Weather Channel: Locals on the 8's

[sundude90]

CONFIRMED: Locals on the 8's and New Weather Interactive are now working!

See the post below for what it really is like.

Josh

Yeah, The Weather Channel was right about what they said to me. And now you can get you Local Weather. Wow.
- Weather goes by Zip Code
- Brand NEW "Active" page including a new Weather Page provided by The Weather Channel with Local Condition, Local Forcast, Still Radar Image by Region and "Add Cities" Section. You can Add Cities by Zip Code Too. The Active page still takes a while to load.
- When watching the The Weather Channel Ch 362 in SD, a bar will show up on the lower left hand corner of the screen saying (Press Red Button for you Local Weather) When you hit the red button it will load a page just like the New "Active" page, but its a bit faster and more responsive.
- Local on the 8's- I think this is the best feature of them all. It is like Cable in some ways. It gives Current Conditions, Almanac(Moon Phase, Sun Rise/Set) Radar Image, Daily Forcastsd and a long week forecast. This show up automatically during the regular Local on the 8's.

When I first got up early this morning to check this out I looked at the "Active" page first. So I first thought "well, this was a waste of my time" then I went to the weather channel to just make the Locals on the 8's. Then I said "Wow, this is pretty cool, maybe this wasn't a waste of my time."

My Opinion: The Locals on the 8's is pretty cool, and it was a great new feature that was needed a long time ago. It does need some fixes and some enhancements to it, might of needed to be tested a bit longer. But hey it works and looks good. But the New "Active" is nothing to get all worked up about. It's still takes a long time to load and everything else it the same except for some Forecast improvements, a radar page instead of the maps page, new color and page layout and you can add cities by Zip Code now too. The on Demand Red button only works when you on the The Weather Channel Ch 363 SD and is basically the same as the "Active" page but it shows The Weather Channel in a little Screen in the bottom Left corner and it does not have the menu for other "Active" features on the Left hand side. that about it.

Thanks,

Josh Clark
(sundude90)

P.S. Post you recommendations/ idea to make this better on this thread. Post problems here also please!

 

[gbertler]

I think it's pretty cool. Even better if it would do the radar in montion. For me during local on the 8's, at least it cuts out of the interactive app and you get to view the national feed showing the radar for a bit.
For the previous poster, I don't think it wold be too hard for them to do this since they do it already on the mix channels.

 

[jtwex]

I'm all for adding new features & this one seems interesting but pixelation followed by signal loss followed by local sirens always has sufficed. Maybe my H20 series can handle the active feature with any sense of urgency but I'm quite convinced that my HR21 would be loaded about the time the twister was overhead . Still haven't done the CE upgrade yet & realize I've said the same thing about the H20's for months (finally resolved with a major software upgrade) but I'm just not relying on this just yet. My computer broadcasts a major warning with interactive maps before I could even enter the TWC channel number.

 

[iceturkee]

my local on the 8's looked the same way it did last week. i did use the interactive feature. but that can only be accessed when it flashes on the screen. so it isn't like i can check weather anytime i want!

ETA: just checkdd on one of my hr-20's. i am not getting any local weather info during local on the 8's. but if i press my red button real hard, i can access the interactive feature!

 

[Piratefan98]

I think delivering the radar "loop" ought to be their first priority in terms of improvements/enhancements. During the time of a storm, a static/still image radar picture is pretty much worthless. Radar loops give real-time indications of the direction/movement of precipitation, the increasing or decreasing strength of locally stormy conditions, etc. etc. Without the loop, you don't know what direction the stuff is moving, whether it's getting stronger or weaker, the speed at which the precipitation shield is moving, etc. etc.

I'm glad for local on the 8's, but a radar loop is a key component and needs to be added at some point.

Jeff

 

[tigerfan33]

Hey tigerfan33, you make it sound like you know what it's going to be like. But at this point no one really knows what it will be like. I will ask to see if its a moving Radar or not and post it here.
Don't assume.

So I need to post here if it is not a moving radar.

Sorry. This feature is not that different than what Dish has!!!

 

[uncrules]

my local on the 8's looked the same way it did last week. i did use the interactive feature. but that can only be accessed when it flashes on the screen. so it isn't like i can check weather anytime i want!

ETA: just checkdd on one of my hr-20's. i am not getting any local weather info during local on the 8's. but if i press my red button real hard, i can access the interactive feature!

On my HR22 I got local on the 8 info. However, it wasn't the first thing that came up during the local on the 8 segment. First they showed some national temps and then it went into the local info. Also the interactive feature did worked if I was on the SD 362. However, on my HR20, the interactive didn't initially work but I checked right before I left for work (about 7:15 am EST) and it was working on my HR20 as well. The active button for both receivers had the new weather channel info.

