-Band feed:[/url]

...it probably looked something like this?:

Yes, exactly!