Prevue Guide Forums

tin wrote:Nice one, that will definitely do project coming along nicely hope to show you something soon

Great! Excited to see it!

LocalH wrote:"Jeff Bruette"

Ok, so I never called him because lol social anxiety. Anyway, I was looking around and happened to find a video entitled "Professional Techniques for Deluxe Paint III" on YouTube, and I'll be damned if the host/narrator/whatever didn't say his name was "Jeff Bruette". Hearing that actually made me lose track of watching the video and instead read through old threads here. Anyway, the video is here. Might be interesting if you've ever wondered what the guy who made the PrevueC font looks like (and who may have possibly had other involvement in the production of the EPG/Prevue software).

LocalH wrote: Ok, so I never called him because lol social anxiety. Anyway, I was looking around and happened to find a video entitled "Professional Techniques for Deluxe Paint III" on YouTube, and I'll be damned if the host/narrator/whatever didn't say his name was "Jeff Bruette". Hearing that actually made me lose track of watching the video and instead read through old threads here. Anyway, the video is here. Might be interesting if you've ever wondered what the guy who made the PrevueC font looks like (and who may have possibly had other involvement in the production of the EPG/Prevue software).

Haha wow, good find! You should call him some day

I've had relatively good luck with the Prevue people I have cold-contacted. I have been able to successfully reach about half of them, including a senior software engineer for TV Guide Networks until rather recently, a developer from TV Guide On Screen, which Prevue acquired in the mid-90s, and two other guys who were the original hardware and software developers of the EPG, Prevue, and Sneak Prevue software for Atari and Amiga.

So if you can, go for it! And if anyone has any questions for the types of people I mentioned I was in contact with, let me know, I can get through to them again. (As long as your question isn't "GIVE ME THE EPG/SNEAK PREVUE/PREVUE GUIDE SOFTWARE", because I've tried pretty hard and they don't have it lol) One of them may still have some hardware and /possibly/ even software for us, but it could still take a while to unfold.

AriX wrote:

LocalH wrote: Ok, so I never called him because lol social anxiety. Anyway, I was looking around and happened to find a video entitled "Professional Techniques for Deluxe Paint III" on YouTube, and I'll be damned if the host/narrator/whatever didn't say his name was "Jeff Bruette". Hearing that actually made me lose track of watching the video and instead read through old threads here. Anyway, the video is here. Might be interesting if you've ever wondered what the guy who made the PrevueC font looks like (and who may have possibly had other involvement in the production of the EPG/Prevue software).

Haha wow, good find! You should call him some day

I've had relatively good luck with the Prevue people I have cold-contacted. I have been able to successfully reach about half of them, including a senior software engineer for TV Guide Networks until rather recently, a developer from TV Guide On Screen, which Prevue acquired in the mid-90s, and two other guys who were the original hardware and software developers of the EPG, Prevue, and Sneak Prevue software for Atari and Amiga.

So if you can, go for it! And if anyone has any questions for the types of people I mentioned I was in contact with, let me know, I can get through to them again. (As long as your question isn't "GIVE ME THE EPG/SNEAK PREVUE/PREVUE GUIDE SOFTWARE", because I've tried pretty hard and they don't have it lol) One of them may still have some hardware and /possibly/ even software for us, but it could still take a while to unfold.

Did any of the Chicago area system use wgn america for guide data? They never had wgn america as a channel.

Any info about how the PrimeStar guides where setup? different from others?

How was stuff like local sports ppv that on some systems used the PPV slots handled I don't think they had was on say was on Viewer's Choice / Request / others in other citys but it may used the Viewer's Choice / Request / others channel slots.

How fast was it to add / make changes to get say make up / rained games into the guide? Teams that just made the playoffs?

JoeTheDragon wrote:Did any of the Chicago area system use wgn america for guide data? They never had wgn america as a channel.

Any info about how the PrimeStar guides where setup? different from others?

How was stuff like local sports ppv that on some systems used the PPV slots handled I don't think they had was on say was on Viewer's Choice / Request / others in other citys but it may used the Viewer's Choice / Request / others channel slots.

How fast was it to add / make changes to get say make up / rained games into the guide? Teams that just made the playoffs?

Some of this stuff has come up before... I don't remember all of the answers but probably in Chicago they got WGN America just for the sake of Prevue.

There is a whole thread about the PrimeStar guides... in fact, it's your thread viewtopic.php?f=2&t=227

As for the speed of updating sports listings, they could probably get a change like that in in a few hours... They just needed to get their database updated, and wait for the data carousel to send the updated data to all of the listening Prevue machines at the headends. Not sure what their backoffice processes were like, though!

