Back on TV: Max Headroom

infofreako writes: " Everyone's favorite 80's construct, Max Headroom, has returned thanks to the people at TechTV. According to their website, they will be rebroadcasting all 14 episodes starting this Friday! This series was doing ethics themes based on designer babies, corporate controlled media, brain scanning and more before some of us were capable of hitting record on the old VCR. "

Comments

I thought that Max had been resurrected

[T5]

by the good folks at Matrox with that Headcasting nonsense.

Re:I thought that Max had been resurrected

[alext]

Dear oh dear, some people are hard to please.
What shapes would this young fellow like to meet/frag on screen instead of people? Trolls? Amphibious landing craft?

And how dare people dis innovations coming from my home town (no, I'm not on the payroll).

Personally, I think producing a 3D head model from two ordinary pictures is a neat trick. Meeting 'avatars' of friends on line is surreal but definitely entertaining. It'll catch on sooner or later, unlike a lot of crud from the last 2 years...

Rock On!

[Nipok Nek]

That's all I had to say. :)

Nipok_Nek

Re:ROCK ON!

[infofreako]

If you haven't seen Big Thinkers on TechTV, you're missing out. I've actually started to save them to disc. Great 30 min. looks at the likes of Stewart Brand, Lawrence Lessig, David Gelernter, Rodney Brooks, Douglas Adams and more. I'm still pushing hard for a Kurzweil episode!

Any Bryce Lynch wannabe would be impressed. Get more details here:
http://www.techtv.com/bigthinkers/

-info

Re:ROCK ON!

[AtariDatacenter]

Okay. You've twisted my arm. I'll TiVo it for a few and see if I like it.

FWIW: I think the scene I most remembered and liked with Bryce was when he made the censor program go into a feedback to censor itself. That, and some strange infiltration of a lab that had Max Headroom or something.

I also liked the episode with the secret school and sky clearance.

I don't know what I was thinking that I liked it so much. I guess it was neat seeing a skilled programmer / hacker type in action. And as arrogant as you're worst sysadmin nightmare. ;)

Please put this on Kazaa!

[Anonymous Coward]

For those of us without TechTV!

PLEASE!

Weird stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

That show was a rather spooky vision of the future. Possesing a TV with an off switch was illegal. Sounds like the kind of world the xxAA want.

R-R-R-Rock!

[dasheiff]

R-R-R-Rock!

Re:R-R-R-Rock!

[GraZZ]

S-S-S-STONE!

As members of developed nations, we have to be sensitive to all forms of silicon.

Karma, karma, everywhere, so let's all have a drink!

Re:R-R-R-Rock!

[Tyger]

Well good old trusty TiVo already had it on the to-do list by the time I found out. Can't beat that.

Re:R-R-R-Rock!

[haystor]

P-P-P-P-Paper!

Doh! what were we talking about?

Re:R-R-R-Rock!

[Merlin42]

S-S-S-S-S-Scissors!

It just begged for completion.

Re:R-R-R-Rock!

[digigasm]

Shouldn't we start some kind of petition to get all of the episodes released on DVD and VHS?

*BOOM*

[DooBall]

IT'LL BLOW YOU UP!

Re:Greetings

[Anonymous Coward]

All your fag linux users are belong to us. You have no chance with women, make your time.

Tivo

[billnapier]

If there was ever a reason to fire up the Tivo/ReplayTV/VidCaptureCard, I would like to know.

I remember watching (and loving!) this show when I was younger, but I'm pretty sure that there was a lot (like social commentary) that went over my head at that age. Would be interesting to see what I think of it now that I'm older (and understand a bit more of it).

Would also be interesting to see how much of this has come true (always a good test of SciFi). Wouldn't the TV industry just love to make you keep your TV's on all the time?

Re:Tivo

[reptilian biotech]

thanks for the reminder, just got a season pass.

CAUTION: tivo ruins viewing pleasure on non tivo equiped tv's

Re:Tivo

[LordBhaal]

Oh does it ever.

I bought a Thompson Tivo in Glasgow and it almost worked with my Telewest Cable (damn digital boxes not getting their channels changed for them).

But it was so much better than the VCR.

Now I'm back in Australia, and haven't gotten it working yet (need my own TV, damnit) and I miss it so.

Now, how to get Max Headroom here in Australia?

Re:Tivo

[tmhsiao]

CAUTION: tivo ruins viewing pleasure on non tivo equiped tv's

Back before they started putting up those infernal popunder ads, I bought audio/video and remote sender and receiver units from X10.com. Nowadays you can probably find units like these from Radio Shack, and I know the remote sender and receivers are available at Circuit City.

As the only person living in my household, being able to access a single TiVo (in addition to the DVD player and VCR hooked up to that television) from other TVs is pure television bliss :)

Now all I need is a video capture system (and a replacement for my broken CD-RW drive) so I can archive everything to VCD.

Re:Tivo

[Richy_T]

The Tivo already has a video capture system. Just stick a network card in it and transfer it directly to your PC.

Rich

Max sux

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because they are going broke and can't afford any content. They've had Coma and Demon Seed.

Cat's hot. Morgan's a skank. Megan's sweet. Martin's clueless. Leo's a cool old man. Patrick is condescending. Did I say Cat's hot? Chris P squeaks.

Re:Max sux

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bet the only reason you didn't mention Chris Pirillo (or however you spell his name) is because you watch CALL FOR HELP all day... >:-D

not the original though!

[cliveholloway]

rebroadcasting all 14 episodes.

Bet that doesn't include the original Channel 4 series and the original TV movie with a much slimier Bryce. As always, US TV took a good idea and sanitised it for the masses.

(showing age). The 15 minute entertainment show - Max + videos (zoolookology anyone?) was much sharper than anything that came later.

"Oh to be in gay Paris, where only the river is Seine"

.02

cLive ;-)

Re:not the original though!

[PD]

As always, US TV took a good idea and sanitised it for the masses.

Even with the sanitization, Max Headroom was much more complicated and demanded more of the audience than anything else on TV.

Re:not the original though!

[(outer-limits)]

That's what I want to see, the original stuff was much sharper and funny. Kind of like the difference between the movie version and TV versions of MASH.

Re:not the original though!

[ElrondHubbard]

I never saw the original Channel 4 series, but I do have the original TV movie (d/l'ed sometime back as an MPEG file), plus all the episodes taped. Haven't watched them for a while. Here's a really good idea: Rhino Video should release this show on DVD. I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Re:not the original though!

[Lazlo Nibble]

(showing age). The 15 minute entertainment show - Max + videos (zoolookology anyone?) was much sharper than anything that came later.

Fondly remembered for airing the first Martini Ranch video...still the only place I ever saw it.

Re:not the original though!

[usrerco]

I worked on the American version's series as one of the technical directors
doing the on-screen graphics while at Video Image in 1986. I was one of
two or three people who did the graphics; me and another guy did the 3D,
and there was a mystery guy/gal who did the E.CARTER 'edison cam' overlay graphics.

I was more impressed with the original show ("Max Headroom: The Original Story,
Lorimar Homevideo), namely acting, directing, and casting. It seemed to really
have that filmic quality I don't think the series achieved. And I thought
the screen graphics in the original were better than what we did. For one
thing, they used /real/ vector graphics in the original. We had a copy of all
the original graphics which we used for reference. Excellent stuff. We also didn't
have input from the original directors, Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, who
I think had a lot to do with the look and feel of the original.

In the American version, we used a Cubicomp to do all of the 3D graphics
vector sequences, which was a pixel based system that could do anti-aliased
vector rendering. So we basically 'simulated' the look of vector, but didn't
fully achieve IMHO. We used 5 1/4" floppies to save our work, and worked
on PCs. I don't think we ever knew what system the original show was done
on. I assumed it was a custom vector system.. anyone know?

The original also used a great nixie-like fonts that caused me to write
a special font program and hand-massaged bitmapped fonts just to simulate
that look, which I think we used in the show, I can't recall.

We re-did many of the cg sequences from the original, including the
barrier arm, sweeps of the Network 23 building, etc. so that the overall look
was consistent with the new sequences we added, like the spinning crypto
graphic. (I think I may have encoded my initials into that sequence)
Remaking the old graphics was sad, because the original graphics were
done so well, and I didn't feel we were doing it justice. I lamented
to my boss, but he insisted we needed to keep a consistent look,
and I doggedly agreed, but still was disheartened (I was young).

