i thought they stopped mailing this bullshit to my fuck door about 20 years ago! its too bad the mail company bills me on how much my mailbox is filled! shit aol is gonna get me billed! oh wait this is from my friend oh ok then... hello we got 50 letters for mr anonymous. oh gee! is it for my birthday last week! ... no they are all aol discs also im gonna have to bill this shit. ... FUCK MY FRIEND!!!!
Loved my WebTV from 1997-2007. I had about three different sets over the years. I remember the first models had a "Smart Card Reader" which supposedly allowed you to shop online with a special card you could buy. But that card never became available to the public. The one good thing about WebTV was that it was almost impossible to download a virus or malware because it had no hard drive. You could hook up a printer to WebTV by buying a special adapter and you had to buy a certain brand of printer. Most people did not pay by the month though, but chose to pay by the year which cost 125 dollars. Even though WebTV was very basic compared to computers of the time, it was a very affordable alternative for someone like myself who was very poor at the time. Eventually, my WebTV keyboard broke and I could not find a replacement as they were discontinued and expensive. Without the keyboard, navigating the newer MSN service was difficult. Finally I bought a laptop and retired WebTV.
zabukazar Seriously!? Man, that's crazy. It's like meeting someone who lived through WWII, or something. Or on the flip side, meeting younger kids who had no memory of 9/11. So what was the browsing experience like? Were you able to actually search for content, or was it all directory driven? How did it handle big breaking news events like the 2000 presidential election in the US, the 9/11 attack, and the Iraq War?
+Halo4Lyf the main page of web TV with a directory which made it easy to navigate to certain sections but it had a full web browser built it to go anywhere you liked. contrary to popular belief is supported MPEG video and mp3s. As for breaking news updates they were always on the front page of the home screen
I just so happened to be working for AOL at the time AOLTV was launched. In fact, I was one of the tech reps in AOL's Oklahoma City call center to be chosen to support the crazy thing. This included being issued a unit of my own to use at home for testing purposes. To be honest, I really don't have much more to say about the thing than Ben does in this video. By that time I had my PC hooked up to a cable modem so I certainly wasn't going to choose to use a device limited to dial-up speeds for casual web surfing, and the supposedly "interactive" programming functionality was limited at best. It was a toy that saw very little use after its initial novelty wore off and after about 8 months AOL ordered us to return the boxes since it was obvious they were never going to sell enough of them to warrant an entire department dedicated to their support.* About the only thing it was good for was making copies of VHS movies. The box had A/V inputs and outputs, and if you ran a VCR's signal through the AOLTV box to another VCR then it had a habit of filtering out any copy protection on the source tape. Since Macrovision works by inserting pulses into the vertical blanking interval, my guess is that the AOLTV system either recognized them as anomalous and filtered them out , or it had its own nefarious purposes for the VBI and it thus overrode the copy protection. This was something I discovered quite by accident, but needless to say my poor college roommates thought it was a blast - I think their Blockbuster membership cards were both smoking by the end of the month. * Actually, they discovered this within the first few days. It seems that removing about half of your Tech Support reps from the operator pool (specifically, the better ones since the new queue was filled not by seniority but by performance rating) at your largest single call center is a Bad Idea; the Windows support queue (there were no Mac tech reps in OKC at the time) was swamped and the remaining reps struggled to handle the volume. Meanwhile the new AOLTV reps were left twiddling our thumbs and taking an average of like 3 calls a shift since nobody owned an AOLTV for which they might need support. After about a week, they figured out that one person could take more than one type of call and all of a sudden we were all back to taking mostly Windows support calls.
@@wthrwyz OKC's first (pretty sure) indoor mall...and then Penn Square came around and killed it. WebTV was my first foray into getting the Internet at home because we couldn't afford a PC. For what it was worth, it honestly wasn't bad given that the Internet was still in its early stages. I wish they had the option early on to Bring Your Own ISP because I worked for Dobson back then.
I'm shocked they were shifting entire reps over to AOL TV like that. I worked at a large ISP call center from 1997 to 1999 (we were also owned by AOL for 6 months during that time but unrelated to the AOL service) and while I was not involved with the phone queues directly most of that time, I was aware of how the agents were allocated. For random devices, certain agents would have training on how to handle them and calls would be routed to those agents. There were certain agents who took only some calls, like the Mac agents. While I understand how AOL could have trained too many agents, moving the agents off of the bread and butter PC queue instead of dynamically allocating the load seems like a big waste. While I get that maybe they were worried about a bad first week experience, they could have had the PC agents on call to move over. That said PBX tech was still improving in 2000 and they may not have had the right stuff to allocate calls dynamically. But it shows what a waste it is if you make manual calculations about load balancing. I was writing software to track agent work time, which seems like something every company would get out of a box nowadays. On a side note, during my time at the ISP pretty much every device anyone was trained on was a waste of company and agent time. It's likely none of them sold well enough to be worth whatever deals we made, and the agents were surprised whenever they got a call about one. There is a story, though, about someone calling up for support on the "Axis Internet Phone" from Uniden, a phone with dial up for email and nothing else that cost $400. Everybody got training on it, nobody got calls because this was not a good deal even in 1997, except this one agent who finally got a call and made fun of it...and they were talking with the daughter of a Uniden executive. The story may be apocryphal, but that was what I heard.
@@kyleolson8977 They had the ability to route calls dynamically, and to put a rep in more than one queue; they just didn't. To my knowledge, the only major limitation of AOL's call routing system was that, once a call had been dumped into a specific call center and queue, the only way for it to get out was either to be answered or for the caller to hang up. This led to calls getting stuck if the routers dropped them into a closed queue (i.e. one with no reps signed in). As for the decision to pull reps completely into a new division, I think they just expected a much greater market for the product than there actually was. As you mentioned - trying to override a load-balanced system with manual intervention seldom works out as intended. To their credit, they seemed to actually learn from this experience because it wasn't too much longer before they began cross-training on different call types as they needed more coverage. As my tenure wore on, I found myself taking more and more different types of calls and by the time I left I was taking pretty much every call type except for CAT (Community Action Team, a.k.a. ToS violations). The mix of calls actually made for a pretty interesting day. The only downside was that each call type had a different target call time and your phone only kept track of the average talk time for all of your calls combined, so you never knew how your stats looked until the next morning. Unfortunately, at this point AOL was focusing more on productivity than they were on whether you actually solved the customer's problem. When I found myself signing a written warning for being 1 second over target in the same month I recorded a customer satisfaction score of 100%, I knew it was time to find another job.
I absolutely adored my time as a young teen with WebTV. It was the late 90's, I lived in the country with my single grandmother and the thought of purchasing a computer was a pipedream. I did however save up enough money mowing lawns to buy myself a WebTV box at a local discount closeout store. Loved the chatrooms, meeting new people, being able to email!!! it was great .
