Information AboutIntellistar |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT INTELLISTAR | |
| television technology | |
| the weather channel | |
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The IntelliStar is the fifth generation successor to the WeatherStar systems used by the American Cable TV and Satellite TV channel The Weather Channel (TWC), for inserting local Forecast and current Weather information (such as the "Local on the 8s" portion of their program schedule) into TWCs programming. Like the WeatherStar, it is installed as well at the cable TV company's Headend . The IntelliStar has many enhanced features over its predecessor, the WeatherStar XL. As well as receiving local weather data via satellite like the WeatherStars, it also has the capability of receiving the same data over the Internet as a back up with its built-in Ethernet port. It also has improved display graphics, dynamic radar capabilities, and a new feature called Vocal Local, in which a pre-recorded voice will read the weather conditions displayed on screen. It plays the background Music from its satellite Feed and uses Ducking to reduce the Volume of the background music when speaking. INTELLISTAR'S DESIGN The IntelliStar differs in design from previous WeatherStar units, considering the fact that the IntelliStar is basically a customized rack-mount Intel CPU-based PC . It runs the FreeBSD Operating System , running specialized software written by The Weather Channel to make it function as an IntelliStar, but otherwise using Commodity Hardware of the PC platform. This was done to minimize maintenance costs, and to ease upgrading of the IntelliStar units. The previous WeatherStar units used a proprietary hardware design that hampered any hardware upgrades. A modified version of the IntelliStar is also used by TWC for their WeatherScan service, which is basically a 24/7 version of the local WeatherStar/IntelliStar-generated segments on TWC, and carried on a separate channel on those cable TV systems carrying WeatherScan. INTELLISTAR'S CONTENT Due to the discontinuation of the XL's Regional Conditions map in 2002 welcoming back to their Regional Conditions maps in 2004. In September 2004, the Regional Forecast is back, the AM/PM Commute Metro Maps are added (2004-2005, later in April 2006 brought back), and the Schoolday Weather or an Outdoor Activity Forecast are also added to the IntelliStar (Only the Schoolday weather segment displays over the back-to-school days, while in the summer, Outdoor Activity Forecast displays all 7-days a week, including the holidays). In October 2004, National Sponsors have been added during local forecast. I.E. Intel Centrino , America Online , Dell , AT&T , MSN , etc. on the upper right hand corner in about 48 seconds after the ad crawl displays. And also, the 36 Hour Forecast was replaced with the 48 Hour Local Forecast. In December 2005 when the narration continues to read, the 36 Hour Forecast product returns with an additional 48 Hour Local Forecast. The L-Bar (aka Corner Forecast) have been added since December 15, 2005 for the area during special programming. I.E. ''Forecast Earth'', '' Storm Stories '', '' It Could Happen Tomorrow ''. This L-bar is similar to the one that used by Weatherscan and NBC Weather Plus . Allen Jackson's narration now began reading the 36 Hour Forecast product. (later though in July 2004, he now updated to begin reading the wind information, and weather bulletin data from The National Weather Service . Later in May 2005, his narration changes from "Your" to "Our" in each applicable narration. I.E. Our local Doppler Radar, Our 7-day outlook, etc. In addition to that, Traffic Pulse has been debut since May 2005 in the top 18 markets. Chicago , New York City , Los Angeles , etc. A Traffic Overview map similar that on WeatherScan was added on December 15, 2005. ALPHASTAR As of March 31, 2006, TWC Classics message board members who participated in a survey by The Weather Channel had their IntelliStars become "AlphaStars", the first StarSystems in the country to receive HiRAD Technology on their Local Forecast. HiRAD is a technology that allows The Weather Channel to retrieve weather conditions from almost any pinpointed location and each regional map. I.E. Clear, Sunny. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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