I'm fairly sure the original is easily available for rent.

From what I know of Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, they were a british
husband/wife team that directed many weird and edgy commercials & music
videos. My favorites were the backlit graphics for the Chaz Jankel
music video "Questionnaire" (one of the first music videos I think I'd
ever seen that used animated graphics, circa 1981), the mixed media in a
Joni Mitchell video "Good Friends", which featured cut outs and xerography,
and the Donald Fagen video "New Frontier", among others.

Re:not the original though!

[evilandi]

cLive: Bet that doesn't include the original Channel 4 series and the original TV movie

There was no Channel 4 series. Channel 4 only made a TV "movie", actually a one hour pilot.

The only series made was the American series.

It was this American series which was broadcast by Channel 4.

Geeknote: One episode features a "rebel" school which uses books without copyright licences, very similar to a Richard Stallman essay...

-- Andrew Oakley

Re:not the original though!

[awrc]

And I thought the screen graphics in the original were better than what we did. For one thing, they used /real/ vector graphics in the original.

Ah, but you've got to be careful with the original UK pilot show when it comes to what was/wasn't computer graphics.

There were computer graphics in there, but there was also a lot of work by Rod Lord, who also did the "computer graphics" in the book sequences on the _Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy_ TV show (out on DVD in the US yesterday, for those who're interested) which weren't computer generated at all. They're generally the ones that look too good to be computer graphics :-)

Re:not the original though!

[gfreeman]

Max + videos (zoolookology anyone?)

I have the entire set on VHS (PAL). Taped "live" about 15 years ago.

Christ - it seems like yesterday.

I can recall word for word a few of his celebrity interviews.

It introduced me to more excellent avenues of music than any single source I can quote. Cabaret Voltaire stands out - Sensoria was astounding.

Whoops - this'll get modded down for offtopic...
[PS I was at the Art of Noise concert where Max appeared "live"]

Graham
--------

Re:not the original though!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ermmmm.... yes - there was a series by channel 4... The US series came later....

Re:not the original though!

[vortexau]

I'd always understood that the original Max Headroom GPX were Amiga based.
Amigas output (in the US) the RGB format of NTSC, and were easily 'genlocked'
to a video source for mixing!

Re:not the original though!

[Gumshoe]

I don't think we ever knew what system the original show was done on. I assumed it was a custom vector system.. anyone know?

TechTV has the answer.

...and some very good computer-generated special effects (mostly done on Amiga 1000s).

Re:not the original though!

[Anonymous Coward]

nope, the American version was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LIKE Max Headroom's fantastic chat/video show as seen on Channel 4 in the UK. I still remember the one where he keeps asking Sting belittling questions until Sting has a total sense-of-humour failure. Fucking brilliant, and the pop videos are 80's milestones like Cabaret Voltaire's "Sensoria". Get it put out on DVD Channel 4!

Re:not the original though!

[Alan Partridge]

if you're seriously interested, I actually work with one of the main animation guys (Tim Burgess is the name) he still works as a 2D animator and I can give you a link if you'd really like to know how it was done. Hint - it wasn't done with computers...

Re:not the original though!

[56ker]

If there's one thing that reminds me of 80s sci-fi special effects it's the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy!

Re:not the original though!

[Black Art]

Actually there were more than one American series.

Here is the series list:

* The Channel 4 pilot. (later aired on Cinemax.)

* Max Headroom - This was a video music series run on Cinemax. It had intercut bits from the Channel 4 pilot for the first three episodes. Most of them had interviews with various music celebrities. There was a heavy emphasis on golf jokes. These were about 20 minutes each..I have about 10 of these. These include music videos I have not seen elesewhere. ("Rat on a Budget" and a couple of Max Headroom songs come to mind.)

* The Max Headroom Giant Christmas Turkey - Theis was a Max Headroom special that ran on Cinemax. VERY warped. (The only Christmas special that comes to mind with a children's choir singing about how Mary could not get an episiotomy in the manger.)

* The Max talking Headroom Show - This ran on Cinemax and was an hour interview show. It usually had three interviews and one commedian. I only have 2-3 of these. (The interview with William Shatner was pretty bizzare.)

* The ABC series - Ran for 14 episodes, only 13 where shown on ABC. (I have seen claims that episode 13 was not shown on ABC. I have a tape of it off of ABC. 12 & 13 were shown at real weird off times a couple of months later. Most people missed those, which is unfortunate as they were excelent.)

One of these days I need to complete my set of episodes. I am missing a bunch of the Cinemax stuff. I have yet to find a complete list of episodes for those early shows on the net. (Or why Cinemax stopped doing original programming.)

One of my favorite shows of all time. Now if they would just release all of it on DVD.

Blank Art

Re:not the original though!

[usrerco]

>> In the American version, we used a Cubicomp to do all of the 3D graphics
>> vector sequences [..]
>> I don't think we ever knew what system the original show was done
>> on. I assumed it was a custom vector system.. anyone know?
> [..] Hint - it wasn't done with computers...

Don't tell me it was backlit opticals.. no way! ;)

The scenes I'm wondering about are the *3D* vector graphics scenes like the 'elevator sequence' with the vector wireframe of the Network 23 building, the bryce 'door code decryption' sequence which showed a rotating cube of letters, etc. I just can't see that stuff being backlit; trying to do 3D rotations with 2D animation is just too hard to draw, without it looking fake. I did the american show's graphics for the equivalent scenes, and studied those scenes quite hard; too fluid to be hand drawn.

However, shots like the vector graphics of 'exploding guy' in the original /could/ have been backlit, I suppose; it was a standing 2d image, and had no 3 dimensional aspects to it. There are other similar scenes that didn't have 3D graphics that could have been backlit too. But certainly not all scenes.

And of course Max was always live action, of him in a suit, manipulated with video editing, and other 'tricks' including the rotating graphics matted into the background.

And the parrot we thought was a 2D paint program that was 'drawn' to look like 3D CG. Just a few frames were needed to do the "CG parrot". If anything was amiga, as the 'techtv' article mentions, I'm guessing this was. Possibly also the 'rotating grid' behind max could have been amiga as well. It aliases heavily, which helps sell the 'graphics look' of liveaction Max in the foreground. But if you look at the other sequences, such as the bryce code decryption, aliasing is not much of a component, typical of vector systems. If there is aliasing at all, I'm guessing it's because it's re-scanned off a color monitor (which can alias a little bit; remember those color vector video games aliased a little). This is all speculation regarding the Amigas. We on the american show actually knew little about how the original show's graphics were done. We didn't use any Amigas for the on-screen graphics in the american show, it was all PC hardware. Video Image specialized in presenting on screen graphics in sync with film cameras; we shot the PC graphics on film then transferred to video for on-the-set playbacks. VI modified their video hardware (decks and monitors) to run at 24x.

I should digress; I mentioned in the above 'backlit opticals'. An example of backlit would be a black piece of paper with a hole in the middle. Put that over an animation camera's light table (similar to the florescent light tables one uses to trace artwork or look at slides). The result is a bright dot. Put a colored filter over the dot, and you now have a bright /colored/ dot. Then cover that with an 'opal glass' (which can be real frosted glass, or even a milky white 1/4" piece of acrylic) Look down at this, and you've now got a glowing dot with a fuzzy halo. Very cool look in the 80's; everything had to /glow/ ;)

Apply the above principle to a more complex graphic, like a grid cut out of the paper, and you've got a *colorful glowing grid*, a very important graphic in those days.

Taking it a step further, you can get a bunch of 2D effects animators to animate some nice graphics on paper, using rapidographs (accurate ink pens that draw very straight, even lines) stencils, templates, splines (drawing splines, which are bendable plastic and metal, not the mathematical kind) which are black drawings on white paper, that can then be photographed onto kodaliths, basically large, clear black and white negatives, which you can then use in place of the above 'black paper' example, to get moving, glowing artwork that looks just like a computer, assuming the 2D animator did a good job on the original artwork.

This technique was common in the 70's and 80's for glowing logos, and on screen graphics, and could often convincingly look like computer graphics.

For instance, the 'grid bugs' scene in TRON used this technique, a short scene that /wasn't/ CG.

Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel's "Cucumber Productions" demo reel, which we also used for reference/inspiration had a large amount of backlit graphics; really great stuff. I still have a VHS copy of their reel with the commercials and videos I mentioned at the top of this thread.