Former Beta tester here. WebTV's VideoFlash was a fairly cool experiment which led to those short video ads which many customers saw during the bootup and dial-in process (I think you may have thoughtfully included one!). These were relatively low-res MPEG-2 video files which downloaded through the dialup connection during off-hours, only one of the few cases I know of where video was transmitted through standard phone lines. (Note: 8x8 made videophones which sent color MPEG4 motion video through standard POTS phone lines...quite an accomplishment...I'd love to see one of those again!)
I used WebTV until June or July 2011. It served a purpose and did it well. It was also my only access to Usenet newsgroups when many ISPs got buffaloed by the NY state attorney general who apparently didn't understand how to filter content for only NY state IP addresses. WebTV 2 did have a HD and an updated browser plus could do screen grabs from live video and email them. I also never had a problem with Pagebuilder pages displaying correctly on computers. WebTV to its credit could unzip files, play 1MB media like MPG video and MP3 audio (though V.2 could do longer files), and MIDI music files. All while being basically virus proof. It wasn't meant to be much more than a decent low cost web access platform useful for a number of basic functions without the complexity of a computer. Lots of senior citizens used it. But web technology advanced and non-expandable WebTV got left behind. We hardly knew ye.
What a rush of memories seeing that connecting screen. We got one for my grandmother in the late 90's so she could stay in touch with people via email. I always used it when we visited. She used that thing up until it was discontinued.
I watch this when I eat chick fill a (CFA is a Texas fast food company that sell chicken and other delicious menu items, sadly they never really branched out to other countries)
BTW, at time 6:07, that's not a mouse. It's the remote IR "eye" for the WebTV Plus, which increased the range of the included remote control, and/or the optional wireless keyboard. It made it so that you did not have to sit both very close, and directly in line-of-sight of the IR receiver on the actual WebTV unit. IMO, this was a *very* nice improvement that the Plus had made, over the original, "Classic" console.
I ALMOST bought a WebTV in 1996 to go with my 40-inch Mitsubishi CRT, which I'd decided to drop $2500 on instead of a computer. I didn't get one because it couldn't show the existing online videos or sound clips that were available back then, instead I got a Sega Saturn with the Netlink which wasn't much better but at least I could also play games with it. I always liked wasting time on the internet on the couch and on the big screen- now I use a laptop hooked to my 60-inch LCD! That closing music was stolen from Thomas Dolby's song "The Flat Earth".
My one experience with WebTV was at a Sony Only store. I went in around md-2000 to buy a Sony DSC-770 camera. They didn't have that model but they brought out a dusty D700 box from last year. I said this is the D700, not the D770. "You like this! Is same camera!" the salesman grunted. I then attempted to use their WebTV to go to the Sony site to see the differences between the two models. I couldn't get the thing to connect to the Internet so I left.
I've used a WebTV from late August 1998 until early September 2000. Mom and I got it for 200 bucks cuz it was on sale at Caldor's during its final year in business in my hometown, the Bronx. It was ahead of its time, definitely.
In terms of the "Last VHS" thing, Disney released The Lion King 1 1\2 on VHS in 2004 as well as DVD for those who hadn't switched yet. And it's rumored that the 2006 film cars also got a VHS release.
It's funny how things come around, live TV is making a comeback with services like SlingTV and AT&T Now. I guess people are realizing that not all shows work in an on-demand environment.
Think having your Web-TV data-feed interrupted by a incoming phone-call is fun? Try having your mom pick-up the extension while you're trying to get a copy of a game--via phreaking--with your C-64.
My mother had a WebTV for years, and I've had nothing but good memories using it, as it was my first experience with the internet. Hearing that boot-up sound and the splash screen brings tears to my eye, as weird as that may be. It's a shame that WebTV doesn't have a viable successor in this day and age outside of the sadly discontinued Logitech Revue, as I still am a fan of the concept of surfing the web on TV - I mean, we already do that crap with the Roku, it's just more media oriented.
Brings back memories. My family got a Prodigy account after I got us banned from AOL for hacking and punting members. After we got banned from Prodigy, we went to Earthlink. Then I ended up moving across the country and took a break from hacking and trolling.
I think WebTV and other similar devices/services were trying to answer the need that DVRs eventually answered. They were answering the need for more programming options, more control, with "browse the Internet". It was the wrong answer.
My cousin once dabbled with a Magnavox WebTV system he got from HSN. He only managed to keep it running for only half a year before he let the service lapse. And yet a couple of years later, i got my first experience with the web, no thanks in part to a trial of AOL dial-up service.
We had one of those once...I remember it being awkward and slow to use. (The idea of browsing the web with a remote is still cool, but the keyboard/ Might as well have a proper computer then!)
A WebTV was the first device I ever got on the Internet with. I saw one at the local Circuit City and started playing around with it. I was amazed. I never actually bought one (I didn't have the money at the time), but I did eventually get a PC to get online with a couple of years later. I thought it was a good idea but the timing was bad like he said in the video; computers got cheaper really fast so people got those instead.
I remember 9/11 coverage calmed down after about a month or so. Plus, all the children's channels like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network just showed their regular programming through the whole thing.
That history lesson "ding" sound has an almost Pavlovian effect on me now. After your opening monologue I was expecting the history lesson, but didn't get it. And so there was this stirring inside me, I was all like "Come on come on give it to me!!!" And then the ding came and I was like "Ugghhhh... yeah..." I don't know why I want it so bad, I don't understand it!!! I also love your riffs! I don't know about that other half of your viewers, but I'm thankful for your riffs what with this episode being on the short side. When I was little I totally did wonder how pausing live TV worked. My favorite trope of your riffs is the end disclaimer rambling riffs. :) I had WebTV, and like everyone else in the country, AOL. Lifting the phone was a good way to boot people off the modem and get them to give up so I could use the computer. :P I was a bad kid.
UltimateTV almost sponsored a NASCAR team. In June 2001, Winston Cup Series team Eel River Racing went to Sears Point Raceway with them on their car. The team's driver Kenny Wallace didn't qualify fast enough, denying them the opportunity.
I had webtv for two years before buying a computer in 1998. It wasn't too bad for it's time and actually ran pretty fast. The main drawback at the time was it's lack of Java and Real Player which was used a lot at the time. I could access most websites.
Fun fact about WebTV. Shortly after Sega launched the Dreamcast console in Japan in November 1998, there was WebTV software on disc and It would let Dreamcast users access the WebTV service and surf the web on Sega's game console using a version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Dreamcast ran a version of Windows CE. WebTV for Dreamcast was launched in Japan only in Spring of 1999. segaretro.org/WebTV_for_Dreamcast segaretro.org/File:Webtv_dc_jp_frontcover.png - segaretro.org/File:Webtv_dc_jp_backcover.png segaretro.org/File:Webtv_dc_jp_sslcover.jpg - segaretro.org/File:Webtv_dc_jp_disc.png segaretro.org/images/e/ea/WebTV_screenshot.jpg
I had WebTV Plus. My family received the system, and service for free. WebTV had a hard drive, but very small. It was a great thing to have and the music brings back a lot of nostalgia.
