Tele1st Operated From January 17th to June 30th 1984. And It Was The WORST Pay tv Service In The 80s. It Operated In Chicago Only And Nowhere Else In The U.S.
And it required the presence of a VCR. Apparently, you had to set up the decoder box in between the VCR and the TV. Mind you, at this time, a VHS deck wasn't all that new, but not all that old either. However, it's adoption rate was crazy due to how open the standard was.
Tele1st worked as you mentioned: you got the descrambler connected to your VCR and, with your tape, the descrambler sent the codes to the video receptor. Those codes allowed for further playback, but only during one month. After that, the codes changed and all your previous recordings were codified with a horrible noise and horrible picture quality. You couldn't watch the movie at the moment, you HAD to wait and don't fast forward (or you had to wait a minute to the VCR to re-connect to the descrambler). And the films were pretty crap: Psycho 2 anyone? Charles Bronson? R-Rated movies? And on top, the usual cooking shows. No doubt it was a complete fiasco.
It was. It never got beyond Chicago. But considering that most VHS movies at the time were priced for rental ($80+), and there were very few titles you could actually buy, this was a relative bargain. At least until ABC and WLS-TV yanked it out from under us. Nowadays, something like this would be very simple to do, but there'd be no need thanks to Netflix and other outlets. It was a quasi-decent idea with a seriously flawed execution.
ok, now i get how the system worked.....well...kinda....enough considering its moot now. if it wasn't for the system attaching a proprietary monthly code to the tapes, it could have been sold as a way to build up a movie collection. "we give you movies to keep", but, they went the route of making the DRM cripple the user friendliness.
wtf why didn't you just hook up the descrambled output port to your vcr while it was live so that the picture stays unencrypted even after playing the tape for the first time
From what I can tell he did a lot of work for music library services, which is kinda the music equivalent of stock photos. So rather they just both picked some of his songs coincidently rather than him actively doing music for them.
The only thing I ever liked about Tele1st was this Kraftwerk-styled intermission music that is being played right now. It sounds very similar to "Radioactivity." In fact, I've been trying to find the complete uncut version of this song to no avail. Somebody out there who used to work for Tele1st or ABC (the company responsible) should tell us who composed this song, and if it is available.
5:52 That background music was also used by then-upstart german TV channel RTLplus - now known as RTL - for their news programmes in the mid-80's/early 90's.
At the time, the City Council, and at least two Mayors, had objected to cable TV in Chicago, due to various concerns about it not having enough locally based public service programming (among other issues). So Chicago had ON TV, Spectrum and Tele1st, and it’s hard to say whether all of them were successful. We had Spectrum until it merged with ON TV, and it was a decent movie service, but it was nice to have cable, though.
Such fond-ish memories. Chicago was the only city ABC chose to market Tele1st. We barely had it six months before ABC decided to pull the plug on the whole thing. I think the biggest complaint was that not only was their catalog limited, the “encryption” (it was nowhere near complex enough to be called encryption; it was more like a Macrovision reject) was always inconsistent. It never seemed to be able to lock on, and once you dropped the service, you gained a whole new bunch of blank videotapes. That’s because you might as well erase them since they were worthless.
Nikkcade And they might have had a shot, if the technology had been better. Fortunately it never got any further than Chicago. If I remember right, they folded after just one month.
Is the weird color artifact (near-center of the screen flickering and sudden "negative" effect during the Tele1st start-of-movie intro) part of the scrambler or is it the way the VCR/tape captures it?
Music brings back memories... I'd fall asleep to it late at night.
Tele1st Operated From January 17th to June 30th 1984. And It Was The WORST Pay tv Service In The 80s. It Operated In Chicago Only And Nowhere Else In The U.S.
And it required the presence of a VCR. Apparently, you had to set up the decoder box in between the VCR and the TV.
Mind you, at this time, a VHS deck wasn't all that new, but not all that old either. However, it's adoption rate was crazy due to how open the standard was.
btw come from oddity archive
adigyran yeah why does ben at oddity archive always hiding behind a white box and before he gets up put awhite piece of paper infront of him
Privacy issues, mainly. I had him on my podcast couple years ago. Search for Wammy Radio. (I'm the host, by the way)
Alfredo Rodriguez Can't say I blame him, us folks who care about internet anonymity/pseudonymy are a dying breed.
i watched his pay tv video a lot.
Tele1st worked as you mentioned: you got the descrambler connected to your VCR and, with your tape, the descrambler sent the codes to the video receptor. Those codes allowed for further playback, but only during one month. After that, the codes changed and all your previous recordings were codified with a horrible noise and horrible picture quality. You couldn't watch the movie at the moment, you HAD to wait and don't fast forward (or you had to wait a minute to the VCR to re-connect to the descrambler). And the films were pretty crap: Psycho 2 anyone? Charles Bronson? R-Rated movies? And on top, the usual cooking shows. No doubt it was a complete fiasco.