So I wouldn't be surprised if many of the graphics scenes were done 'traditionally' using the above techniques. But some of the vector scenes were obviously CG.. I'm wondering what equipment was used to do /those/ scenes in the original.

Re:not the original though!

[jafac]

You forgot the playboy spread for Maxine Headroom.

Re:not the original though!

[Alan Partridge]

"If anything was amiga, as the 'techtv' article mentions, I'm guessing this was."

I don't think Tim ever worked with Amiga, I'm pretty sure he was working with Matisse and Paintbox (as well as hand drawn techniques) at the time. But, yes, all the rotating "3D" effects are hand drawn and hand/computer effected and animated AFAIK. I can get the full story tomorrow.

Re:not the original though!

[Alan Partridge]

my mate Tim Burgess worked on HHGTTG as well! although he didn't do much, I think he drew the Babelfish graphic sequence. Cool, eh?

Re:not the original though!

[usrerco]

But, yes, all the rotating "3D" effects are hand drawn and hand/computer effected and animated AFAIK.

WRT the rotating stuff behind Max, yes, looking at the footage again, I see it could easily be backlit hand drawn art.. the graphics behind him have no actual 3D rotations, they just appear to be, but could be done with simple combination 2D rotations and pans on artwork with straight lines.

What got me confused, I see, is that on the same tape, right after the movie, I have a copy of the director's demo reel, which has a 'Radio Rentals' commercial featuring Max in front of a graphic that is definitely CG, replete with aliasing, and a slow, smooth, 3D rotation on a cube-like-thing. I guess I transposed that image with the sequences in the film, because there you get a good 30 seconds to look at that background while he delivers the Radio Rentals pitch.

However, I'd bet a virtual nickel that shots like the Network 23 building wireframes during the elevator chase, the wireframe hallways and spy cameras, the bryce lynch code breaking sequence, and car barrier arm sequences are all CG. In fact, not only CG, but /vector CG/, because all the artifacts of vector seem to be in there; letters that don't line up (vector often does that in strange ways), lack of aliasing, bright spots in the corners of letters, letters that wobble slightly, variation in line brightness as things on screen change, etc)

Would like to hear your report, though. It would probably be the only thing I ever heard directly from the people who worked on the original show.

14 episodes??

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy cow! That's a whole season!

Or 1 week on cable.

The 80's are BACK!

[Anonymous Coward]

Max Headroom back on TV, Alf doing commercials, a new flavor of Coke hitting the market, Hulk Hogan as WWF champ... the 80's are back! Ronald Reagan should be President any day now.

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[Anonymous Coward]

Aah, the good old days of Ronnie Raygun. That man knew how to stand up to the Soviets. Sent them into an early grave he did, like a wife feeding her husband fatty pork chops every night.

Of course, his wife believed in astrology, so maybe it was all just luck.

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that scared monkey boy (aka: Shrub, aka: jr) could turn out more Regan than Reagan. At least in his politics ,he about has the charisima and public presence of a fogotten bannana. But Iwont be truely happy until Roudy Roddy Piper or Leapin Lenny Popoff (Machoman's real life brother BTW) make it back on the scene.

gaba gaba hey

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good ole Lanny is doing infomercials for some product I hear. He says something like "You might remember me as The Genius..." And, Roddy isn't dead yet, so he'll probably manage to make it back in the spotlight again.

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[Anonymous Coward]

I want a sequel to They Live. Now! "I came here to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum." They just don't make movies like that any more.

And the ending is a laugh riot.

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn! Learn english, come back three week.

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[Guppy06]

You forgot to mention pop divas doing freakin' annoying cola commercials.

I swear that new line of Pepsi ads has done nothing but tell us that not only do cola ads suck ass now, they continue a proud tradition of ass-suckage dating back at least 50 years...

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[nabeel]

Don't forget that Joe Isuzu's return to TV, too.

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[rbeattie]

Ronald Reagan IS president, or hadn't you noticed?

-Russ

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[inc0gnito]

Not that i'm accusing the parent of plagarism (of an idea anway, and a funny one at that), but this seems to be really similar to a mailbag entry in a recent ESPN.com article ( Link Here ).

"Q: Soon, David Lee Roth will be seen singing Van Halen stuff ... a new "Star Wars" movie is out next month ... the Celtics are winning playoff games on the parquet floor ... Jason Voorhees is back in theaters this Friday ... and by God, Hulk Hogan is the heavyweight champion of the world. Are we back in 1984 and nobody told me?
-- Matty, Boston

SG: I keep waiting to turn on the 2002 World Karate Championships on ESPN2 just in time to see Daniel LaRusso limping towards the center of the ring as the announcer screams, 'He's gonna fight! Daniel LaRusso is gonna fight!'"

Don't know why i'm bringing this up. Guess it's too late and i'm really bored.

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[fireboy1919]

Thats the first thing I think of when I think of RRP.

If any movie fits the bill, They Live! is the precursor to the Matrix (awesome fight scenes killin' a heartless enemy who seeks to control all of humanity).

With any luck, Roddy will be in one of the up and coming installations of the Matrix. He could be one of the ones who can recognize agents because of his...sunglasses. Maybe he can show that dainty surfer dude (Keanu) how to beat up agents by continuously slamming their heads into cement.

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[O.F. Fascist]

LoL Transformers are back too, we just need to resurrect G.I.Joe.

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, man - it was written in the stars. It's funny that Rush Limbaugh was just discussing this very subject in reference to our buying oil from Russia to hedge again a Saudi embargo. Rush was saying that it was thanks to Reagan's ending the cold war that we could make such a deal today.

Personally I think it was all Nancy's doing. Her wardrobe kept the Russians thinking we were richer than hell and they could never catch up.

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[corian]

> Ronald Reagan should be President any day now.

Or, perhaps, Randy of the Redwoods.

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[Gehenna_Gehenna]

Screw GI Joe when you can play with the new revamped He Man

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[operagost]

I don't know how this gets modded up as insightful without some qualification.

Re:The 80's are BACK!

[Anonymous Coward]

That is because you don't understand the comparison whilst almost everyone else does.

Best Episode...

[TrevorB]

Max Headroom was shown on Canada's Bravo network soon after it came out. Already have all the episodes recorded in LP for my time-shifting pleasure.

The best episode by far was #13: Lessons, about cracking down pirated video programming. Children were not allowed to learn because the educational television wasn't paid for, and schools were not free to the public.

SPOILERS AHOY....

The whole thing turns out to be a cover operation for an old fashioned printing press operation, to print real books for kids to read.

It's very 80's of Max to focus so much on how much television will change our society. Sign of the times.. The world could use a lot more freelance journalists like Edison Carter...

Re:Best Episode...

[xee]

It could also use a lot more shows and movies starring Matt Frewer. IMDb, IMHO.

Re:Best Episode...

[DanThe1Man]

The best episode by far was #13: Lessons, about cracking down pirated video programming

Wow, can't wait to download it...

Re:Best Episode...

[Genom]

It could also use a lot more shows and movies starring Matt Frewer

Unfortunately, not even he could save the second Lawnmower Man movie...

great

[Dr Kool, PhD]

Will there be guest appearances by Alf and The Noid??

The original was better

[McGruff]

The original with evil Bryce was much better than the US adaption with nerdy Bryce. I really wish they would break down and import the original in Queen's English.

And then there was Reg...

Re:The original was better

[Telecommando]

I really wish they would break down and import the original in Queen's English.

They already did. Years ago. I've got it in Beta. No shit.
And yes, it is better than the US version.

Max was great. I think the character of Blank Reg was almost prophetic. I've seen several people around town who remind me of Reg. Aging, punker burnouts who just don't know when to let go.

Looks like I'll be clearing out some space on the ol' hard drive and getting the TV capture card checked out before Friday

Re:The original was better

[SpaceLifeForm]

A BetaMax of a Beta Max.

Re:Back about 1987

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, don't click on this link [redcoat.net]

OMG, that's the nastiest thing I've ever seen.

A Good Show...

[writermike]

If you've not seen this, watch a few episodes; it's a very good show. As BRAVO (TV) once termed it, it's "TV too good for TV."

As an aside, Max Headroom was a very cool show to BBS by. All the cataclysmic-future imagry and calling BBSs with names like "Hell's Fury" and "Network 23" just seemed to go together so well.