+CeeStyleDj S-Video may remove artifacts of composite luma/chroma mixing (i.e. horizontal resolution may be better), but it certainly won't fix crappy (compared to monitors) vertical resolution of only 525/625 jittery interlaced lines. I'm pretty sure that not many CRT TVs had progressive scan and deinterlacing circuitry to compensate for that. I remember trying to hook up my PC to CRT TV through S-Video, and then not being able to see any normal-sized text in any resolution higher than 800x600, even though there was no jitter, since my video card had pretty good deinterlacing feature. It was all about dancing around limitations in exchange for compatibility, really...
Ahhhh.... WebTV. My first gateway to the net. My parents were too poor and not at all tech savy, so we had webtv from late 1997 all the way up through early 2005. I personally thought it was fine up until around 2004 or so when I needed to start using computers for school work. Typing up papers and doing powerpoints in the school library during limited hours was rough.
I had a 33.3 WebTV First Gen, then changed over to a WebTV Plus as soon as it was available. Man, I *loved* that thing, took it on the road with me (I was a Travel RN), and used the hell out of it until I bought my first computer, in April of 2000. True, you couldn't "save" anything d/t no hard drive, and I had to use the Star Boulevard Transloader, in order to create my first Homepage, on GeoCities. But as for portability and reliability, it was great (provided that you could actually connect to a local dialup access number). Overall, the WebTV + was expensive for the time, but I sure got my money's worth out of it...
amazing video ben. there is something you forgot to mention that I feel is notable. Microsoft released a web tv disc for the Sega Dreamcast (only in Japan)
Meanwhile, in the UK, we had similar but not as advanced stuff like the Bush Internet TV (both actual 14" TV and a set top box available) and the Amstrad E-Mailer. The Bush TV had a 33.6K modem and this was in 2002! Oh and the service didn't support sound. Apparently the Amstrad E-Mailer was cheap to buy but bloody expensive to use the service (which was also laden with ads) I remember volunteering in a charity shop where a Bush Internet TV set was donated and I had to work out how to test the internet part of it. The browser couldn't even open Google (and this was in 2007, where I'm actually surprised it could connect as I'd have thought the hard wired dial-up ISP - at a blistering 33.6Kbps! - would have been disconnected)
WebTV in 1999 some friends gave me web TV 1. web TV 1. It was neat for a Hobo living in a Junk Car in a Old Ladies farm in Hot Springs, arkansas. MSN TV (formerly WebTV) was a web access product consisting of a thin client device which used a television for display (instead of using a computer monitor), and the online service that supported it. The device design and service was developed by WebTV Networks, Inc., a company started in 1995.
Remembering that you did an episode about QUBE way back when, I sometimes wonder if this is what QUBE could have been with much more advanced technology. I could entirely be MISremembering (sorry, hate to use a Bushism but it fits here), but didn't a few TV shows in the late 1990s/early aughts allow for a certain amount of audience participation for WebTV users? Also worth noting I remember a brief discussion of WebTV from the Thanksgiving Turkeys episode, also from way back when. I'm happy to see a more expanded discussion of this particular turkey. As for AOL, I think I used it for about a year (back when it wasn't necessarily flat-rate pricing either. I remember a $300 bill once) before ditching it for a locally-owned ISP in my community (supporting local business is good, yo). Now, like many others, I'm stuck with a cable provider for broadband. My provider, of course, hates me because I refuse to buy a cable package from them but happily dole out $20/month for SlingTV (I like Sling, but I haven't decided if it's a real innovation or a potential oddity for an older, grayer version of yourself to discuss someday from behind a hologramme of a cardboard box). Great work, as usual. :)
BigEWR I remember when my parents would let me play with those AOL discs we'd get in the mail seemingly every day. It was great. I wish I'd kept some of them to see if they'd install on my Windows 98 standalone. Part of me wishes I had been born earlier, rather than 1996 so that I could have all the old computers and whatnot, but at the same time, I'm glad I was born when I was; I'd hate to be too old for all the great technology nowadays.
WebTV. Yes the only thing it was good for was showing your adult friends you was "tech" savvy. I was most surprised that the services had lived to 2013. I thought it died with the advent of Broadband and Companies like Gateway"s HTPC's(If you remember the early attempts). Oh trying to use a computer in the early 2000's on a 640x480 display... The larger the CRT the feather you had to be just to try to read text... And don't forget that stellar 29.97 fps NTSC refresh rate.. I still have my first HTPC computer kicking around. Intel P2 350mhz, 512mb ram, 1Gb HDD, Win 98 and the ATI All-in-Wonder Pro Video Card.. Tho it was light years more powerful then the WebTV. But using NTSC standards and composite or S-Video connections.. Still left a eye bleeding couch internet usage. But admittedly the lower FPS allowed for a fun computer gaming experience (due to the lower hardware needed to play low resolution/FPS to keep the game experience happy) But anything short of Midi music was about all the internet usage it was good for. Still miss watching Cartoon network as my active desktop.. was my Nerd moment...
WebTV was invented by some ex Apple employees. The biggest claim to fame was it was the best anti-aliasing on 480i display's (read: generic TV's) that had a patent. That's what attracted Microsoft to buy WebTV. So when MS wanted to do a Tivo type service, Tivo sued based on the "Time Machine" patent. MS sued back saying Tivo used their WebTV anti-alias patent to do the Program Guide (then owned by Rovi, now invalidated). They both "settled out of court" and Windows Media center was born, with no licensing fees to Tivo. P.S. -- Andy Rubin (once head of Android @ Google) worked at WebTV doing the soft modem code in the original boxes. P.P.S. -- Ultimate TV originally started on DISH as regular WebTV before it went to Ultimate TV on DirecTV. P.P.P.S. -- Google "WebTV Jenny" as in 867-5309 (a boot code). P.P.P.P.S. Most boxes found now will be in "brain dead" mode and will dial 800-613-8199, which was the service that took your CalledID and redirected to a local UUNet modem bank. P(x5) -- The Wikipedia page "Modem" shows the above brain dead "Modem Bank" service labeled Modem Bank at an ISP. They were a stack of USRobotics "Total Control" modem banks.
We had something similar with the Bush Internet TV... also Telewest provided email via their TV set top box... that you could only access on the TV. At least Bush Internet could be accessed on a PC as well as the TV (or set top box) I wrote a comment on the Bush Internet TV, apparently their crappy browser couldn't even access Google.
That was a great video. Great topic. Here's an idea, Ben. You can take it or leave it. An ongoing series of videos sporadically made whenever you feel like making them (the topic is) movies that only exist on VHS. You could cover so many of them. Movies that weren't released on DVD due to copyright problems, Just because they were low budget, lost the rights, who knows? There's so many reasons why some movies, TV shows, Music Video Compilations, etc. only exist on VHS.
***** Good idea ... although it could probably fit in his VHS Vault series-within-a-series (and BTW Ben, we haven't seen a VHS Vault in a bit. Just sayin').
I had it. I stopped using it before it became msntv. The last upgrade I got was when they added msn messenger support. Anybody remember that jetski password? Oh the days.
