Technical
The Weather Star XL is a rack-mounted rendering computer, manufactured by Silicon Graphics, Inc., containing a modified SGI O2 computer. The O2 is 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. The O2 was SGI's last attempt at a low-end workstation. The Weather Star XL utilizes the SGI IRIX 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 $6,500 US. 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 IntelliStar 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.
Read more about this topic: Weather Star XL
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