Ananova

[CmdrTaco (editor)]

Well, virtual people animated by computers have certainly come a long way since Max Headroom first cam around, haven't they? I remember the first time I saw anything to do with Headroom was in the movie Spaceballs, though it was an actual person rather than a simulation. It was such a cool idea at the time, but 3D stuff just didn't cut it to make stuff realistic- remember Dire Straits' music video for "I Want My MTV"?

Of course, within the past couple years, eve the past decade, there has been exponential growth in the 3D modeling industry. I mean, if the entire Titanic can realistically be rendered, why not be able to render a person in real time with realistic voice synth and physics? Just look at the upcoming game Soldier of Fortune 2. Some of the skin textures look incredibly realistic, and that can be done in real time on a GF2.

But, we have to be careful about what we do for these models. Ananova isn't giving any real humans a run for their money, but eventually we may get there. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within gave a nearly flawless rendering of humans, and it will only be a limited amount of time before that can be done with real time processing. It's not like we'll be turned into a slave race like in The Matrix or anything, but it still is a good idea to use some caution.

Re:Ananova

[Anonymous Coward]

Max Headroom wasn't animated in the sense you think, it was rotoscoped, that is, painted over real images, like the A-Ha video, remember?

Re:Ananova

[xee]

Max Headroom was NOT computer generated. Those funky, trippy lines behind him might have been, but even that would have pushed technology to the limits. :P

Oh, and by the way, Star Trek (the orig, with Kirk) didn't have a computer generated starship either.

Re:Ananova

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes.. The good ole days of spaceship *MODELS*.

What young model building geek didn't dream of building space ship models for a living..

Re:Ananova

[CaseyB]

Actually, it was just plain old makeup against a bluescreen for the backdrop.

Re:Ananova

[Accipiter]

I mean, if the entire Titanic can realistically be rendered, why not be able to render a person in real time with realistic voice synth and physics?

Are you serious? If you are, you obviously have absolutely no grasp of how 3D modeling works.

Rendering something like the Titanic is easy. (Not easy in the sense that anyone with a copy of 3D Studio MAX can do it, but easy in the sense that it's just a ship.)

When you create something in 3D like the Titanic, it's based on specifications that do not change. Lighting is constant, shapes stay the same, and moving parts are minimum.

Compare that to attempting to duplicate a person, detailed, in 3D. People are tremendously harder to do than objects, because people automatically scrutinize other people. That's why when you look at a movie like Final Fantasy, you can say "Wow, they sure are realistic, but there's just *something* not right."

With a person, you have to deal with mouth movement (a very difficult thing to model in 3D), eye movement, muscle expansion and contraction based on movement, bending limbs and joints, breating, and a whole host of other factors. Then when you get into voice synthesis (which is still not perfect, but AT&T is making leaps and bounds.), and physics modelling on things such as cloth and water... It's all very hard.

So between rendering something like a ship moving through the water, or creating a realistic person in 3D, the ship is a lot easier to do. It may be painstaking in detail to create, but it's still just basic shapes.)

Re:Ananova

[Anonymous Coward]

To be proper, Max was not computer generated. Rather, he was computer animated (well, manipulated is probably a better term). Specifically:

Matt Frewer (?sp) was put on the makeup and prothstetics (?sp), and was placed in front of a blue screen. The background computer generated.

The computer involved processing the audio and video. The stutters, pitch bends, drop-outs and frame locks were all a result of a (then) very exspensive piece of computer equipment running custom software.

Not having TechTV, I envy those of you that do. Max Headroom (even the watered down US version) was the best bit of television since the original Twilight Zone. Max Headroom had damn good writing, dealing with media issues years ahead of anybody else.

And Amanda Pays was in the cast. My God, what a Goddess. I saw a picture of her a couple of years ago. Mmm Mmm.

I had the three JP laserdiscs. Sure would be nice to see the stuff finally hit DVD. With so much more room on the format, there's now excuse not to release both the UK and US versions, his talkshow segments, all the Art of Noise stuff, and the Max's Mondo Madness bits that ran on CineMax (the stuff for Reefer Madness had me laughing so hard, I almost broke a rib).

Anonymous Coward? No. Mike Nomad? Yes.

Re:Ananova

[!splut]

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within gave a nearly flawless rendering of humans

I suspect I'm in the minority, but I was dissapointed with the humans in the FF movie. Personally, I certainly wouldn't go so far as to describe them as "nearly flawless." It looked and felt very plastic and artificial to me. The nice and big polygon count allowed the general shape to be right, but things like skin/textile texture, realistic seeming facial movements, and the physics of hair still have a long way to go.

Don't get me wrong - I could sit back and imagine that the characters were real, and put myself in their place, but a good 2D animated film is that way, too.

Re:Ananova

[Bios_Hakr]

Even ST:TNG used a model for the Enterprise. The model was mounted, upside down, in a green room. A motion controlled camera was then used to move around the ship to create movement. Then stary backgrounds were matted onto the green field. That is why 95% of Enterprise shots are of the bottom of the ship.

In some of the fly-bys, notably the opening credits, you can see people moving inside the Briefing Room. This was done with a green window where the briefing room window was, then stock footage of people walking around was shrunk and matted into the scene.

Re:Ananova

[luciensims]

you forgot to mention the most important part of what's wrong with the rendering in FF... they're not actors.

until there are graphic artists who have the skill of a (good) actor, something will always seem wrong, no matter how advanced the technology. as the tech gets more complex, the jobs involved in creating the films get more specialized.

we don't expect kevin spacey to write code, so how can we expect the tech-heads to act?

Re:Ananova

[segfaultdot]

AFAIK, the first trek series to use computer models was voyager. They looked a little bit cheesy at first, but of course got much better towards the end of the show.

The only way you can tell the difference nowadays is by taking a good look at the motion of the objects. The motion of cgi models is freer, a little more calculated and perfect than plastic-and-glue models.

Re:Ananova

[usrerco]

> Max Headroom wasn't animated in the sense you think, it was rotoscoped

I'm not so sure about rotoscoped.. I doubt it very much. I would imagine traditional video blue screen techniques were used to matte live action Max in the plastic suit over the CG grid background you see rotating around.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that HAS to be video matting, because of the video editing manipulation of Max (he pauses, then rewinds, stutters, etc) replete with video artifacts.

Rotoscoping is a really tough, costly, time consuming, inexact way to pull mattes, and is a film technique mostly, basically hand tracing each frame under an animation camera, then rephotographing and compositing as a holdout matte in an optical printer, or bipacking in camera. Very tough and expensive. Max Headroom (original) was a large budget, but I don't think it was /that/ large. ;) And the American version/series was likely even cheaper (per foot). I worked on the american show's wireframe graphics, but not on the max stuff. And I'm fairly certain no roto was done on any of the Max sequences on the american show, it was surely video bluescreen or similar. But that's speculation.

You can see my other comments on the technical techniques here in the "not the original, though" thread, and one of my other replies higher in that same thread (which I can't seem to link to directly).

Re:Ananova

[usrerco]

> the first time I saw anything to do with Headroom was in the movie Spaceballs

That's interesting; was there a scene in Spaceballs with Max? I've seen it but don't recall.

What makes this interesting to me is while I was working at Video Image doing the on the screen graphics for the Max Headroom (American version) show, we were also working on the screen graphics for Spaceballs at the same time; both projects were in production at the same time. I'm wondering if it was a matter of convenience they stuck Max into Spaceballs, because the same effects company was working on both projects.

It seems the folks who owned Max never missed a chance to stick that character into all kinds of shows, commercials, etc. He got a lot of 'hip' exposure in those days, so I wouldn't be surprised if they stuck him into Spaceballs for that reason.

Re:Ananova

[Anonymous Coward]

You're probably right. I just did a search and there was no mention of rotoscoping. I must have misunderstood at some point in time and stored it in the 'useless trivia' section of my meatbop.

Re:Ananova

[MiTEG]

Spaceballs made fun of everything in hip culture at the time. The character Vinny the Gangster, Pizza the Hut's sidekick, is one of the more subtle spoof of Max Headroom.

Maybe I'm wrong though, I never really saw much of Max Headroom, but this post made me go watch Spaceballs again. I'm so glad I bought the DVD!