I have a friend who actually was a WebTV subscriber. He really liked it...until the phone rang. Somehow there was a crossed connection in the wiring, and he never could quite figure it out. I personally stuck with the olde 56K phone dialup AO(hel)L, until I moved to Texas and my very intelligent wife and I got wise and improved our computers and connections. LONG LIVE WiFi and WIRELESS!
Ralph Bromley Good point. I have a Roku and with certain apps (the NBCNews app, for example) just regurgitate the same stuff streamable over their websites (which means, I think, this particular app is offering even less than it did before, IMHO, because Comcast, which owns NBC). The only thing Roku doesn't really allow for is the participation/interactivity thing. There's also a disappointingly slow/clunky UA-cam app for Roku, on which I have watched these same OA videos blown up to my average-size flatscreen (mine's kinda small, 24"). It makes the early "carpet vision" OA vids look a bit more shaggy, but it's still a good thing to try.
It's weird. Back when I was a little kid, our family already had a PC equipped for web access, and so did most people I knew. When webtv started showing up in Sears and the like, I thought to myself "this'll never catch on". And I was right for about 10 years. Then suddenly, Netflix streaming became a huge deal. Now set-top boxes are back, and today's boxes remind me a lot of webtv from back in the day, only with more focus on streaming entertainment rather than general internet browsing capability.
Today's set top boxes such as Roku, Amazon TV and Apple TV would have came many years back if Microsoft wouldn't have bought WebTV out and killed it. basically it was competition to the PC.. and then completely stopped supporting it. I was involved in early ideas and concepts for WebTV through a program they had back then. there was much more excitement for the future prior to Microsoft buying it out
+Rogueofmv It was catching on...fastly. There is something called politics and burocracy. 'Oh, the electric car that'll never catch on!" (In 1908) why do you think we still use oil? Think about it.
I had the direct tv version but it wasnt called ultimate, it was still a webtv+ it was a little better bit was also notorious for when watching a movie that it woukd dail out dor an update and play the modem sounds over the audio out and scare the crap out of you when it did it.
I remember that box well. My dad was a Dish Network retailer in the 90's, and we always got the top of the line programming and equipment. Our first DVR was the WebTV box, which had an astonishing 32 hours of storage space! Despite this, I loved playing You Don't Know Jack and Doom on it, and I feel that it pioneered the satellite DVR.
I'm so glad I never bought this. I was one of those computer- phobes. My buddy was way into computers and he used to nag me about getting a computer, they were still very expensive. I started to look around for something cheaper, and this came around. He tried to convince me of all the shortcomings (can't down load etc.) but this was cheap. Man, you look back at this stuff and it's amazing how far things have come. The thing is, his computer didn't do much more than this thing could do. The technology looks ancient.
4:50 yes, in the physical sense. here in 2021, the information age, war is information warfare 4:52 yes, after webtv gave the alphabets a back way in, probably
I saw an MSN tv box a few months ago at a thrift store. Didn't bother to pick it up, just kinda looked at it. I think it was an MSN tv 2 but I don't remember.
Hey man, I love your channel! You're at your best, and better than most I've seen, when you're doing your informative stuff on the oddities you're talking about, intermixed with your unique humor. You fall flat on the riffing, though. Joel and Mike have cornered the market on that front. Please play to your strengths, which are very strong!
The biggets irony is that every TV sold today HAS internet access built in. So in that way WTV was ahead of it's time, and still lives today.
especially since a lot of smart tvs on the market are android based, and android has tons of devs from WTV
If I ever find my filing cabinet full of AOL discs, I'm going to start mailing them to my friends until I run out.
i thought they stopped mailing this bullshit to my fuck door about 20 years ago! its too bad the mail company bills me on how much my mailbox is filled! shit aol is gonna get me billed! oh wait this is from my friend oh ok then... hello we got 50 letters for mr anonymous. oh gee! is it for my birthday last week! ... no they are all aol discs also im gonna have to bill this shit. ... FUCK MY FRIEND!!!!
+Ailuri Catbear my grandfather still has some old AOL disks!
I might need a few, for skeet shooting practice.
Loved my WebTV from 1997-2007. I had about three different sets over the years. I remember the first models had a "Smart Card Reader" which supposedly allowed you to shop online with a special card you could buy. But that card never became available to the public. The one good thing about WebTV was that it was almost impossible to download a virus or malware because it had no hard drive. You could hook up a printer to WebTV by buying a special adapter and you had to buy a certain brand of printer. Most people did not pay by the month though, but chose to pay by the year which cost 125 dollars. Even though WebTV was very basic compared to computers of the time, it was a very affordable alternative for someone like myself who was very poor at the time. Eventually, my WebTV keyboard broke and I could not find a replacement as they were discontinued and expensive. Without the keyboard, navigating the newer MSN service was difficult. Finally I bought a laptop and retired WebTV.
zabukazar
Seriously!? Man, that's crazy. It's like meeting someone who lived through WWII, or something. Or on the flip side, meeting younger kids who had no memory of 9/11.
So what was the browsing experience like? Were you able to actually search for content, or was it all directory driven? How did it handle big breaking news events like the 2000 presidential election in the US, the 9/11 attack, and the Iraq War?
+Halo4Lyf the main page of web TV with a directory which made it easy to navigate to certain sections but it had a full web browser built it to go anywhere you liked. contrary to popular belief is supported MPEG video and mp3s. As for breaking news updates they were always on the front page of the home screen
Did u say 2007 LOL WTF!
I just so happened to be working for AOL at the time AOLTV was launched. In fact, I was one of the tech reps in AOL's Oklahoma City call center to be chosen to support the crazy thing. This included being issued a unit of my own to use at home for testing purposes.
To be honest, I really don't have much more to say about the thing than Ben does in this video. By that time I had my PC hooked up to a cable modem so I certainly wasn't going to choose to use a device limited to dial-up speeds for casual web surfing, and the supposedly "interactive" programming functionality was limited at best. It was a toy that saw very little use after its initial novelty wore off and after about 8 months AOL ordered us to return the boxes since it was obvious they were never going to sell enough of them to warrant an entire department dedicated to their support.*
About the only thing it was good for was making copies of VHS movies. The box had A/V inputs and outputs, and if you ran a VCR's signal through the AOLTV box to another VCR then it had a habit of filtering out any copy protection on the source tape. Since Macrovision works by inserting pulses into the vertical blanking interval, my guess is that the AOLTV system either recognized them as anomalous and filtered them out , or it had its own nefarious purposes for the VBI and it thus overrode the copy protection. This was something I discovered quite by accident, but needless to say my poor college roommates thought it was a blast - I think their Blockbuster membership cards were both smoking by the end of the month.
