Primestar Prevue

[mixdup]

So here's a Prevue channel that I bet most of you haven't seen...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5e5OTLNqBs (this is not my video, but I ran across it)

Back in the late 90s Primestar, which was a poor man's DirecTV, was relaunching their service with a massive addition of channels and re-arranging of channel numbers. Primestar was cheaper mainly because it was run by cable companies and originally only marketed in areas not served by cable. Their equipment was pretty low-end and did not include an on-screen IPG like Dish Network and DirecTV. Before this, Primestar had a normal Prevue Channel, but since they were doing a massive channel addition and there were many regional channels (they ended up with like 300-400 channels when you count music, regional sports, and regional weather), they split their Prevue Channel into several "themed" channels. One channel would be variety (think TNT, TBS, etc), one would be news (CNN, MSNBC, etc), sports, and on and on.

What was odd was the weird non-scrolling software they used. I don't remember exactly when this happened, I was in elementary/middle school when it came down. Primestar sold to DirecTV in 1999, so what might have been in the future, who knows. It was strange, because each of the themed Prevue Channels were programmed as if they were for a completely separate lineup, but still used the main Prevue satellite video feed. Notice in the video how there are zero promos for Family Vue because it's the sports channel. They just covered up non-theme specific promos with commercials or that generic card.

[AriX]

Hi mixedup,

This is certainly an interesting clip - and thanks for sharing that information! But we did already discuss it a bit over here: http://www.ariweinstein.com/prevue/view ... t=10#p1481

[mixdup]

Doh!

[ianbader10]

Sorry for responding to a topic posted almost four years ago, but anyway, didn't PrimeStar's version of the Prevue Channel look similar to Prevue Latino circa 1997? I have reviewed the Prevue Latino videos other forum members have posted (in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=42) and found out that Prevue Latino's grid (powered by the so-called "Prevue Junior" software) looks about the same in those videos as the PrimeStar version. Here is a quote that explains this (some parts have been edited out for clarity):

So here's a Prevue channel that I bet most of you haven't seen...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5e5OTLNqBs (this is not my video, but I ran across it)...

What was odd was the weird non-scrolling software [PrimeStar's Prevue Channel] used. I don't remember exactly when this happened, I was in elementary/middle school when it came down.... It was strange, because each of the themed Prevue Channels were programmed as if they were for a completely separate lineup, but still used the main Prevue satellite video feed. Notice in the video how there are zero promos for Family Vue because it's the sports channel. They just covered up non-theme specific promos with commercials or that generic card.

Odd, isn't it? The only difference I know about is the listings in the PrimeStar video have a teal background (because this video was from PrimeStar's Prevue Channel for sports), while the listings in the Prevue Latino videos have a navy blue background. We may later find out what system the Prevue Junior software ran on or something else, but for now, who knows?