Suckage

[rinkjustice]

As I remember Max Headroom, it just wasn't that good, even for a drooling veghead kid like I was. The animation sequences were too damn short and the action scenes were about on par with "The Littlest Hobo". No good.
Let it die.

Re:Suckage

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

The animation sequences were too damn short and the action scenes were about on par with "The Littlest Hobo". No good.

If all you were watching for was the animation sequences or the action scenes, then I guess this comment is dead-on. Of course, if all you were watching for was the animation sequences or the actions scenes, then you seriously missed the point! Max Headroom was about computer animation the way that Star Wars is about space flight; that is, just as a hook. The key to Max, the whole essence of the show, was its cynical-yet-so-true jaded view of Big Media and the world we were rapidly approaching, wherein the sheep of the world abdicate their power to the TV... Hmmm. A lot like this world, actually.

Max Headroom might have been "twenty minutes into the future" but it was also twenty years ahead of its time.

Why I love my Tivo....

[wowbagger]

I saw the story, and had to check with my Tivo. It had already seen the show in the listings and was ready to record as per standing orders.

Even had /. not covered this, the Tivo would have recorded it. That's the difference between a VCR and a Tivo.

BTW, since chrisd didn't spoil it, I will - Edison doesn't die....

Re:Why I love my Tivo....

[Fishy]

coming up next.... how my Tivo caused peace to break out in the middle east.

F

Re:Why I love my Tivo....

[Anonymous Coward]

and the apocalypse that followed.

Yeeeepeeee

[gato_mato]

I remember reading about this show when I was growing up! We didn't get shows like this in Puerto Rico in the 80's. Nice to know that I just might be able to see what I missed. I remember that the Wendy's in PR had the MaxHeadroom Cups you could collect but almot noone I knew "Got It" only a couple of Ricans that had come back from living in NYC even knew of the Max thing.

cat owns!

[Anonymous Coward]

i didnt get techtv until a few months ago, everyone was telling me how hot megan is, then i got techtv.. god damn cat owns, megans ok but cat, wow!

Re:cat owns!

[leadfoot180]

Surely you cannot overlook Sumi Das on "Fresh Gear" and Kris Kosach on "Audiofile." However, as far as the "Screen Savers" go, I do have to agree that Cat is quite the babe. :)

Wow

[DNS-and-BIND]

This is something...Max Headroom episodes were great. I loved the "20 minutes into the future" atmosphere. Network 23 (the innovator of "Blipverts" - commercials shown at high speed to prevent channel switching) and its sponsor the Zik Zak Corporation (motto: "We make everything you need, and you need everything we make") were bad guys I could really sink my teeth into. And of course every episode features a good dose of Max Headroom himself. Anyone remember Max Headroom's show on Showtime? He hosted a talk show and interviewed celebrities, and predated Space Ghost by about 10 years. The only negative I see is it's on the really obscure channel "Tech TV", which is probably only availible to those with satellite TV.

The 80's!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay Menudo!

Livin la vida loca baby! C'mon!

Illuminatus!

[kubrick]

Obviously anyone who has read this 'conspracy theory to end all conspiracy theories' will realize why Edison Carter works for 'Network 23'. :)

tech TV?

[ctar]

What's tech TV? Is it a real TV station? I've never heard of it...

Re:tech TV?

[teslatug]

I've always wondered how come there isn't a nationwide station dedicated solely to technology. There are plenty of geeks and nerds to watch it, and you could always have shows teaching the elderly or the less technologicaly inclined simple computer tasks. One or more of the major computer companies (Dell, Gateway, Apple, Microsoft, etc -- apparently AOL/TW can't afford it :) could sponsor it. It's unbelievable that there isn't enough of a market considering how pervasive technology is in today's society. The only shows right now that even remotely feature computers are HSN and the like and the dichotomy between getting my tech fill and pulling my ears off is unnerving.

Enough ranting...still wishing

Re:tech TV?

[BoBathan]

It's a cable station devoted to computers, internet, and hour long paid infomercials in the middle of the day. Way back when it was nice and all, showed some pretty cool stuff, now the only thing worth watching is when they show E3 coverage, all the rest is Chris Parillo demonstrating how to click on the "Start" button.

--Travis

Re:tech TV?

[jgerman]

That's hardly true. The best shows aren't the Screensavers and Call For Help. Big Thinkers, probably the best show on the channel is probably the most Comp Sci oriented show on tv. With guests like Daniel Dennett, Bruce Sterling, and Lawrence Lessig it's a show for intelligent geeks . Extended play, is a game new/reviews tech live is good for tech news. Eyedrops runs CG movie shorts. Fresh Gear highlights new gadgets.

contrary to the parent post all of these shows run more or less daily rather then 'every once and (uhhh try in here pal) a while'. There's plenty of substance on the channel, more so than most, and it's almost definitely my personal favorite channel.

I should mention that the show the the parent implicity derides (The Screen Savers) is a catch all tech show with a definite pro linux slant that's well worth watching.

Re:tech TV?

[squaretorus]

I know why. Because every time they try we bitch about them until we bleed!

Behind the times, old hat, not enough this, not enought that, wheres the detail, too much detail, where were the penguins!

Thats why. Who wants to set themselves up for that when people are ever more grateful for sprts and pr0n?

Wow, I loved Max Headroom

[GreyOrange]

This is great, I still have found memories of a television show which had a sttttuttterring computer generated head. I remember his rommmannncee with a lady computer in a topppp storry of a competitors building. I remember the school for the gifted and how theyyy had to creattee MOUSEEE TRAPPPSS out of a floppyyy diskkk and I'mmm not quite sure, buttt it might of been a paperclip???? Seriously though I'm glad this show is back on the air and I'll look forward to watching episodes again and reminicing.

bah

[HobbitGod42]

I am on cablevision so I won't be getting tech tv for ::checks his calender:: a few years... we JUST got TVland last month...

I vaguely remember this show.

[Anonymous Coward]

It was the one with the funny guy's head in the box, right?

*snicker* Christ, I don't know whether I'm young or old. Back in my day, the C= 64 was the all powerful uber schiznit boxxen!

But I can't remember much about Max. :(

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Too bad hardly anyone can get Tech TV..

[EMR]

it seems like everyone I know that has Cable TV had Tech TV pulled from the available channels.. so the only way to get Tech TV is through Satalite.

Re:Too bad hardly anyone can get Tech TV..

[Anonymous Coward]

>so the only way to get Tech TV is through Satalite.

And (apart from a homeowner's agreement) what's stopping you from opening the classifieds and buying one of the $50 "take it away" used C-Band dish specials?

I got one a year ago and it was the most fun I've had for $50 in a LONG time. In fact, I just upgraded from 7.5' to 10'. Rock on!

Re:Too bad hardly anyone can get Tech TV..

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. I have RCN in the Boston area, and they just added TechTV to the lineup (an analog channel, 97).

It may be that your cable company moved TechTV from an analog channel to a digital channel, in which case you will not be able to get TechTV unless you upgrade to digital.

Best Headroom episode was "New Color"

[geoffsmith]

They invented this new color. The Max Headroom guys would look at it astounded while the camera was always on the other side of their computer monitor so you couldn't see it. How could you invent a new colour on an RGB monitor??? Funny stuff, that show is great.

Then one day I found out that they really have found a new color! Hrm, I can't seem to find the link though, anyone have it? You can even buy T-shirts in the new colour ;-) Can't wait until mine arrives...

Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon

I have always wondered..

[Anonymous Coward]

..why someone with the skill hasn't created a Max Headroom like talking head for X (SDL/OGL/etc).

It would be especially cool to have him say sound samples. I expect some audio analysis could be used to identify inflection points, etc, to add Max-like 'repeat' characteristics, etc

Please *someome* - I *need* to hear my boss's words come out of Max's head.

Bleen

[geoffsmith]

It appears discovering new colors is a common TV phenomenon. Here's another reference:

Bleen

I still can't find that site selling tshirts and computer monitors to display this "new color." It was very funny. Google is great sometimes, but other times it's just hopeless.

Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon

Re:Bleen

[DNS-and-BIND]

Please don't spam slashdot with your ads in the body of your message. It's already in your "URL". If you absolutely must, put it in your signature file. That way you don't have to cut and paste every time.

Re:Bleen

[CamelTrader]

dont forget squant from a few years back. It was a pretty cool hoax, there were pictures of various squant (the new color) colored things that you couldnt see without a new RGB-Squant monitor.