* Actually, they discovered this within the first few days. It seems that removing about half of your Tech Support reps from the operator pool (specifically, the better ones since the new queue was filled not by seniority but by performance rating) at your largest single call center is a Bad Idea; the Windows support queue (there were no Mac tech reps in OKC at the time) was swamped and the remaining reps struggled to handle the volume. Meanwhile the new AOLTV reps were left twiddling our thumbs and taking an average of like 3 calls a shift since nobody owned an AOLTV for which they might need support. After about a week, they figured out that one person could take more than one type of call and all of a sudden we were all back to taking mostly Windows support calls.
"AOL's Oklahoma City call center"
.....Shepherd Mall?
@@rotarypower624 Yep.
@@wthrwyz OKC's first (pretty sure) indoor mall...and then Penn Square came around and killed it.
WebTV was my first foray into getting the Internet at home because we couldn't afford a PC. For what it was worth, it honestly wasn't bad given that the Internet was still in its early stages.
I wish they had the option early on to Bring Your Own ISP because I worked for Dobson back then.
I'm shocked they were shifting entire reps over to AOL TV like that. I worked at a large ISP call center from 1997 to 1999 (we were also owned by AOL for 6 months during that time but unrelated to the AOL service) and while I was not involved with the phone queues directly most of that time, I was aware of how the agents were allocated. For random devices, certain agents would have training on how to handle them and calls would be routed to those agents. There were certain agents who took only some calls, like the Mac agents. While I understand how AOL could have trained too many agents, moving the agents off of the bread and butter PC queue instead of dynamically allocating the load seems like a big waste. While I get that maybe they were worried about a bad first week experience, they could have had the PC agents on call to move over.
That said PBX tech was still improving in 2000 and they may not have had the right stuff to allocate calls dynamically. But it shows what a waste it is if you make manual calculations about load balancing. I was writing software to track agent work time, which seems like something every company would get out of a box nowadays.
On a side note, during my time at the ISP pretty much every device anyone was trained on was a waste of company and agent time. It's likely none of them sold well enough to be worth whatever deals we made, and the agents were surprised whenever they got a call about one.
There is a story, though, about someone calling up for support on the "Axis Internet Phone" from Uniden, a phone with dial up for email and nothing else that cost $400. Everybody got training on it, nobody got calls because this was not a good deal even in 1997, except this one agent who finally got a call and made fun of it...and they were talking with the daughter of a Uniden executive. The story may be apocryphal, but that was what I heard.
@@kyleolson8977 They had the ability to route calls dynamically, and to put a rep in more than one queue; they just didn't. To my knowledge, the only major limitation of AOL's call routing system was that, once a call had been dumped into a specific call center and queue, the only way for it to get out was either to be answered or for the caller to hang up. This led to calls getting stuck if the routers dropped them into a closed queue (i.e. one with no reps signed in).
As for the decision to pull reps completely into a new division, I think they just expected a much greater market for the product than there actually was. As you mentioned - trying to override a load-balanced system with manual intervention seldom works out as intended. To their credit, they seemed to actually learn from this experience because it wasn't too much longer before they began cross-training on different call types as they needed more coverage. As my tenure wore on, I found myself taking more and more different types of calls and by the time I left I was taking pretty much every call type except for CAT (Community Action Team, a.k.a. ToS violations).
The mix of calls actually made for a pretty interesting day. The only downside was that each call type had a different target call time and your phone only kept track of the average talk time for all of your calls combined, so you never knew how your stats looked until the next morning. Unfortunately, at this point AOL was focusing more on productivity than they were on whether you actually solved the customer's problem. When I found myself signing a written warning for being 1 second over target in the same month I recorded a customer satisfaction score of 100%, I knew it was time to find another job.
I was one of the first people to get WebTV...
It's still loading but hopefully it will load up by June of 2081
Damn, what kind of ultra-speed processor do you have? Mine should finish around August of 2156.
You're damn lucky, mine will be up and running by the time the sun runs out of sun juice.
I got my webtv from some guy who couldn't get it working. Now mine wont finish up til 2430. :(
@@90sNath
Haha
Wow, you are doing well, all of you. MINES FINISHING AT 5012.
I absolutely adored my time as a young teen with WebTV. It was the late 90's, I lived in the country with my single grandmother and the thought of purchasing a computer was a pipedream. I did however save up enough money mowing lawns to buy myself a WebTV box at a local discount closeout store. Loved the chatrooms, meeting new people, being able to email!!! it was great .
Former Beta tester here. WebTV's VideoFlash was a fairly cool experiment which led to those short video ads which many customers saw during the bootup and dial-in process (I think you may have thoughtfully included one!). These were relatively low-res MPEG-2 video files which downloaded through the dialup connection during off-hours, only one of the few cases I know of where video was transmitted through standard phone lines. (Note: 8x8 made videophones which sent color MPEG4 motion video through standard POTS phone lines...quite an accomplishment...I'd love to see one of those again!)
I used WebTV until June or July 2011. It served a purpose and did it well. It was also my only access to Usenet newsgroups when many ISPs got buffaloed by the NY state attorney general who apparently didn't understand how to filter content for only NY state IP addresses. WebTV 2 did have a HD and an updated browser plus could do screen grabs from live video and email them. I also never had a problem with Pagebuilder pages displaying correctly on computers. WebTV to its credit could unzip files, play 1MB media like MPG video and MP3 audio (though V.2 could do longer files), and MIDI music files. All while being basically virus proof. It wasn't meant to be much more than a decent low cost web access platform useful for a number of basic functions without the complexity of a computer. Lots of senior citizens used it. But web technology advanced and non-expandable WebTV got left behind. We hardly knew ye.
What a rush of memories seeing that connecting screen. We got one for my grandmother in the late 90's so she could stay in touch with people via email. I always used it when we visited. She used that thing up until it was discontinued.
I remember when we'd get all those AOL disks in the mail. I used to use them as frisbees and ceiling fan pull-chain decorations.
generalcoon47
We used 'em for shotgun practice.
Pull!
Oddity Archive, the perfect side dish.
I watch this when I eat chick fill a (CFA is a Texas fast food company that sell chicken and other delicious menu items, sadly they never really branched out to other countries)
Oddity Archive: something to watch at BJs brewhouse
+minecraftdude456 we have chic fil a here in Virginia lol
Really? I guess you CAN learn new things every day! XD
minecraftdude456 Haha yeah. I was surprised when I found out it isn't in every state.
BTW, at time 6:07, that's not a mouse. It's the remote IR "eye" for the WebTV Plus, which increased the range of the included remote control, and/or the optional wireless keyboard. It made it so that you did not have to sit both very close, and directly in line-of-sight of the IR receiver on the actual WebTV unit. IMO, this was a *very* nice improvement that the Plus had made, over the original, "Classic" console.
I had this system back in 1997. I had it until 2004. I now have it in storage just for the memories.
I ALMOST bought a WebTV in 1996 to go with my 40-inch Mitsubishi CRT, which I'd decided to drop $2500 on instead of a computer. I didn't get one because it couldn't show the existing online videos or sound clips that were available back then, instead I got a Sega Saturn with the Netlink which wasn't much better but at least I could also play games with it. I always liked wasting time on the internet on the couch and on the big screen- now I use a laptop hooked to my 60-inch LCD! That closing music was stolen from Thomas Dolby's song "The Flat Earth".