 

[Hall]

See my post in the next page for what it's really is like and some of my 2 cents.

Where ? And based on what you've posted, sounds like "we" were right....

 

[darrencp22]

Sorry folks, but I think this is a big swing and miss. The active page is just as slow as it ever was, so I wont be using it. As said previously, I wont watch the SD version. And finally, the red button idea didnt work and I didnt want to hang around waiting for the prompt.

Just an open question. Why wasnt it built to have the local on the 8s piece be SD on the HD channel? Just for local weather. I could live with that. What I dont want is two versions of the same channel. It's just sloppy.

 

[ScottChez]

I tried it today. NOT USABLE BAD DESIGN

My Local Radar is not local Radar, its regional. The regional is more centered around Kansas and Oklahoma. Since I am in Omaha, you can only see the southern part of the radar for the state.
If I switch north I see more South Dakota and NO southern Nebraska.

If a storm was coming from the North I would never know. They at least need STATE based Local Radar to make this work for everyone.

 

[rad]

My two cents, this is better then what I was expecting. Up until the radar part this is a lot better then what we used to get. It would be nice to have a better radar summary but I can understand that it would probabkly take much more bandwidth then what's available now to get realtime animation downloaded to all the various areas in the country.

 

[sundude90]

If you having problem with it not working I would try a reboot on your receiver. I did that and it worked perfectly. I think that Directv is still working on it, and is trying to fix some of the bugs. I looked once this morning and it didn't show up until the end.

It's a work in Progress!!

 

[rad]

my local on the 8's looked the same way it did last week. i did use the interactive feature. but that can only be accessed when it flashes on the screen. so it isn't like i can check weather anytime i want!

ETA: just checkdd on one of my hr-20's. i am not getting any local weather info during local on the 8's. but if i press my red button real hard, i can access the interactive feature!

Someone reported that if you used the new active (red button) then you need to change channels and then back to get it working again, didn't need to do that on my HR20. And just to be sure, you are watching the SD version of TWC since it's not working on the HD version yet.

 

[goaliebob99]

Ok, so the interactive app works for me but not the local on the 8's. I did set the zipcode for local on the 8's too. Im viewing on my HR20-700 on the SD weather channel. Sending diag report 20080925-1E6A and then rebooting.

 

[dishcomm]

Thats cool, But thats means if your in Scranton Wilkes barre DMA, Then the local on the 8's would be out of Scranton?
If so thats not the same as cable. Cable has many weather locations within a DMA for the local on the 8's. Stroudsburg, MT Pocono, Just a few examples of local on the 8's Locations within the Scranton Wilkes Barre DMA.
My point is weather in Scranton is Different then Mt Pocono and Stroudsburg. This will be interesting to see.

Actually it goes by neither...The local on the 8's receive by viewers corresponds to the NWS Zone that covers your location.
Hers a link to show expamles of the various Forecast Zones in a given region.
National Weather Service Text Product Display..
You'll see as you scroll down the zones usually cover two or three counties. In areas where terrain is mountainous, weather conditions can vary greatly from lower to higher elevations. Those Forecast areas are smaller

 

[goaliebob99]

Reboot fixed it... Nifty little feature.. D* is starting to feel like the local cable company with On demand, now local weather on the 8's. Its kind of nice, now I hope they dont fall off the deep end as far as coustomer service like how comcast has.


This is a long time coming. Now if we can improve this to a top notch app with moving radar, local warnings, ect.

 

[darrencp22]

Reboot fixed it... Nifty little feature.. D* is starting to feel like the local cable company with On demand, now local weather on the 8's. Its kind of nice, now I hope they dont fall off the deep end as far as coustomer service like how comcast has.


This is a long time coming. Now if we can improve this to a top notch app with moving radar, local warnings, ect.

You managed to get the red button to work for onDemand weather? How's the speed?

 

[sundude90]

I just emailed The Weather Channel with some suggestion that I saw on here and some of my own.

If anybody has problems and suggestion, please Email Directv and The Weather Channel.

Directv's Email is directvcustomercare@directv.com and loyalcustomer@directv.com
The Weather Channel email is cable2@talk2.weather.com and CHoitsma@weather.com

 

[iceturkee]

okay, i read at dbstalk that when you use the interactive feature, you have to exit where it says exit and not exit on the remote.

 

[IceRunner]

It's an improvement, but not nearly as good as what you get on cable.