There was even a plugin for your browser to allow it to approximate the appearance of Squant.

Re:Bleen

[boinger]

I believe that was a negativland creation.

T-shirt

[Magustrench]

My mom has a 'Max Headroom' T-shirt. I had always wondered what that was about.

Re:T-shirt

[NFW]

Oh my god. You have the coolest mom on the planet.

Really, you have no idea how lucky you are.

(Unless it's just an old Coke promo t-shirt, in which case, never mind....)

Re:T-shirt

[adrianhensler]

I have two. I always wondered what kind of reaction I would get from the people at work if I wore them. One is probably way to small now; that would be the icing on the cake.

I think they would laugh *at* me. Not with me. They wouldn't 'get it'.

Blipverts

[Kargan]

Was anyone else as shocked as me at what happened to viewers who watched too many blipverts in a row? (Revealed in the Max Headroom movie)

I still have a pretty vivid memory. "Hmm, what's the big deal? What's going to happen to them? Oh, I see ! All of their flesh explodes off of their skeleton in a colorful, chunky spray!!"

How bizarre.

Re:Blipverts

[JimBobJoe]

Was anyone else as shocked as me...

God help me I was. I couldn't have been more than ten years old, watching this big guy explode in his Lazy boy. Frankly, I stopped watching the show because of it, because it scarred me too much. (Note the word scarred, not scared) I'm going to try to catch the episodes on rerun, I believe I can stand em more now.

Re:Blipverts

[JimPooley]

Trivia: The guy who exploded watching blipverts was played by Mike Cule, who played the Vogon Guard in the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series...
Yes. I am sad, thank you very much...

Re:Blipverts

[Anonymous Coward]

(Revealed in the Max Headroom movie)

The US pilot episode showed just a split second of the guy's gut bursting, then cut to Edison's reaction.

Re:Blipverts

[Bob McCown]

More trivia. The guy that ran the pirate radio station in the bus/camper/whatever was also the prison guard in one of the Star Trek movies, and ALSO was in B5 as a bad soul hunter. Great actor, whose name escapes me now...

Re:Blipverts

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn! I thought Americans liked to DROWN in blood and gore! Why edit it, Edison?

Re:Blipverts

[Schnapple]

All of their flesh explodes off of their skeleton in a colorful, chunky spray

Yes, this fucked me up pretty bad as a kid, too! It was in the commercial for the british movie version on some video my folks rented. I was pretty chilled back then but in hindsight I wonder if it would just make me laugh today. I mean, how could someone explode but leave their skeleton intact on a barka lounger? Wouldn't there be more smoke, fire and bone destruction? I think the idea was to be humorous but since a lot of the people who like Max Headroom were children, I think it was misplaced (which explains why ABC axed that sequence).

On that tip, imagine my mother's shock when I caught Max cussing and discussing condoms with Dr. Ruth on that CineMAX show he hosted once.

TechTV is owned by Paul Allen

[carlivar]

I was browsing around on the TechTV site, trying to figure out if my cable company carries it. I discovered a tidbit in the last paragraph of this page.

TechTV is owned by Vulcan Inc., the Bellevue, Washington-based investment organization of Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen.

Hmmm... is TechTV objective? Do they also have Apple and Open Source programming? I really don't know. Otherwise this scares me.

Carl

Re:TechTV is owned by Paul Allen

[ttyRazor]

Actually they have had some decent (albeit fluffy) apple and linux related stuff. They even occasionally make some cracks at Microsoft, athough there's also plenty of MS cheerleading too.

Re:TechTV is owned by Paul Allen

[bitdamaged]

Never really seen TechTV take sides like this. Yeah a lot of their focus is a bit fluffy for the /. crowd so they do a lot of stuff based on MS but their focus is a bit lower than the type of content slashdot the average slashdotter is looking for.

Re:TechTV is owned by Paul Allen

[CeZa]

I read this in a magazine a few years ago. I also read that Microsoft also had a stake somehow in Dreamworks although I cannot confirm it. Anyone seen a list of M$'s possesions?

Re:TechTV is owned by Paul Allen

[josh crawley]

The great slashdot blackout is off, so I'll comment.

I believe that Dreamworks recently turned over to all Linux in designing of stuff. It sure seems that they didn't want MS anything.

Re:TechTV is owned by Paul Allen

[foobar104]

Hmmm... is TechTV objective?

Note carefully: TechTV is owned by Vulcan, not by Microsoft or any of its subsidiaries. Vulcan is basically Paul Allen's sandbox. They do some amazing things. I don't know if it's complete or in progress or abandoned or what, but at one point they were working on a HDTV video-on-demand system for Allen's estate. Storing uncompressed HD and distributing it as 19 Mbit MPEG-2 via DVB-ASI throughout the facility. Amazing.

So yeah, I'd say if it's owned by Vulcan, it's about as objective as any media outlet could reasonably be expected to be.

Re:TechTV is owned by Paul Allen

[yack0]

Watch the Screensavers for one week. I think they do a decent job of calling windows for what it is.

Today they mentioned some person who found 16 unpatched vulnerabilities in windows XP and based their 'poll' on whether people think they trust XP for security or something like that. (it's still up NOW if you wanna read it at thescreensavers.com)

The have good reviews of linux stuff and mac stuff.

Compared to the percentage of users using each of the alternative OS, they have more than the fair share of alternative OS coverage. Their favorite distro is Mandrake. Two of teh front line people are always touting their iBook/OSX computers and how cool they think they are.

Their tech news on other shows is often critical of Microsoft products. They've also reviewed the XBox in a seemingly fair method.

Watch the station and judge for yourself.

yack0

Re:TechTV is owned by Paul Allen

[_Sprocket_]

TechTV is owned by Vulcan Inc., the Bellevue, Washington-based investment organization of Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen.

Paul Allen seems to have a rather wide interest in technology (and business). This dated article from 1997 may or may not be too accurate now (it mentions him being the 2nd largest holder of Microsoft stock - its often quoted he has a 9% share, so I'm not sure how that works out). But the article does provide an idea of how diversified Allen's interests are.

Hmmm... is TechTV objective? Do they also have Apple and Open Source programming?

It depends on the show and the staff. Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome fame hosts the TechTV show Call for Help and seems very pro-Microsoft/Windows. Though to be fair, I don't watch his show.

The Screen Savers also feature a lot of Microsoft bits. But they throw a lot of other bits in there too. They did a week of shows mostly dedicated to Linux. They do "alteratips" which are tips for mostly MacOS X and Linux (although, like the Windows tips, they're pretty light-weight). They do on-air help calls for Linux and Mac issues on occasion. The show hosts occasionally grumble about Microsoft and its faults (technical and political/marketing). Tux appears in the background often. OSX's strengths are lauded. Linux is often portrayed as an OS people already enjoy, and the viewer might like to try out too. And for their daily tech news, they often quote articles from Slashdot.

Of course, that's not to say all of TechTV is as enlightned. Sometimes TechTV Live and Cyber Crime have articles with viewpoints and/or quotes that make me cringe.

In all, Paul Allen seems to have a fairly wide focus despite his involvement in Microsoft. And TechTV seems to harbor an environment that allows a reflection of a wide degree of the IT industry.

Re:TechTV is owned by Paul Allen

[_Sprocket_]

Oh! AND The Screen Savers often have guests on for various things. These guests sometimes include names well known to the Open Source crowd (Linus and Illiad are two that come to mind).

Re:TechTV is owned by Paul Allen

[grytpype]

How did that blackout thing go, by the way?

Re:TechTV is owned by Paul Allen

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Paul Allen is not Bill Gates

2) Vulcan is not Paul Allen

3) TechTV is not Vulcan

Just the other day on TechTV's Screen Savers, they talked about the M$ antitrust case, and quoted (disapprovingly) a M$ exec's statement that M$ has the right to make Windows not work with non-M$ software if it wants to. Needless to say, the TechTV guys did not think this was a good thing! These are not M$ cheerleaders.

Re:TechTV is owned by Paul Allen

[leolaporte]

Speaking as "one of the two guys" on The Screen Savers (the flagship show on TechTV) we've never received pressure in any direction from ANYONE in management. We have a remarkably free hand editorially. I like to think that's because ownership and management realize that a truly objective channel is more valuable to the audience, and presumably more successful as a result.

