Whatever Happened to the Advanced Paid Program?

[Agent86]

Seeing the "Teleworld Paid Program" show up in Now Playing made me think about the "Advanced Paid Program" that TiVo used to air. I believe it was a way TiVo used to distribute data to shorten the daily calls.

Whatever happened to this? Did the advent of network attached TiVos render it obsolete or cost prohibitive?

Does anyone have a video of the program online? I searched YouTube for it but came up empty. I used to tell my friends that there was nothing "scarier" then watching that at 4am in a pitch black room. Between the upbeat music, the moving pattern, and the message scrolling in the center of the screen it just made for a really odd experience.

But, since its not on anymore, I can't show it to anyone.

[classicsat]

AFAIK, yes, more networked TiVos was the reason for discontinuation of the data download. I seen pictures of it on the web, and may have it on VHS someplace.

[alansh]

I put some screencaps in this old thread (http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=984048#post984048).

[steve614]

And this was 5 yrs. ago?
Pretty cool that the Tivo can extract information like that from a video signal.

I'd be interested in how that works.

[Gregor]

And this was 5 yrs. ago?
Pretty cool that the Tivo can extract information like that from a video signal.

I'd be interested in how that works.

It's actually pretty simple.

Each line (there are 525 + some in a "vertical blanking interval") in analog TV can be co-opted to transmit data.

You need specialized hardware called an inserter on the authoring end, and a decoder on the receiving end.

A custom application formats the data, sends it to the inserter, either over a network or modem. The inserter overwrites whatever lines of the TV signal you've chosen. This can either be recorded and broadcast later, or sent out live.

The receiver then decodes the lines from the TV broadcast, and reformats them into whatever data was encoded.

There is an EIA standard for doing this, and anyone with $125 or so can get a copy. (Google search for LINE-21 DATA SERVICES FOR NTSC and you can get the gory technical details).

The standard (EIA-608) covers just line 21, but it works for any line in the signal. The more lines you use, the higher bandwidth you get. Tivo typically sent their promotional content this way. There is a digital corollary, but I'm not very familiar with that one.

IIRC Bloomberg used to distribute data this way as well.

[classicsat]

And this was 5 yrs. ago?
Pretty cool that the Tivo can extract information like that from a video signal.

I'd be interested in how that works.

The thread linked explains it pretty well.

In a nut shell, it is a full screen of VBI data (usually hidden). The TiVo is already set up to directly read the VBI data, so it reads the whole field and dumps it to the DB.

[restart88]

Well I've always wondered why the unsubbed R10 at mom's is still recording this program even though I never see any of the content. I guess that partly explains it.

In case you're wondering if I am in town for over a week I sub it and if less I still have shows recorded that I can watch. With today's air travel hassles and baggage charges it just wasn't worth dragging a receiver back & forth anymore.

[morac]

Back when that was showing Comcast always ended up pre-empting the APP with their own commercials so my dial-ups weren't shortened. Add to that the fact, that my answering machine and TiVo didn't like each other (the answering machine kept disconnecting the TiVO after about a minute) and getting updates was a pain (had to unplug my answering machine to get updates).

I was happy when version 4.0 came out and I immediately switched to the hidden networking setting so all was well.

[Sherminator]

And this was 5 yrs. ago?
Pretty cool that the Tivo can extract information like that from a video signal.

I'd be interested in how that works.With the correct hardware, a TiVo could do alot more with an analog TV signal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_Delivery_Control

[classicsat]

I think the TiVo could do teletext, of a sort. I don't know if the UK TiVo does, Ceefax, if it is still around. It all depends if the graphics are doable on the TiVo's graphics overlay.

PDC could be used to override guide data, for over-running Live events, or nearly instant guide data changes.

Since both those services use the VBI, the TiVo could see them, it is just a matter of TiVo software, and the broadcasters properly using them.

[morac]

After the digital switchover, using VBI would basically be pointless since the data could just be sent in the digital stream, instead of hiding it in the "analog" part of the digital stream.

[Agent86]

AFAIK, yes, more networked TiVos was the reason for discontinuation of the data download. I seen pictures of it on the web, and may have it on VHS someplace.If you happen to find the VHS and get a chunk of it online, that would be really sweet.

After the digital switchover, using VBI would basically be pointless since the data could just be sent in the digital stream, instead of hiding it in the "analog" part of the digital stream.But this wouldn't help someone who's got a Series2 TiVo, basic cable, and gets the Discovery channel on analog. No?

Does anyone know the name of the digital equivalent of VBI? That would just be interesting to learn about.

[morac]

But this wouldn't help someone who's got a Series2 TiVo, basic cable, and gets the Discovery channel on analog. No?

True, but at some point analog cable will go away as well. The good news is that VBI is supported in digital cable for purposes of backwards compatibility with analog.

Does anyone know the name of the digital equivalent of VBI? That would just be interesting to learn about.

It's not really a true equivalent, but data that's not part of the video/audio in digital TV is called "out-of-band" (OOB) data. Technically VBI is a type of "out-of-band" signal for analog TV.

[shady]

With the correct hardware, a TiVo could do alot more with an analog TV signal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_Delivery_Control

I used to have a PDC capable video recorder when I lived in the UK (10 years ago!) I loved the technology, although not all channels used it. As for teletext, it was great for flicking between live cricket on the TV and the scorecard, but news and stuff was very slow

[Sherminator]

Even with the channels that used PDC, it didn't always work properly.

I remember coming in from work to find my VCR hadn't stopped recording a show that ended three hours previous, because the PDC end signal had either not been sent or had been obscured by a week signal.

[mattack]

I can't find it in a quick search -- but wasn't there a subscription video game channel a long time ago, where the video game content was the 'channel', just like this data delivery for Tivos in the past? I think it was for Sega but I might be wrong.

[classicsat]

Sega had one, but it used its own modulation scheme, not on video, I am sure.

IIRC, i think on of the digital music services did in fact encode ther bit streams onto a video signal.