It was. It never got beyond Chicago. But considering that most VHS movies at the time were priced for rental ($80+), and there were very few titles you could actually buy, this was a relative bargain. At least until ABC and WLS-TV yanked it out from under us. Nowadays, something like this would be very simple to do, but there'd be no need thanks to Netflix and other outlets. It was a quasi-decent idea with a seriously flawed execution.
ok, now i get how the system worked.....well...kinda....enough considering its moot now. if it wasn't for the system attaching a proprietary monthly code to the tapes, it could have been sold as a way to build up a movie collection. "we give you movies to keep", but, they went the route of making the DRM cripple the user friendliness.
back then no cable in the Chicago. Part of Chicago land did have cable.
Some people had the big dishes
Psycho 2 wasn't that bad
wtf why didn't you just hook up the descrambled output port to your vcr while it was live so that the picture stays unencrypted even after playing the tape for the first time
The only Pay TV Service where you'd risk radiation poisoning in order to record and watch a movie!
Keith Mansfield, the man behind the Tele1st open "Cyclotron" also did the music for NFL Films documentaries.
From what I can tell he did a lot of work for music library services, which is kinda the music equivalent of stock photos. So rather they just both picked some of his songs coincidently rather than him actively doing music for them.
The only thing I ever liked about Tele1st was this Kraftwerk-styled intermission music that is being played right now. It sounds very similar to "Radioactivity." In fact, I've been trying to find the complete uncut version of this song to no avail. Somebody out there who used to work for Tele1st or ABC (the company responsible) should tell us who composed this song, and if it is available.
Its very likely that the original tapes are long gone. But it really is basically Radioactivity with a few notes changed.
The music is Cyclotron, by Keith Mansfield.
i love you man. i tried to find for years
And the music of the preview is also from Keith Mansfield, "Superstar"
Benjamin Stauffer and it’s on Spotify!
5:52 That background music was also used by then-upstart german TV channel RTLplus - now known as RTL - for their news programmes in the mid-80's/early 90's.
It'll make good vaporwave
A E S T H E T I C
get those aesthetics
"This portion of the broadcast is silent"
*Hears fast clicking noise*
Me: Maybe "silent" for these guys is living near a woodpecker breeding area...
If you were subscribed it was silent, if you weren’t you heard the scrambled broadcast. That’s what it looked and sounded like.
If a failed 80s pay-per-view tv service with this as its launch music isn’t vaporwave aesthetic, I don’t know what is.
I just enjoy the synthesizer bumpers and themes
Radioactivity is in the air for you and me.
discovered by madame curie
"Cyclotron" by Keith Mansfield is available to purchase off of Qobuz.
So this is where Oddity Archive got the clips!
Chicago was very slow in wiring its proper for cable television.
Blame the politics of the time.
At the time, the City Council, and at least two Mayors, had objected to cable TV in Chicago, due to various concerns about it not having enough locally based public service programming (among other issues). So Chicago had ON TV, Spectrum and Tele1st, and it’s hard to say whether all of them were successful. We had Spectrum until it merged with ON TV, and it was a decent movie service, but it was nice to have cable, though.
Such fond-ish memories. Chicago was the only city ABC chose to market Tele1st. We barely had it six months before ABC decided to pull the plug on the whole thing. I think the biggest complaint was that not only was their catalog limited, the “encryption” (it was nowhere near complex enough to be called encryption; it was more like a Macrovision reject) was always inconsistent. It never seemed to be able to lock on, and once you dropped the service, you gained a whole new bunch of blank videotapes. That’s because you might as well erase them since they were worthless.
Chicago was a test market, if it did well (which it didn't) they would launch it throughout the nation.
It's mind boggling how they thought this was going to compete against ON-TV (which we had) or Spectrum.
As if they didn't have enough stuff to scare kids to death back then. No wonder I still have nightmares
7:06 Agent P, is that you? 😆
I can't believe they planned on going national with this crap. It's so unnerving it makes me laugh.
Nikkcade And they might have had a shot, if the technology had been better. Fortunately it never got any further than Chicago. If I remember right, they folded after just one month.
Depending on your source, it was somewhere between 4 and 6 months.
This is only truly possible with digital. All analog systems have been hacked, or work as poorly as Tele1st.
Is the weird color artifact (near-center of the screen flickering and sudden "negative" effect during the Tele1st start-of-movie intro) part of the scrambler or is it the way the VCR/tape captures it?
I come back just for this wicked intro music
Every source I’ve looked at says this service was on from January to July 1984, not 1983.
What is the movie called at the end
That was far from silent
Never mind it was High Road To China (1983)
Da pay-tv service that practically failed
Sony encryption.
I miss Tele 1st.
Seriously? 😕