I'm a UNIX/OS X/Open Source bigot, but we ALWAYS call it as we see it, which sometimes means we say good things about Microsoft, too. Even though that makes me cringe.

Bull!

[DarkHelmet]

Max Headroom coming back to TV? Lies! Lies! Just like that moron that told me that Captain Kirk hosts a cooking show.

April Fools happens at the beginning of April, not the end.

Re:Bull!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like that moron that told me that Captain Kirk hosts a cooking show.

You must mean Iron Chef USA: Showdown in Las Vegas and Iron Chef USA: Holiday Showdown

Blanks

[robvs68]

For those who plan to watch Max - when they get to the episodes dealling with "blanks" (ie. Reg & Dominique), I suspect that you'll notice a frightening foreshadowing to M$'s Passport.

Re:Blanks

[NFW]

Amen. But then, damn near everything interesting in the Headroom universe is a frightening foreshadowing... At least Ramona@kurzweilai.net doesn't stutter like Max, though. Big Time Television=pirate broadcasting. TV watching the viewers=spyware. Illegal off-switch=the fight to stop time-shifters from skipping commercials. ZikZak=AOLTW+SearsRoebuck (just you wait). I swear if I see one more fkkking pop-up ad, I'm going to explode like a blipvertised couch potato.

That show was way ahead of its time. Like someone said above, it was really hard to find people who "got it." As for me, I couldn't decide if I wanted to grow up to be Edison, Bryce, or Reg... but I knew I wanted to marry Fiora. :-)

Don't forget

[J4]

Amanda Pays, she was pretty hot.

Re:Don't forget

[great throwdini]

It pays to watch Amanda Pays.

Re:Don't forget

[Ouroboro]

Amanda Pays, she was pretty hot.

LOL. This comment was moderated up as insightful.

Re:Don't forget

[kfg]

When she was in sight, my eyes were full?

KFG

British shows were MUCH better

[Rewd]

I loved the music shows - great videos and some really funny absurdist MAX-M-M-M-Max bits in between. The original british drama movie was also excellent, really dark and cool with great ideas.

When I first saw the US versions though, sometime in the 1980s, I was really disappointed ... the Americanized scripts seemed to completely miss what Max Headroom was about. Suddenly it all seemed to be about selling Coke.

Re:British shows were MUCH better

[puckhead]

Max Headroom *is* about selling Coke.

Hit by a toll both lever arm thing

[Easy2RememberNick]

Hey I barely (barley is yummy) remember Max Headroom, not that I'm young(33) but didn't he start by some guy going face first into a toll booth arm thing...what do you call those things? It said "Max Headroom" on it. Shouldn't he be called Moordaeh Xam? Sounds like an Indian superhero...
Watch out Delhi here comes Moordaeh Xam! Bollywood should make a movie about that. :-P

Re:Hit by a toll both lever arm thing

[Anonymous Coward]

toll booth arm thing...what do you call those things

say that reminds me - the other day this guy in a black mercedes tried to sneak in the gate behind me and the gate dropped on top of his car

gawd, was that funny :P

btw i think the technical name for the arm is "toll booth arm [thingamajig/whoozeewhatsit/thingy/whatchamacallit ]" depending on where you live.

Pirate TV

[checkitout]

In protest of the show being canceled, someone in Chicago hijacked the airwaves of 2 TV stations. It's pretty amusing, unfortunately the only site that had video clips of it is down. Here's some information though:

Google Cache with more information

Slightly less, but more direct information

To summarize, it involved a Max Headroom mask, a bare ass and a fly swatter, while Dr. Who was supposed to be playing.

Re:Pirate TV

[British]

You can find those clips on TvParty.com.

It's amazing how much of the series made in '85 ended up becoming so true later.

Re:Pirate TV

[Ziviyr]

It's amazing how much of the series made in '85 ended up becoming so true later.

Between Mr. Bush and Britney Stabbythings we're still on our way down. Everything tends to revolve around TV and there are cameras everywhere.

I wouldn't be surprised if some people started lobbying for un-turnoffable TVs with cameras in them in the near future, as soon as technology allows. After that you'd better get used to watching Wackets...

Re:Pirate TV

[checkitout]

Thanks! here you go: Pirate TV signal on WTTW

Re:Pirate TV

[NanoGator]

"To summarize, it involved a Max Headroom mask, a bare ass and a fly swatter, while Dr. Who was supposed to be playing. "

That sounded great until you mentioned Dr Who geting preempted for it. I'm really sensitive to that now because of Futurama.

Tv networks have some strange ideas about what classifies as 'a good show'.

Re:Pirate TV

[raincrow]

Holy Matt Frewer, I'd forgotten about that. Spookiest thing I'd ever seen. I didn't see it live, but did see it on tape.

The British version of the original Max Headroom movie was released in the US. I recall renting it and getting a friend who could dub tapes to make a copy of it. There's a copy of it available on Amazon for $45.

Re:Pirate TV

[eddy the lip]

Since when did you start thinking you had the right to turn off your television, smart guy? If Quality Culture Providers can't be guaranteed a certain profit margin, soon no one will be making exciting soda pop documentaries, or telling you what you should buy. And then how would you know what you need? Soon everyone would forget to buy cars, fast food and shiny clothes. The economy would collapse and the terrorists would take over all freedom and soda pop loving nations.

It's a good thing we've figured out how to compress all that important information into a few microseconds. Now we can be sure communist sympathizers like yourself won't even have the chance to flip channels. Our corporations are finally safe.

Re:Pirate TV

[British]

One thing I liked about were the funky computer graphics on Theora's screen and everywhere else, supposedly on an Amiga.

Anyone know which font they used? It looked like something out of AtuoCAD. Either way, I wish I could come up with some interactive website like in that same vein in SVG.

Re:Pirate TV

[DanThe1Man]

Someone got a user name and password for that site? I don't want to pay $9 for a few Max Headroom clips.

Re:Pirate TV

[Ziviyr]

Anyone know which font they used?

It sure wasn't Topaz/9.

I'd suspect it was just part of the vector renderings.

Re:Pirate TV

[Hes Nikke]

speaking of piracy...

Re:Pirate TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh! I still have my MH mask. Not that that was me that did the pirate thing. No way! It was... my cousin.

I'll have to dig my mask out now.

ac

Squant!

[geoffsmith]

Here is is! The new color website:

Squant

Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon

I still listen to "Paraniomia" by "Art of Noise"

[crovira]

I absolutely loved/hated Max Head room when it came out.

There was something so John Brunner's "Stand On Zanzibar"-ish about it.

"20 minutes into the future" is a dystopia of our own making and it is so predictably so.

"Chanel 23" was a microcosm of the greed and prevarication that's reflected in every AOL/Time Warner's share-holder's balance sheet.

"Twenty minutes into the future" the world is in an stop-motion/jaggy flow because its in an accelerating downward spiral.

"Chanel 23"/"EngLRlaySatlServ" Same shit. There was something so depressing about watching that show. It was wrist slitting time. Urban terorism on par with anything Phillip K Dick ever feared up.

Now we only Muslim barbarians shooting parents for trying to educate their kids to worry about.

All fundamentalism is destructive. Blow up all the churches, mosques, temples and any other breeding grounds for fanaticism. Its the only sane response.

Those who would decare war on you should realize that they have just painted a target on their foreheads. We should send out our own homicidal maniacs to kill them. Better than keeping those nuts here.

And thus posted by DNS-and-BIND

[Anonymous Coward]

was the heralding of Slashdot's reincarnation as the progeny of comp.lang.perl.misc

DVD, please.

[b1t r0t]

I just want the DVD box set already, dammit. And while they're at it, could they please get UHF released, too?

Re:DVD, please.

[Nilatir]

UHF will be out on DVD June 4, 2002

Look here...

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Tech TV comes with basic cable here in Maryland, USA. It is pretty good if you don't mind frequent repeats of shows, but every network has to start out somewhere. What was Comedy Central before South Park? Repeats of old Saturday Night episodes and bad 80's comedy movies.

Does this mean...

[rusty0101]

that we get a new slew of "New Coke" comercials as well?

Re:Does this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as it's that Coke commercial with Michael Jordan dunking against Max Headroom on the backboard. When I was a kid, I considered this the apex of commercial coolness. Does anyone have a link to a video of this?