+eyeh8nbc I recall periodically, a logo for WebTV also showed up for about 10 seconds at a time.
I was thinking the same exact thing about the closing music
I know the Sega Dreamcast was compatible with WebTV, at least in Japan
I had a computer... with internet.. but for some reason 14 year old me wanted WEBtv way more.
I really wanted to be able to surf the net on the TV.
That wasn't a mouse in that picture, it was the IR receiver.
My one experience with WebTV was at a Sony Only store. I went in around md-2000 to buy a Sony DSC-770 camera. They didn't have that model but they brought out a dusty D700 box from last year. I said this is the D700, not the D770.
"You like this! Is same camera!" the salesman grunted.
I then attempted to use their WebTV to go to the Sony site to see the differences between the two models. I couldn't get the thing to connect to the Internet so I left.
I had Webtv! Lotta memories there, chat rooms, discussion groups - good times!:)
lana turner Talk City!
I've used a WebTV from late August 1998 until early September 2000. Mom and I got it for 200 bucks cuz it was on sale at Caldor's during its final year in business in my hometown, the Bronx. It was ahead of its time, definitely.
In terms of the "Last VHS" thing, Disney released The Lion King 1 1\2 on VHS in 2004 as well as DVD for those who hadn't switched yet. And it's rumored that the 2006 film cars also got a VHS release.
That actually happened
It's funny how things come around, live TV is making a comeback with services like SlingTV and AT&T Now. I guess people are realizing that not all shows work in an on-demand environment.
Not many people remember this gem but it's fun to think about.
Think having your Web-TV data-feed interrupted by a incoming phone-call is fun? Try having your mom pick-up the extension while you're trying to get a copy of a game--via phreaking--with your C-64.
ouch.
In the UK, we didn't have that problem. A hifi with two casette decks, one for playback, one for recording did the job perfectly!
My mother had a WebTV for years, and I've had nothing but good memories using it, as it was my first experience with the internet. Hearing that boot-up sound and the splash screen brings tears to my eye, as weird as that may be. It's a shame that WebTV doesn't have a viable successor in this day and age outside of the sadly discontinued Logitech Revue, as I still am a fan of the concept of surfing the web on TV - I mean, we already do that crap with the Roku, it's just more media oriented.
Brings back memories. My family got a Prodigy account after I got us banned from AOL for hacking and punting members. After we got banned from Prodigy, we went to Earthlink. Then I ended up moving across the country and took a break from hacking and trolling.
I had Web TV at my house back in the late 90s.
When I heard the phone ringing in the intro I actually got up because it sounds just like mine. Lol
The song that you heard in the beginning of the video is the modem song composed by PDX of twittering machine
I think WebTV and other similar devices/services were trying to answer the need that DVRs eventually answered. They were answering the need for more programming options, more control, with "browse the Internet". It was the wrong answer.
My cousin once dabbled with a Magnavox WebTV system he got from HSN. He only managed to keep it running for only half a year before he let the service lapse. And yet a couple of years later, i got my first experience with the web, no thanks in part to a trial of AOL dial-up service.
We had one of those once...I remember it being awkward and slow to use. (The idea of browsing the web with a remote is still cool, but the keyboard/ Might as well have a proper computer then!)
The Max Headroom guy at the beginning gave me a jumpscare for some reason.
A WebTV was the first device I ever got on the Internet with. I saw one at the local Circuit City and started playing around with it. I was amazed. I never actually bought one (I didn't have the money at the time), but I did eventually get a PC to get online with a couple of years later. I thought it was a good idea but the timing was bad like he said in the video; computers got cheaper really fast so people got those instead.
That video must be from early 2001...otherwise, they'd be compulsively watching and high-fiving to 9/11 footage.
Or mid 2001.
I remember 9/11 coverage calmed down after about a month or so. Plus, all the children's channels like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network just showed their regular programming through the whole thing.
Mid 90’s
My grandmother got web tv and I remember setting it up for her. I was prob about 11. It was pretty cool for back in the day
That history lesson "ding" sound has an almost Pavlovian effect on me now. After your opening monologue I was expecting the history lesson, but didn't get it. And so there was this stirring inside me, I was all like "Come on come on give it to me!!!" And then the ding came and I was like "Ugghhhh... yeah..." I don't know why I want it so bad, I don't understand it!!!
I also love your riffs! I don't know about that other half of your viewers, but I'm thankful for your riffs what with this episode being on the short side. When I was little I totally did wonder how pausing live TV worked. My favorite trope of your riffs is the end disclaimer rambling riffs. :)
I had WebTV, and like everyone else in the country, AOL. Lifting the phone was a good way to boot people off the modem and get them to give up so I could use the computer. :P I was a bad kid.
I know right? I said "DING" as it went to black and I was sad there was no DING, but we got about 5 or 6 this episode
DanZero77 Yeah, we didn't get the DING when we thought we would, but to make up for the late DING we got several DINGs for the price of one!
It always throws my headphones into hideous feedback mode, so I dread it. :)
oddity archive is the best thing to watch when you are eating ramen
UltimateTV almost sponsored a NASCAR team. In June 2001, Winston Cup Series team Eel River Racing went to Sears Point Raceway with them on their car. The team's driver Kenny Wallace didn't qualify fast enough, denying them the opportunity.
I had webtv for two years before buying a computer in 1998. It wasn't too bad for it's time and actually ran pretty fast. The main drawback at the time was it's lack of Java and Real Player which was used a lot at the time. I could access most websites.
Fun fact about WebTV. Shortly after Sega launched the Dreamcast console in Japan in November 1998, there was WebTV software on disc and It would let Dreamcast users access the WebTV service and surf the web on Sega's game console using a version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Dreamcast ran a version of Windows CE. WebTV for Dreamcast was launched in Japan only in Spring of 1999. segaretro.org/WebTV_for_Dreamcast
segaretro.org/File:Webtv_dc_jp_frontcover.png - segaretro.org/File:Webtv_dc_jp_backcover.png
segaretro.org/File:Webtv_dc_jp_sslcover.jpg - segaretro.org/File:Webtv_dc_jp_disc.png
segaretro.org/images/e/ea/WebTV_screenshot.jpg
Lots of "DING" segments this episode, and the return of the "tv off" effect at 6:21! Great job Whot/Ever Productions! NAWT!!!!!!
I had WebTV Plus. My family received the system, and service for free. WebTV had a hard drive, but very small. It was a great thing to have and the music brings back a lot of nostalgia.
The standard TV of the time gave a rather poor resolution display for web browsing.
connected through S-Video on a flat screen CRT like a Sony made it as crisp as most CRT PC monitors (which is what everyone had back then.)
+CeeStyleDj S-Video may remove artifacts of composite luma/chroma mixing (i.e. horizontal resolution may be better), but it certainly won't fix crappy (compared to monitors) vertical resolution of only 525/625 jittery interlaced lines. I'm pretty sure that not many CRT TVs had progressive scan and deinterlacing circuitry to compensate for that.