AriX wrote:

JoeTheDragon wrote:Did any of the Chicago area system use wgn america for guide data? They never had wgn america as a channel.

Any info about how the PrimeStar guides where setup? different from others?

How was stuff like local sports ppv that on some systems used the PPV slots handled I don't think they had was on say was on Viewer's Choice / Request / others in other citys but it may used the Viewer's Choice / Request / others channel slots.

How fast was it to add / make changes to get say make up / rained games into the guide? Teams that just made the playoffs?

Some of this stuff has come up before... I don't remember all of the answers but probably in Chicago they got WGN America just for the sake of Prevue.

There is a whole thread about the PrimeStar guides... in fact, it's your thread viewtopic.php?f=2&t=227

As for the speed of updating sports listings, they could probably get a change like that in in a few hours... They just needed to get their database updated, and wait for the data carousel to send the updated data to all of the listening Prevue machines at the headends. Not sure what their backoffice processes were like, though!

I know I asked the questions in the past but I want to ask the people who worked on the hardware / software?

also ask them what the back end hardware was like and how it was like to change stuff for cable systems?

Was there an max number of channels? Some cable systems had a lot of room the local one had a dual 60 room for 120 channels (was not fully used) back in the mid-late 80's was still dual 60 in the (90's A and B mirrored ) at a point in the 90's where they did some digital cable simulation on the B analog side. Then later on just A with digal cable and the slow start of the analog moving to digital cable to now with no more analog.

Ask them if they know any thing about the cable net / tci Mount Prospect IL system.

was stuff like PlayCable and saga channel given fake channel numbers in the guide just to list them as being on the cable system?

JoeTheDragon wrote:I know I asked the questions in the past but I want to ask the people who worked on the hardware / software?

also ask them what the back end hardware was like and how it was like to change stuff for cable systems?

Was there an max number of channels? Some cable systems had a lot of room the local one had a dual 60 room for 120 channels (was not fully used) back in the mid-late 80's was still dual 60 in the (90's A and B mirrored ) at a point in the 90's where they did some digital cable simulation on the B analog side. Then later on just A with digal cable and the slow start of the analog moving to digital cable to now with no more analog.

Ask them if they know any thing about the cable net / tci Mount Prospect IL system.

was stuff like PlayCable and saga channel given fake channel numbers in the guide just to list them as being on the cable system?

Unfortunately the people I talked to will not know most of this stuff. They were purely involved in writing the software, and mostly the very first versions of it; how the system was deployed in different locations and the specifics of how the listings were presented is not something they would have been involved in.

Also, you have to realize that this stuff was primarily developed 20-25 years ago, and they simply don't remember most of these details. I'm sure there was a max number of channels at one point... I believe the EPG Jr. had a hard limit of 64. I'm not sure if the Amiga had a formal limit, but if so, it was much higher. I don't believe PlayCable or SEGA Channel were listed in the Prevue guide, I haven't noticed it in any of the videos we have.

The backoffice stuff is a good question, but again, I'm not even sure that they were particularly involved in that. I will make sure to ask next time I talk to someone. Certainly they designed the data format, but outside of the hardware/software powering the guide itself, that stuff was handled by other people. The only thing they mentioned about that is that the original system involved an Excel spreadsheet with macros that generated the serial commands, hooked up to a system that sent them over the satellite link, which thought was pretty funny.

Any chance they could have been mistaken? I'd find it hard to believe the information was put into Excel, in particular because Excel would have been such an uncommon, immature application at that time, although it's definitely possible I suppose!

tin wrote:Any chance they could have been mistaken? I'd find it hard to believe the information was put into Excel, in particular because Excel would have been such an uncommon, immature application at that time, although it's definitely possible I suppose!

Yeah, I was surprised too. I actually took notes when I talked to the original software engineer... I looked back at them just now and it seems that the Excel macros were actually used for the original Prevue video system, controlling a "big tape machine" and the 110 baud CTRL data, not the 2400 baud DATA feed. That would have been in 1988 instead of 1985, so maybe a bit more believable?

Incidentally, I also forgot that he gave me the name of the guy who did the original Prevue backoffice stuff. I can't seem to find him anywhere online though...

I figure to throw in my 2 cents. Kind of odd that Excel dates back to 1982 but as Multiplan. It is interesting that Prevue used Excel.