The Weather Channel to debut new grpahics

[T.L. Hughes 757]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta-oc0gr1rM

Based on three of the videos linked, it looks like they did away with the 36/48-hour forecasts (unless the three vids with the local forecasts just show one of the shorter flavors) and the LDL that summarizes the current weather during Local on the 8s.

[chrelevator 28]

"Tampa, will you need an ark? We NOAA guy"

 

Dafuq. Stop it, TWC.

 

By the way, it seems as though the legacy STAR systems will continue to live on (for now...). Here's a clip of a WS XL after the relaunch:

[24994J 5280]

At least you all get a local Lot8's. My cable carrier (or somebody) is just broadcasting the generic regional forecasts.

[sanewsguy 509]

 

On the other side of this, TWC sees the fact that they'll have weather on the screen at all times as an opportunity to drop even more live programming. Now there will be no more live programming after 8 pm ET on weekdays and 2 pm ET on weekends. It's basically the MSNBC model all over again.

 

I will tune into TWC at 4 AM ET to see this new evolution of the network I loved as a kid, but I don't see myself sticking around for long. I'm not going to watch endless hours of "Prospectors," "Coast Guard Alaska," and whatever else they plan on showing for 8-14 hours in a row.

 

On the positive side, I'm hopeful that the live hours that remain will at least have a cohesive and professional visual design. The current graphics are so horrible that it's embarassing. From the red and white lower thirds to the maps and illustrations with the huge blocky fonts and flat look; it looks horrible. Everything looked so much better back in 2008-2009 when they actually cared about their studio shows. I hope they'll turn the current visual mess around with this relaunch.

 

Back then they were still owned by Landmark/in the early stages of NBC management. NBC is what is wrong with the Weather Channel today and they have destroyed this network I once enjoyed watching. I now get all my weather from Accu-Weather because they are more interested in the weather than in entertainment. NBC is in the entertainment business, not in the weather forecasting business, and it shows.

[localnewswatch 6]

 

Back then they were still owned by Landmark/in the early stages of NBC management. NBC is what is wrong with the Weather Channel today and they have destroyed this network I once enjoyed watching. I now get all my weather from Accu-Weather because they are more interested in the weather than in entertainment. NBC is in the entertainment business, not in the weather forecasting business, and it shows.

 

The weather channel (sorry guys) is so useless. I would never, ever, ever, ever turn to a channel to check for a forecast... it's 2013! The only thing I like it for is to watch whenever weather is taking place in a non local portion of the country, and they still do a good job at covering that.

[MidwestTV 1174]

 

The weather channel (sorry guys) is so useless. I would never, ever, ever, ever turn to a channel to check for a forecast... it's 2013! The only thing I like it for is to watch whenever weather is taking place in a non local portion of the country, and they still do a good job at covering that.

 

In today's age of weather apps and internet access everywhere, yes, they ARE less relevant. However if NBC hadn't helped to turn them so tabloid, they might have found a way to still stay competitive and relevant.

[Spring Rubber 617]

 

I really thought they were going to start the LOT8s with "Hello , here's your weather", or something like that, which would have been very nice and welcoming. But no, they had to make it all cute. Blah.

 

They do exactly that in HD on the Intellistar 2. For whatever reason, they're only doing the jokes on the SD Intellistar.

[LoadStar 363]

I love the jokes. "Hello, , here's your weather" is boring as hell.

[PelicanGuy 117]

I have been watching for a while also and I like what I'm seeing so far. From what I've read on other spots:

 

* The 4000, 3000 and XL will eventually be replaced. When that will happen, no one knows.

* You likely noticed that the vocals that accompanied the LF are missing. TWC says they will be back soon.

* I have DirecTV and the national feed has been updated. But the LF (where we punch in our ZIP codes) that displays over the national feed has NOT been updated. No word on when that will happen.

* All watches, warnings, alerts and advisories will scroll in red from here on out.