I remember trying to hook up my PC to CRT TV through S-Video, and then not being able to see any normal-sized text in any resolution higher than 800x600, even though there was no jitter, since my video card had pretty good deinterlacing feature.
It was all about dancing around limitations in exchange for compatibility, really...
Was good enough for me, except I hated all the things it couldn't do.
I had one back in the day!
Ahhhh.... WebTV. My first gateway to the net. My parents were too poor and not at all tech savy, so we had webtv from late 1997 all the way up through early 2005. I personally thought it was fine up until around 2004 or so when I needed to start using computers for school work. Typing up papers and doing powerpoints in the school library during limited hours was rough.
I actually miss webtv. I liked mine.
I remember my family having one in 1996ish. I now want one of the original magnivox units to gut and put a kodi box in.
I had a 33.3 WebTV First Gen, then changed over to a WebTV Plus as soon as it was available. Man, I *loved* that thing, took it on the road with me (I was a Travel RN), and used the hell out of it until I bought my first computer, in April of 2000. True, you couldn't "save" anything d/t no hard drive, and I had to use the Star Boulevard Transloader, in order to create my first Homepage, on GeoCities. But as for portability and reliability, it was great (provided that you could actually connect to a local dialup access number). Overall, the WebTV + was expensive for the time, but I sure got my money's worth out of it...
Giving thanks for using my video! Made it public again after being
privated for so long. Sorry for taking long to respond.
-TheJackFrom4170
amazing video ben. there is something you forgot to mention that I feel is notable. Microsoft released a web tv disc for the Sega Dreamcast (only in Japan)
Thanks for the great content. I can't believe you found these ancient products. Definitely a trip down memory lane.
Steve Pearlman is a genius. WebTV was way ahead of it's time.
Meanwhile, in the UK, we had similar but not as advanced stuff like the Bush Internet TV (both actual 14" TV and a set top box available) and the Amstrad E-Mailer.
The Bush TV had a 33.6K modem and this was in 2002! Oh and the service didn't support sound. Apparently the Amstrad E-Mailer was cheap to buy but bloody expensive to use the service (which was also laden with ads)
I remember volunteering in a charity shop where a Bush Internet TV set was donated and I had to work out how to test the internet part of it. The browser couldn't even open Google (and this was in 2007, where I'm actually surprised it could connect as I'd have thought the hard wired dial-up ISP - at a blistering 33.6Kbps! - would have been disconnected)
man I remember this. windows 98 as came with it. I still have my main machine running it.
WebTV in 1999 some friends gave me web TV 1. web TV 1. It was neat for a Hobo living in a Junk Car in a Old Ladies farm in Hot Springs, arkansas.
MSN TV (formerly WebTV) was a web access product consisting of a thin client device which used a television for display (instead of using a computer monitor), and the online service that supported it. The device design and service was developed by WebTV Networks, Inc., a company started in 1995.
Absolutely love the return of "Keep Rolling!"
That end disclaimer 😂😂😂
Oh god, AOL disc. The less said about our experience with them, the better. XD
Great episode daawg
Remembering that you did an episode about QUBE way back when, I sometimes wonder if this is what QUBE could have been with much more advanced technology. I could entirely be MISremembering (sorry, hate to use a Bushism but it fits here), but didn't a few TV shows in the late 1990s/early aughts allow for a certain amount of audience participation for WebTV users?
Also worth noting I remember a brief discussion of WebTV from the Thanksgiving Turkeys episode, also from way back when. I'm happy to see a more expanded discussion of this particular turkey.
As for AOL, I think I used it for about a year (back when it wasn't necessarily flat-rate pricing either. I remember a $300 bill once) before ditching it for a locally-owned ISP in my community (supporting local business is good, yo). Now, like many others, I'm stuck with a cable provider for broadband. My provider, of course, hates me because I refuse to buy a cable package from them but happily dole out $20/month for SlingTV (I like Sling, but I haven't decided if it's a real innovation or a potential oddity for an older, grayer version of yourself to discuss someday from behind a hologramme of a cardboard box).
Great work, as usual. :)
i can tell u had fun researching that one
Webtv was expensive for the box, but cheap for the service, but it was very slow sometimes, glad i work 6 days a week, lol
Those were some bouncy house beats on that runway "fashion" show skit :)
Damn, I feel old when people talk about AOL.
Ikr?
BigEWR I remember when my parents would let me play with those AOL discs we'd get in the mail seemingly every day. It was great. I wish I'd kept some of them to see if they'd install on my Windows 98 standalone. Part of me wishes I had been born earlier, rather than 1996 so that I could have all the old computers and whatnot, but at the same time, I'm glad I was born when I was; I'd hate to be too old for all the great technology nowadays.
***** You were born in '96! That makes me feel old! (Born in 1983)
I'd attach straws to some of them and make makeshift dolls.
AOL still exists, mostly as a content provider and is now part of the Oath Division of Verizon, along with Yahoo.
My grandparents had webtv up until 2009. Was always amazed by it, yea it was shitty compared to our computer but there was just something about it.
props for the Glove and Boots clip
Boxes! Get your boxes here! Get em while they're hot!
Its already 1 week. Is it still hot?
+The Zombie Block theoretically yes. But actually hot? Not really. If you consider 15,000 degrees below freezing as "hot"
WebTV. Yes the only thing it was good for was showing your adult friends you was "tech" savvy. I was most surprised that the services had lived to 2013. I thought it died with the advent of Broadband and Companies like Gateway"s HTPC's(If you remember the early attempts). Oh trying to use a computer in the early 2000's on a 640x480 display... The larger the CRT the feather you had to be just to try to read text... And don't forget that stellar 29.97 fps NTSC refresh rate.. I still have my first HTPC computer kicking around. Intel P2 350mhz, 512mb ram, 1Gb HDD, Win 98 and the ATI All-in-Wonder Pro Video Card.. Tho it was light years more powerful then the WebTV. But using NTSC standards and composite or S-Video connections.. Still left a eye bleeding couch internet usage. But admittedly the lower FPS allowed for a fun computer gaming experience (due to the lower hardware needed to play low resolution/FPS to keep the game experience happy) But anything short of Midi music was about all the internet usage it was good for. Still miss watching Cartoon network as my active desktop.. was my Nerd moment...
