Preview Subscription TV WSMW 27 Worcester Sign-Off IMPROVED

This is a technical bulletin that was broadcast over WSMW TV 27 in Worcester, Massachusetts as they were a subscription TV station known as Preview. This was recorded by me in March of 1984 using my home-brew Zenith SSAVI UHF receiver/decoder. You did not need cable to receive this channel in those days...just a good UHF rooftop antenna. THIS IS AN IMPROVED UPLOAD QUALITY OVER MY PREVIOUS UPLOAD BY POPULAR DEMAND...ENJOY!!

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Preview
• stv
• ssavi
• subscription
• tv
• television
• wsmw
• channel
• 27
• worcester
• massachusetts
• on
• wqtv
• 68
• boston
• 1983
• 1984
• wuni

[nextg]

Interesting seeing the ONTV logo and graphics for a station airing Preview subscription programming. Any info on how that would come about?

[pvx]

@kargaroc386: Actually, that already has been done--by a now-defunct company called USDigital (aka USDTV). They offered encrypted digital channels over the air (through participating DTV stations) of cable tv fare (CNN, Discovery, ESPN, etc.) that could be received by a USDTV receiver box (which also doubled as a free-to-air standard ATSC DTV receiver). USDTV even offered their boxes through Wal-Mart for a while, but the service was only limited to Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, and Tucson...

[pvx]

@varians Yes, I did have a USDTV box myself a while back. I sent you a reply to your personal message you sent me, with all the details.

[varians]

@pvx Hi Did you have USDigital (aka USDTV)? Did you get (CNN, Discovery, ESPN, etc.)? How did they Scramble the channels you did not pay for? Do you have any videos or photos? Who took over USDigital (aka USDTV)? Do you know if they are going to launching a service like that soon or are there any other companies planning on launching a service like that soon? I hate Cable Tv! Email me back.

Thanks,

Varian

[pvx]

@wmbrown6 Maybe a Tektronix 1410, I know for sure (since I have one in my studio) that it can generate full-field color bars as pictured here...

[Nokorola]

Very cool.

[Kargaroc286]

@wmbrown6 pretty much all types of color bars are pretty common, and there can be tons of hardware to do that.

[wmbrown6]

Just a question: Does anyone know what color-bar generator was used by WSMW in those days? I know at least one other station that used this kind of color bar arrangement: KTHI (now KVLY) in Fargo/Grand Forks, ND.

[LemonSubscriptionTV]

Because Preview by this time,was quickly going bankrupt, and shared it's feed with Ontv,and eventually Selectv.Preview finally ended all together in 1986.

[donjabroni]

Damn, they didn't even bother to let the dude finish his sign-off!