[Payton39 25]

I'm sorry, but I really liked the old graphics better (I hate the font of the crawler, even though it is more visible), and really can't stand the music I just heard during On the 8's. I guess, with a niche channel like this, where I am judging it only on usefulness, so "sleek" new fonts and snappy music don't do much for me (I listen to the NOAA weather feed a lot).

 

 

Al Roker?!?!

[djlynch 54]

What I keep noticing is that the background shading on the local forecast bar during taped programming is so faint and the font is so thin that it becomes impossible to read if it's on a light background. Also, I'm not terribly fond of the way that they only seem to have about five different icons, so there's no way to tell the difference between a few showers and all-day rain at a glance.

[Jess 1110]

A few weeks in, I'm gonna say this is more than "proof of concept" - it's a radical change but it's a much needed one. Not only for the network, but possibly for weather information in general. I think we've moved too much in the direction of detailed, realistic, flashy graphics. Most of the stations in my area do that stupid thing where they just show the skyline and text indicating the temp and conditions. I. hate. that. It is so much easier to understand an icon. I'm glad that not only is TWC going to that approach, but using simplified icons and readable but modern text in the new look. It's very striking.

 

Now to the Local on the 8s. Aesthetically, the LOT8s have never looked better IMO. The last time I think they looked this good was all the way back in 1999 and the first version of the WeatherStar XL. I'd love to have the HD Intellistar 2... actually, strike that. I'd love to have a working SD Intellistar 1.

 

Since the update, the FiOS Philadelphia Intellistar has slowly begun to go haywire. Everything was fine at first, except for the radars - the land masses are supposed to be white, but here they maintain their green topography appearance from before. Which means that the roads and city marks, set in darker colors, are pretty much unreadable at this point.

 

It gets worse; by some point on the 25th, the TWC national feed and the Intellistar have gone out of sync. It's now cuing about eight seconds later than it's meant to, which means we see the national weather headlines page before the LF kicks in and runs in full. This also means that a few seconds of commercials or programming are heard, but not seen.

 

Now, not only is the IS still out of sync, it's clearly having problems with some portions of the LF sequences. In particular, the Alert page seems to tax the system; animations stutter and music cuts out.

 

This is a YouTube example (not mine) showing some of the problems. I'm working on a compilation upload.

 

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[Action Newsroom 1151]

 

A few weeks in, I'm gonna say this is more than "proof of concept" - it's a radical change but it's a much needed one. Not only for the network, but possibly for weather information in general. I think we've moved too much in the direction of detailed, realistic, flashy graphics. Most of the stations in my area do that stupid thing where they just show the skyline and text indicating the temp and conditions. I. hate. that.

 

Amen. to that. I hate graphics that show creepy-looking 3D renderings of skylines or beaches or whatever. WPVI, to my constant and nightmare-inducing consternation, has 3D renderings of EVERYTHING, from Atlantic City to the Poconos, which scares me the most. And they NEVER stop with it; the more years pass, the more flashy and detailed they are.

As of recently, they got new ones in which the Philadelphia skyline (and anything in it.) are in 3D. It pisses me off and creeps me out that this still happens. I get used to them now, but new ones come, which makes me close my eyes or turn the channel. I would want to complain to WPVI about it, but there might be people who like this, so I have to get used to them for a long time.

[sanewsguy 509]

I usually don't watch the Weather Channel. But I was at the restaurant last week and they had TWC on. So I finally got to see the new graphics. They look worse on TV than they do here on the computer. What were they thinking? I'd take the old graphics anyday. Oh well, I don't watch TWC anyways so I don't care.

[ToriElectra 291]

Yeah, Hulkie, you might want to go down to your Verizon office and see if they can do anything. They may have to replace the whole unit (and get an HD one as well, so win-win!).

[Jess 1110]

Well, they finally fixed the syncing issue. The only thing that needs to be corrected is the maps, and they can push out a software update for that.

 

And no, I'm not going to the Verizon office or calling them. "Hey, the Weather Channel local forecast isn't working right" isn't something you'd contact the cable system about.

 

I did, however, register on the TWCToday forums and posted about it in the WeatherSTAR tech support section. And I also compiled this video. I shouldn't have included some of the examples, since they're examples of regular TWC errors that have existed since the dawn of time.