WebTV was invented by some ex Apple employees. The biggest claim to fame was it was the best anti-aliasing on 480i display's (read: generic TV's) that had a patent. That's what attracted Microsoft to buy WebTV. So when MS wanted to do a Tivo type service, Tivo sued based on the "Time Machine" patent. MS sued back saying Tivo used their WebTV anti-alias patent to do the Program Guide (then owned by Rovi, now invalidated). They both "settled out of court" and Windows Media center was born, with no licensing fees to Tivo. P.S. -- Andy Rubin (once head of Android @ Google) worked at WebTV doing the soft modem code in the original boxes. P.P.S. -- Ultimate TV originally started on DISH as regular WebTV before it went to Ultimate TV on DirecTV. P.P.P.S. -- Google "WebTV Jenny" as in 867-5309 (a boot code). P.P.P.P.S. Most boxes found now will be in "brain dead" mode and will dial 800-613-8199, which was the service that took your CalledID and redirected to a local UUNet modem bank. P(x5) -- The Wikipedia page "Modem" shows the above brain dead "Modem Bank" service labeled Modem Bank at an ISP. They were a stack of USRobotics "Total Control" modem banks.
in Italy in 1999/2000 there was a similar service called "Freedomland"...a totally failure
We had something similar with the Bush Internet TV... also Telewest provided email via their TV set top box... that you could only access on the TV. At least Bush Internet could be accessed on a PC as well as the TV (or set top box)
I wrote a comment on the Bush Internet TV, apparently their crappy browser couldn't even access Google.
Hello Allison in PA I miss you. As best I can remember I got web TV in 1994 and I thought it was fantastic!
That was a great video. Great topic. Here's an idea, Ben. You can take it or leave it. An ongoing series of videos sporadically made whenever you feel like making them (the topic is) movies that only exist on VHS. You could cover so many of them. Movies that weren't released on DVD due to copyright problems, Just because they were low budget, lost the rights, who knows? There's so many reasons why some movies, TV shows, Music Video Compilations, etc. only exist on VHS.
***** Good idea ... although it could probably fit in his VHS Vault series-within-a-series (and BTW Ben, we haven't seen a VHS Vault in a bit. Just sayin').
soonerterp Yeah, it could be a series within that series, though he wouldn't necessarily own everything, but yeah.
I had it. I stopped using it before it became msntv. The last upgrade I got was when they added msn messenger support. Anybody remember that jetski password? Oh the days.
I have a friend who actually was a WebTV subscriber. He really liked it...until the phone rang. Somehow there was a crossed connection in the wiring, and he never could quite figure it out. I personally stuck with the olde 56K phone dialup AO(hel)L, until I moved to Texas and my very intelligent wife and I got wise and improved our computers and connections.
LONG LIVE WiFi and WIRELESS!
My name is Jess and the yelling mother activated my flight-or-fight response.
It is kind of funny though that in a sense Web TV has kind of made a comeback with the invention of the Roku Apple TV the chromecast and Amazon TV
Ralph Bromley Good point. I have a Roku and with certain apps (the NBCNews app, for example) just regurgitate the same stuff streamable over their websites (which means, I think, this particular app is offering even less than it did before, IMHO, because Comcast, which owns NBC). The only thing Roku doesn't really allow for is the participation/interactivity thing. There's also a disappointingly slow/clunky UA-cam app for Roku, on which I have watched these same OA videos blown up to my average-size flatscreen (mine's kinda small, 24"). It makes the early "carpet vision" OA vids look a bit more shaggy, but it's still a good thing to try.
It's weird. Back when I was a little kid, our family already had a PC equipped for web access, and so did most people I knew. When webtv started showing up in Sears and the like, I thought to myself "this'll never catch on". And I was right for about 10 years. Then suddenly, Netflix streaming became a huge deal. Now set-top boxes are back, and today's boxes remind me a lot of webtv from back in the day, only with more focus on streaming entertainment rather than general internet browsing capability.
Today's set top boxes such as Roku, Amazon TV and Apple TV would have came many years back if Microsoft wouldn't have bought WebTV out and killed it. basically it was competition to the PC.. and then completely stopped supporting it. I was involved in early ideas and concepts for WebTV through a program they had back then. there was much more excitement for the future prior to Microsoft buying it out
+Rogueofmv It was catching on...fastly. There is something called politics and burocracy. 'Oh, the electric car that'll never catch on!" (In 1908) why do you think we still use oil? Think about it.
I remember this....my mother had one, loved it. Looking at it now? It just seems so...."lacking"
13:34 there was a time period where my family of 4 actually would record 4 different shows at once, not with this though.
7:40 OMG! Netscape is that you! Awww my college years...
_i legit thought my phone was ringing_
Now some guys have been able to create an emulated network that the boxes can connect to but requires a raspberry pi for the dial up part.
I had the direct tv version but it wasnt called ultimate, it was still a webtv+ it was a little better bit was also notorious for when watching a movie that it woukd dail out dor an update and play the modem sounds over the audio out and scare the crap out of you when it did it.
I still have my old (1998) DishNetwork WebTV 5100, it still has several recordings on it...and some 9/11 recordings.
I remember that box well. My dad was a Dish Network retailer in the 90's, and we always got the top of the line programming and equipment. Our first DVR was the WebTV box, which had an astonishing 32 hours of storage space! Despite this, I loved playing You Don't Know Jack and Doom on it, and I feel that it pioneered the satellite DVR.
did you just say YDKJ?
*I FUCKING LOVE THAT GAME*
Oh man my Grandpa had WebTV hooked up to an old (weirdly bright-white) CRT. I remember going on Nick.com and stuff
I'm so glad I never bought this. I was one of those computer- phobes. My buddy was way into computers and he used to nag me about getting a computer, they were still very expensive. I started to look around for something cheaper, and this came around. He tried to convince me of all the shortcomings (can't down load etc.) but this was cheap. Man, you look back at this stuff and it's amazing how far things have come. The thing is, his computer didn't do much more than this thing could do. The technology looks ancient.
4:50 yes, in the physical sense. here in 2021, the information age, war is information warfare
4:52 yes, after webtv gave the alphabets a back way in, probably
I saw an MSN tv box a few months ago at a thrift store. Didn't bother to pick it up, just kinda looked at it. I think it was an MSN tv 2 but I don't remember.
Any chance we get a follow-up in the wake of the WebTV service being revived?
Hey man, I love your channel! You're at your best, and better than most I've seen, when you're doing your informative stuff on the oddities you're talking about, intermixed with your unique humor. You fall flat on the riffing, though. Joel and Mike have cornered the market on that front. Please play to your strengths, which are very strong!
Can anyone find a link to the closing theme??
I remember you had a Monthly payment for WEB TV and that add more to the Bill if you went over the time limit....made it more Worst....
Dear God...the early days of the Internet. So quaint. Now that Yahoo is trying to become relevant again...
Has anyone pointed out that the closing theme ("Desert") is an arrangement of The Flat Earth by Thomas Dolby? Which is a killer song BTW.
What's the name of intro song? :)
I always said the XBOX is Microsoft NEW WebTV box for the living room. You get games , streaming , and internet browsing. All on the HDTV now!
I kind of wonder what would be happening right now if Microsoft had bought Sky instead of Comcast (or if Disney held onto them for that matter)
Is a webtv console a Munition? It depends on it's velocity I guess.
You look like Petes little brother Pete but modern times.
Struggle was Real 😂😂😂😭😂
I had one back in 98. Used it for chatting and porn. All it was really good for
Fun Fact: DirecTV is now owned by AT&T.