Prevue Guide Forums

An EPG recording from 1983: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRM-tRFhZ4w

Nice discovery! This may possibly be the oldest (known) video recording of the old EPG channel. Hard to believe that it's now Pop. I was also curious about the computer system that this cable system was using at the time. It's a lot different from the EPG Senior program from the Amiga-based version. In fact, this video even pre-dated the Amiga 1000's debut. It also seems to be different from the 1986 Warner Cable-era EPG video from Houston, TX since it's got a completely different system font. Yet, the one in this video still looks very similar to the EPG Senior's layout as well as the one from the 1986 Warner Cable EPG clip. One last thing to point out in this video was that it appeared to have an ad crawl at the bottom of the screen, but the cable system seemed to leave it blink. This would of not of been shown if the ad crawl wasn't enabled (as seen in the EPG Senior-based version).

Interesting video!

Something makes me think this is an earlier verison of the Atari code, with a redefined font maybe? I just can't come up with a hardware platform that could do this back in '83. Love the way the clock slides into the title bar still even in '83.

Anybody any ideas? Looked everywhere

I found a rare 4-minute clip of Prevue Channel from Friday, July 4, 1997, from a private torrent site. Uploaded to Mediafire.
http://www.mediafire.com/watch/?puwp25zm498u46a

Who's uploading this kind of thing to private torrent sites!? that's hardcore geekery

joseph_sobora wrote:I found a rare 4-minute clip of Prevue Channel from Friday, July 4, 1997, from a private torrent site. Uploaded to Mediafire.
http://www.mediafire.com/watch/?puwp25zm498u46a

That's my Birthday! also that was recorded right when i lived there in Detroit. also there's music i may add to the soundtrack collection by Killer tracks and Music House/EMI/Firstcom.

tin wrote:Who's uploading this kind of thing to private torrent sites!? that's hardcore geekery

I know, I've been searching around on those websites until one user mention there was some Prevue footage on their VHS recording. So, I had to download it to see if it's there. Wish it was more than 4 minutes!

kwest93 wrote:That's my Birthday! also that was recorded right when i lived there in Detroit. also there's music i may add to the soundtrack collection by Killer tracks and Music House/EMI/Firstcom.

Yep, on the same day, during the fourth of July weekend was when we celebrated my brother's birthday and went to see "Men in Black" and "Hercules" (Disney's Version) in theatres. Such a shame I didn't get cable again until later in November. I would have seen this footage of Prevue, with a promo of "Prevue Online" with their web address as mention on the grid.

I downloaded the video in MediaFire and saw some tidbits from the video.

One thing I find out is that almost of all the promos from other cable networks aired on this video except for the Prevue ad had a bug on the top-half video when showing text for local cable viewers. The channel number was replaced with the six-letter channel name that was never supposed to be showed to viewers (for example: "Channel CNBC", instead of "Channel 37") and only showed on the top of the text when full channel name is that name or currently unavailable. Also, the channel number is located at the top instead of the channel name.

Second, the channel number can be fitted to six numbers for mixed channel numbers (depends of course in the cable system) as seen in the video (ex: 11/B22 is Discovery Channel), which did not use in the satellite grid.

And another one, Nationwide is on your side. (1:12 to 1:27 mark).

Lastly, it is odd that the Prevue ad did had two slides. I thought that was only for promos appearing on PPV with text containing PPV info after the description of the movie and before the (CC), (Stereo) and the length marks (ex: To order this PPV, call..., or To order this PPV, press "BUY"... or something like that), which did not appear in this video.

(The video is recorded in the Detroit metropolitan area, as the local text advertisements were based on parts of the metropolitan, FYI)

joseph_sobora wrote:I found a rare 4-minute clip of Prevue Channel from Friday, July 4, 1997, from a private torrent site. Uploaded to Mediafire.
http://www.mediafire.com/watch/?puwp25zm498u46a

Wow, awesome! Thanks for posting.

tin wrote:Interesting video!

Something makes me think this is an earlier verison of the Atari code, with a redefined font maybe? I just can't come up with a hardware platform that could do this back in '83. Love the way the clock slides into the title bar still even in '83.

One of the original guys told me a few years ago that before the Atari/Amiga versions, they used Texscan character generators.