 

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While I'm still concerned about the slowdown on the alert screen (that doesn't seem to be an issue on other IS units), one reply to my post brings up a valid point:

 

The Intellistar is now ten year old technology. It predates iPhones, iPads, Windows 7 and 8 - hell, it's older than the Xbox 360 and PS3, and those two systems are only just now being replaced! Assuming that the graphics and RAM have not been updated over time, we're talking technology that is essentially functionally obsolete. Clearly, it's being pushed to the limit of what it can do, and it's doing things it was probably never designed to do to begin with.

[WCAUTVNBC10 408]

 

Amen. to that. I hate graphics that show creepy-looking 3D renderings of skylines or beaches or whatever. WPVI, to my constant and nightmare-inducing consternation, has 3D renderings of EVERYTHING, from Atlantic City to the Poconos, which scares me the most. And they NEVER stop with it; the more years pass, the more flashy and detailed they are.

As of recently, they got new ones in which the Philadelphia skyline (and anything in it.) are in 3D. It pisses me off and creeps me out that this still happens. I get used to them now, but new ones come, which makes me close my eyes or turn the channel. I would want to complain to WPVI about it, but there might be people who like this, so I have to get used to them for a long time.

 

Yeah it's annoying. 10 seems to do it best using their network of skycams to help tell the weather story/forecast. CG is good when done right and in small dose but 6 just goes overboard with it.

[skbl17 188]

 

Yeah it's annoying. 10 seems to do it best using their network of skycams to help tell the weather story/forecast. CG is good when done right and in small dose but 6 just goes overboard with it.

 

It's also ironic. Remember that as late as ~2000, WPVI used magnetic weather boards although everyone else had moved on to digital video and green screens; they used chromakey backgrounds for their news reports through the late 1990s. 6 was never known for being "high-tech" in those days, but everyone was fine with that, as long as the music was the same.

[Weeters 1812]

The Intellistar is now ten year old technology. It predates iPhones, iPads, Windows 7 and 8 - hell, it's older than the Xbox 360 and PS3, and those two systems are only just now being replaced! Assuming that the graphics and RAM have not been updated over time, we're talking technology that is essentially functionally obsolete. Clearly, it's being pushed to the limit of what it can do, and it's doing things it was probably never designed to do to begin with.

The concept of having a computer system at the cable headend is probably a dying one. My AT&T Uverse box can generate the local Weather Channel L-bar content itself (though it DVE squeezes the picture back). A few more years and maybe a few partnerships with service providers, and it won't matter if you're on cable, satellite, or IPTV and watching the Weather Channel, your cable box (maybe even the TV itself) will just generate your local information itself.

 

My guess is this is one reason the whole "HD Intellistar" thing never really took off. Why make the investment in proprietary hardware and software when you'll be able to do it for the cost of programming an app for a service provider's box OS?

[chrelevator 28]

I have TWC on right now, and my IS just cued very late. I wonder then if this is a problem with more STARs than the one in Philly?

 

While these updates are great, I can only imagine how taxing they are on the IS's hardware...

[Jess 1110]

 

I have TWC on right now, and my IS just cued very late. I wonder then if this is a problem with more STARs than the one in Philly?

 

While these updates are great, I can only imagine how taxing they are on the IS's hardware...

 

I saw at least one STAR on YouTube that had the same problems on the alert screen that I had, so it's not an isolated issue at least. The fact that Vocal Local is disabled on IS1 units while still active on IS2 units probably means this hardware is being pushed to its limits.

 

Though the FiOS Philly STAR is still pretty spectacularly broken. Because they were doing live Winter Storm Cleon updates during long-form last night, the STAR didn't know whether to run the expanded LOT8s LDL forecast or the regular LDL, so it displayed both on top of each other.

 

Today I actually just flat-out lost The Weather Channel's SD feed for about two hours. It abruptly cut back on at 2:05 sans any local graphics until the 2:08 LF. I'm clocking two hours because that first local forecast had radar screens that skipped from 11:50 to 2:05. I had a recording going after that, though I had to cut it off when my phone started exploding with the Nelson Mandela news.

