THE SECOND ANNUAL INTERNET TVRO ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS THE BEST AND WORST OF TVRO 1993 SUBMITTED BY THE USENET REC.VIDEO.SATELLITE/HOMESAT READERS -=-=-=-=-= All awards submitted by Robert Smathers (roberts@triton.unm.edu) unless otherwise credited --------- Most overused and annoying phrase in TVRO talk radio: "Oh yeah." Phrase especially overused on the former Let's Talk Radio network and starting to become overused on the Omega Radio Network --------- Best phrase in TVRO talk radio: "You're driving me nuts!" Phrase again used extensively on the former Let's Talk Radio Network --------- Worse service announcement move of 1993: Nasa Select moving from F2R/13 to Spacenet 2/5 They are going the wrong way. They should be going centralized so viewers in all 50 states can have a fair shot at getting the service. What makes this move tolerable for dish owners in Alaska, Hawaii, and the Western United States and Canada is that Spacenet 2 is on its last leg and also the fact that NASA Select is scaling back somewhat so the channel may not be as desirable during the non-mission times. It will still really hurt when missions are on and the channel goes to 24 hour coverage. --------- Most surprising service launch of 1993: Canadian Exxxtasy -- it has to be amazing when you consider all the similarities to the defunct Las Vegas Television Network. I find it even more amazing how Canadian Exxxtasy TV got around the CRTC and a DBS license -- did they lie about their service to the CRTC to get a license or get permission to launch? --------- Best dish owner talk radio networks (all left satellite radio in the last year): (tie) Let's Talk Radio Network, Canadian Satellite Forum, SBCA Industry Connection --------- Best dish owner talk radio networks -- startup: Omega Radio Network -- thank goodness TVRO talk and information distribution is back -- I missed all the news, rumors, and warnings of exciting, upcoming satellite teleconferences. Those two to three weeks reminded me (and others) just how important a news/information/talk/entertainment/"press release" hobby network is really needed. -------- This one came from a R.V.S. post I saw -- best televised sporting event I've heard this year: Newsgroups: rec.video.satellite Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 16:17:54 EDT Sender: HOMESAT - Home Satellite Technology From: Bill Jones Subject: Did anyone else see.... I forgot to post this when it happened, but either last week, or the week before, I was scanning through the channels I think on Sat afternoon after the college football games. I happened to stop on a KU channel that had some local (local to wherever it was?) sports show being fed back home, ie a couple of local sportcasters behind a desk talking about how the local team did. All of a sudden, the sportscasters had a scared look on their faces, at which point one of these monster robot tv cameras on wheels came into view, and proceeded to crash through the desk they were sitting behind, finally stopping on crashing into the wall behind them. It seemed to scare the #!&@ out them. Probably a sure bet to appear on the bloopers show. ----------- Best Scam of the year: (tie) Satellite City Television tied with the 10 inch dish scam. Satellite City TV -- they pretty much keep scamming, and scamming, and scamming, and ... the latest -- a digital LNB with a noise temp of 10 degrees or less. Or the King Viper. They have come up with so many gimmicks that it continues to make me sick. I wonder when (if) they ever will be truthful and be a benefit to dish owners instead of "scamming" to generate sales by misrepresentation. 10 inch dish scam -- I think enough has been said about this lately. I think a public relations campaign is due -- we in the hobby know about the scam, but I bet the person on the street doesn't know. That may be a good goal for us as individuals to do in 1994 -- generate press releases in our own communities about the 10 inch dish and send it to newspapers who run these 10 inch dish ads. ---------- Worst "follow the leader" act of 1993: Satellite City Television and some other TVRO shopping networks. Satellite City starts it with misrepresentation of products and other networks like Satellite Market USA start heading that direction. SMUSA has a few products that they stretch the truth a little bit on, but they for the most part are still pretty good about fairly representing their products. I can almost see a trend in 1994 of stretching the truth on most of the TVRO shopping networks to try to get that sale that gets harder and harder with each new TVRO shopping network that launches. ---------- Launch we all wish would go bad: DBS-1. With the successful launch of DBS-1, the "four-month" lie has begun about how good the service will be, how good the video quality will be, how it will replace cable, how it will give you more options than any other source of entertainment, etc. Home dish owners still know that nothing will be able to replace the variety in audio/video that we get now. --------- Best launch of 1993: (tie) Telstar 401, Thaicom-1, Galaxy 4 Telstar 401 because of the tremendous benefits it will bring dish owners in the realm of progrmming and education, Thaicom-1 because it is great to see Thailand join the ranks of nations who utilize and enjoy satellite delivered service (I think it is great when any nation joins the real world in realizing how satellite service is beneficial to many). Also to Galaxy 4 for deliver good quality signals and programming to dish owners. In fact, all new satellites this year have given us the benefit of better pictures and cleaner audio signals compared to the satellites that they have replaced. Every watt of power we can pick up on our satellite systems benefits us greatly. ---------- Worst moments from a quality service: The BBC Breakfast News -- I still cannot understand how some TV services could put up with compression artifacts in their newscasts from clips taken from the BBC Breakfast News. BBC or CBC should be commended for eventually noticing how bad the artifacts can be and took corrective action to make watching the BBC Breakfast News better again (no artifacts that I've seen in the last few months). ---------- From: KFRIEDMAN@DESIRE.WRIGHT.EDU The absolute *WORST* of anything on TVRO is "Network 1"! What a waste of transponder time! It's NOT that I'm opposed to "adult entertainment", so long as it is well done! This channel looks like something Wayne & Garth would reject!....Jay ------------- From: Ron Hauger My nominations are: BEST--GARY BOURGOIS--For Fri. Nite Live and coming back big time with the Omega Radio Network. WORST--BBC WSTV--For promising us 24 hr. BBC TV and not keeping their commitment. Only radio is good enuff for us ?? Ron Hauger**KC4KNA**WATCHER OF THE SKIES Norfolk,Virginia. USA. Internet--ron.hauger@select.wyvern.com ------------ From: rrolf@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Robert Rolf) How about GI. The only company that can get away with selling "New and improved" technology to both sides of the scrambler war on a continuing basis. VC, VC cracked. VC2, VC2 cracked. VC2+, VC2+ cracked, and now VCRS , VCRS cracked, but the crackers haven't released it yet, since they need to come up with some copy protection ;-). (Pirates worried about piracy??) Robert RRolf@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca --end--