Weather Star XL is the fifth generation of the

WeatherStar WeatherStar (sometimes rendered Weather Star or WeatherSTAR; "STAR" being an acronym for Satellite Transponder Addressable Receiver) is the technology used by American cable and satellite television network The Weather Channel (TWC) to generate it ...

systems used by the American

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

and

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna comm ...

channel

The Weather Channel The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather forecas ...

(TWC), that are used to insert local

forecasts Forecasting is the process of making predictions based on past and present data. Later these can be compared (resolved) against what happens. For example, a company might estimate their revenue in the next year, then compare it against the actual ...

and current

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...

information (such as the "

Local on the 8s ''Local on the 8s'' (or the Local Forecast) is a program segment that airs on the American network The Weather Channel. It provides viewers with information on current and forecasted weather conditions for their respective area; a version of thi ...

" segments within its program schedule) into TWC's programming. At its rollout in 1998, it came months after a major update to the channel's on-air presentation. The Star XL was a major leap over the much older Weather Star 4000 system, featuring advanced capabilities such as transitions, moving icons, cloud wallpaper backgrounds and reading the local forecast contents. The WeatherStar XL first appeared in a beta roll-out on select cable systems in November 1998 and appeared briefly on

The Weather Channel Latin America The Weather Channel Latin America (Spanish: El Canal del Tiempo, Portuguese: Canal do Tempo) is a website which formerly served as a cable and satellite channel based on the American cable and satellite television network, The Weather Channel. Th ...

until that channel's demise. On June 26, 2014, The Weather Channel discontinued broadcasting its analog satellite feed, thus officially retiring all Weather Star units prior to the

IntelliStar WeatherStar (sometimes rendered Weather Star or WeatherSTAR; "STAR" being an acronym for Satellite Transponder Addressable Receiver) is the technology used by American cable and satellite television network The Weather Channel (TWC) to generate it ...

, including the XL. To address the need for a low-cost replacement, The Weather Channel developed in 2013 the IntelliStar 2 Jr. platform, which is capable of operating natively on both analog and digital cable systems.

Technical

The Weather Star XL is a rack-mounted rendering computer, manufactured by

Silicon Graphics, Inc. Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...

, containing a modified

SGI O2 The O2 was an entry-level Unix workstation introduced in 1996 by Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) to replace their earlier Indy series. Like the Indy, the O2 used a single MIPS microprocessor and was intended to be used mainly for multimedia. Its ...

computer. The O2 is an entry-level Unix workstation introduced in 1996 by SGI to replace their earlier Indy series. Like the Indy, the O2 used a single MIPS microprocessor and was intended to be used mainly for multimedia purposes; the O2 was SGI's last attempt at a low-end workstation. The Weather Star XL utilizes the SGI

IRIX IRIX ( ) is a discontinued operating system developed by Silicon Graphics (SGI) to run on the company's proprietary MIPS workstations and servers. It is based on UNIX System V with BSD extensions. In IRIX, SGI originated the XFS file system and ...

Operating System with custom written software for The Weather Channel. Because of the proprietary SGI hardware and software, the Weather Star XL remains the most expensive STAR system, having a manufacturing cost of $ US6,500. As a result of the XL's high price, many smaller cable headends retained their Weather Star 4000 or Weather Star Jr. units until the

was released, skipping the XL altogether. The Weather Star XL receives raw video data from The Weather Channel and weather statements from the National Weather Service, as well as forecasts from an Internet connection. It sends back monitoring data to The Weather Channel. Its crawl controller (which manages the text for local advertising) is accessible via a modem and terminal/terminal emulator. In Latin America, TWC only used satellite to deliver the service.

Timeline

References

External links

The Weather Channel
{{WeatherStar Generations Television technology The Weather Channel Silicon Graphics 1998 software Products and services discontinued in 2014

Technical

Timeline

See also

References

External links