 

I imagine the SD feed has to be processed through the intellistar before it goes to air, since it has that dual feed thing. I still don't get why it would take down the entire feed with it.

 

Oh, and the maps still aren't displaying in the proper flat white color, but the old topography colors. Wasn't that a day one fix?

 

 

 

The concept of having a computer system at the cable headend is probably a dying one. My AT&T Uverse box can generate the local Weather Channel L-bar content itself (though it DVE squeezes the picture back). A few more years and maybe a few partnerships with service providers, and it won't matter if you're on cable, satellite, or IPTV and watching the Weather Channel, your cable box (maybe even the TV itself) will just generate your local information itself.

 

My guess is this is one reason the whole "HD Intellistar" thing never really took off. Why make the investment in proprietary hardware and software when you'll be able to do it for the cost of programming an app for a service provider's box OS?

 

Or more importantly, the app on your smartphone or tablet. I wish that more of TWC's services were updated to the new visual design language - the apps aren't there yet unfortunately.

 

Like I said, the Local on the 8s are a relic, even though the look and feel of it has improved dramatically.

 

One of the other reasons the Intellistar 2 never took off was that it was stuck in development hell for years. The Intellistar is basically a PC running BSD Unix. The Weather Channel developed the software, a company called WindRiver provided the hardware. The Intellistar 2, however, is completely built by The Weather Channel and is basically a VizRT. It's also big and expensive, and some companies *coughVerizoncough* are balking at the price, which is reportedly $6000 per unit.

 

Comcast was also reportedly a hold out, but they've reportedly started rolling them out with a goal of having HD Locals on all systems by early next year. Either it's because Comcast now owns the channel or TWC is relenting on the price. I hope it's the latter - having witnessed how TimeWarner is the place where synergy goes to die, the two business units not agreeing on terms isn't out of the question.

 

Verizon has an app, and tuning to TWC on Fios boxes prompts users to hit a button to bring it up, but it's 4x3, slow, and doesn't look right. A Local on the 8s generated from the cable box itself is already happening, though. DirecTV users get zip code-based LoT8s when TWC cues them up.

[PelicanGuy 117]

 

 

DirecTV users get zip code-based LoT8s when TWC cues them up.

You are correct. It however hasn't been updated to the new look.

[jero23 105]

 

It's also ironic. Remember that as late as ~2000, WPVI used magnetic weather boards although everyone else had moved on to digital video and green screens; they used chromakey backgrounds for their news reports through the late 1990s. 6 was never known for being "high-tech" in those days, but everyone was fine with that, as long as the music was the same.

 

WPVI is the extreme "traditionalist" of all major market TV stations. In addition, Disney/ABC ought to be embarrassed that they allowed a station to operate in such an archaic manner over-the-air for all those years. I just laugh at WPVI because their sticking with tradition makes the station look very cheesy and setting itself to be unable to attract younger viewers as time goes by...

[Jess 1110]

So, let's see.

 

My Unintellistar has been cuing late and crashing into commercials and content.

 

My Unintellistar has gotten confused during long form and has displayed data on top of each other.

 

My Unintellistar keeps choking on alerts, causing the forecast to last more than sixty seconds, once again crashing into commercials and content.

 

My Unintellistar has green maps when they should have been changed to white on the first day.

 

My Unintellistar has crashed - twice - for extended periods, bringing the entire feed down with it.

 

And now, just when it couldn't get any better/worse:

 

 

Yup, nothing is being shown on TWC SD. Except for the local display text. That works. Everything else isn't.

 

Verizon Fios Philly, your Weather Channel is pretty fucking broken.

[chrelevator 28]

Just found this on YouTube. Looks like TWC pushed an update to the IntelliStars that not only fixes the alert screen, but also brings back the narration (aka "Vocal Local").

 

There is a slight bug with bringing back Vocal Local, though......when a rather long forecast is being read, the narration is cut off. The LOT8s are so rushed that long forecasts can't even be read all the way though. I just noticed this on my STAR.