I dunno about blipverts...

[Arcturax]

...but pop-up ads and spam make me want to explode.

I wish I got Tech TV out here :( I would tape every episode of these!

Re:I dunno about blipverts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we just need pop-up blipverts.

They show you the ad and close before you can get your hand over to your mouse.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

And now it has Battlebots...

But is it on TechTV Canada?

[Recovery1]

AFAICT it is not. Anyone know if it will be?

Re:But is it on TechTV Canada?

[n6mod]

Give them a day or two. My TiVo had it on the todo list before TechTV.com had the listings.

Re:But is it on TechTV Canada?

[Nogami_Saeko]

Just got an official email back from TechTV Canada.

Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding TechTV.

Unfortunately, Max Headroom is not available for broadcast on TechTV in Canada. TechTV strives to provide the best programming available to our Canadian audience according to the license that was granted by the CRTC. Our license does not permit us to air programs such as Max Headroom.

Time to buy that grey-market satellite dish and go with US programming my fellow Canadians! End the censorship!

Remember the Pepsi commercials?

[antdude]

I think it was Pepsi commercial with Max Headroom. :)

Re:Remember the Pepsi commercials?

[Reziac]

As I vaguely recall, yep, that's where he debuted. Maybe Pepsi was time-travelling at the time and brought Max back from the future. :)

Re:Remember the Pepsi commercials?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Britney is hotter... but she's also more technologically "enhanced".

Re:Remember the Pepsi commercials?

[ackthpt]

It was New Coke...

...and I blame that endorsement for doing the show in.

Re:Remember the Pepsi commercials?

[acroyear]

"...that endorsement..."

No, the show itself was 1) very expensive to produce, and 2) really stretched the authors to the point of burn out.

The Prisoner was the same way. There were only 17 episodes of the Prisoner because they simply ran out of other things to do that wouldn't be repeating what they'd already done to some degree or another.

Re:Remember the Pepsi commercials?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was New Coke...
...and I blame that endorsement for doing the show in.

In the US, the Coke ads came before the show. Dunno about the UK.

obviously planting the fnords (NT)

[Anonymous Coward]

no text..grrr

Re:I still listen to "Paraniomia" by "Art of Noise

[jred]

Serious question, is that a troll? I started reading because I love AoN, but then you started spouting off on some tangent. If it's a troll, it's the best one I've ever seen (not to encourage it, but I've become fascinated by trolls in the past week or so, and most get modded down real quick). If no, what the hell are you talking about.

Next they'll bring back Joe Isuzu

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh...wait a minute...

VCR??

[mister sticky]

...before some of us were capable of hitting record on the old VCR. "

VCR??? What the hell is that? I was recording those babies on my parents BetaMAX.

Re:VCR??

[freeweed]

VCR??? What the hell is that? I was recording those babies on my parents BetaMAX.

Shockingly enough, your BetaMAX was also considered a Video Cassette Recorder. Seeing as it Recorded Video onto Cassettes and all... :)

Re:VCR??

[Schnapple]

Well he's not the first to get "VHS" and "VCR" confused - the first, though, was in 1986

Mascot ?

[lute3]

As soon as I saw Max Headroom on the TechTV commercial announcing the upcoming series, I thought Mascot.

The previous virtual mascot for the channel, Tilde, was female (appealing enough to the first niche gamer-type market ZDTV was shooting for), but she was not good enough. They used on-the-fly 3D graphics based on VR-suit-like encoding, so the movements of the character were not fluid or terribly near accurate.

If Matt Frewer could record new vocals, I don't think anyone would object to a purely-digital Max Headroom. Digital!? But, what about..um..the original..was..good..um..ah.. Oh yeah..they just didn't have the technology to do it in 1985, you know.. psst.. they used a latex mask--it wasn't digital!. Also, surely Mr. Frewer is not doing terribly much since Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Lawnmower Man 2, so he can probably use the money (that is, if a short revival of the original series doesn't load his pockets with royalties).

Oh, and don't watch Lawnmower Man 2...for the love of all that's Holy! Don't watch it!

Re:Mascot ?

[rusty0101]

Tilda may be, or was the primary animated character for TechTV/ZDTV, but she was not the only such character. There was a male counterpart named Dash. Also one of the cameramen/artists on the show would film himself then animate a cube where his head would be. I think his character was called Blockhead.

-Rusty

Re:Mascot ?

[Schnapple]

Tilde was voiced by Kate Botello, and she left to go to New York (with her hubby I presume) so no more Tilde (or at least not as we know it). TechTV's kinda died down when the dot-com thing went bust (Tech Live was 9.5 hours, now it's 30 minutes). Maybe MH as TechTV spokesman would be a good idea. Plus it's not like Matt Frewer's off curing cancer or anything...

A-mi-mi-mi-ga

[ackthpt]

Yep. I can remember when us Amiga users were thrilled by the appearance and use of Amigas to make this show. I've still got pretty much every episode, including the pilot. What with ALF doing commercials these days, maybe Matt Frewer could give Max another go... well, there were those New Coke commercials... I hope we don't go there again.

Old Bastards ...

[Anonymous Coward]

before some of us were capable of hitting record on the old VCR

Speak for yourself. I've got them all on Betamax.

-----sharks

ROCK ON!

[AtariDatacenter]

For once, they've got something on TechTV that I actually want to watch. Max Headroom of all things! That was relegated to certain death on the A&E network where it was playing.

But this time around, I've got TiVo. I'll save and savor every episode. This completely rocks. (Can you believe I kind of idolized Bryce Lynch when I worked at an ISP? Scary thought.)

This'll go absolutely perfect for the videos to play in my arcade gameroom. Max rocks. He's the perfect consumer whore!

Has anybody noticed...

[BrokenHalo]

Zik Zak corporation is Microsoft's role model :-)

Biggest Max fan doesn't know?

[lute3]

It looks like one of the biggest fans of Max Headroom might not yet know of the revival on the way.. MaxHeadroom.com is closed as of March, 2002.

Anyone know is email address?

Oh, wait.. Maybe he's still answering the webmaster address.. That appears to be (google) the email address he's been using on the site (according to a quick search).

TechTV has a number of good shows

[ScumSucker]

There are a lot of good shows on TechTV... it all depends on your interests. For me personally:

Fresh Gear - gadgets galore... if you read /. you would probably like this show

Audiofile - where tech meets music... everything from mp3s to music creation gear to the tech behind making acoutic guitars

Extended Play - the only weekly program I know of that covers video/PC gaming (tho I'd imagine the channel G4 is offering quite a bit... wish I had that channel :)

The Tech Of... - they pick a topic (rollercoasters, race cars, etc) and well, talk about the tech of it :P

Yes, The Screen Savers plays a million times a day... but once you have a TiVo it doesn't matter what's on "right now" anyway! Buy a TiVo and then you can enjoy the "better programs" that apparently don't air whenever you happen to be channel surfing. :)

Re:TechTV has a number of good shows

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately TechTV is only on Digital Cable here, I'm not sure if the Tivo unit can remote channel change a set top box, but I know you can get PVR software wor PC that will use a channel switcher and the best thing is you can use any Video In card , as long as the system is fast enough to encode the streams.

Re:TechTV has a number of good shows

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, TiVO has IR capibilities. They are these little arms that sit in front of your cable boxes IR reciever. When you're watching live TV and change the channel on the TiVO, the TiVO changes the channel on the cable box (same thing happens when it's recording shows). If your cable box has a remote, the TiVO will work with it.

Re:TechTV has a number of good shows

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately TechTV is only on Digital Cable here

For what it's worth, we watch TechTV on our DSS system, so the Directv Tivo's would work fine.

Re:TechTV has a number of good shows

[jglow]

You forgot to mention Big Thinkers -- one of the best shows on TechTV, IMO. They feature a guest each day, usually a CEO of a large corp. or an inventor, etc and just chat with them. Really, really interesting stuff.

Bob Footspace

[Anonymous Coward]

is a friend of Max Headroom

http://www.geocities.com/individualistanarchist/

To quote MST3k

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's the 80's.... Do a lotta coke and vote for Ronald Reagan.

Just leave my Coca cola alone this time, got it?

[thumbtack]

Just so long Coca Cola leaves my Coke alone this time. Max scares me and brings back some terrible memories of driving from store to store in the backwoods of Arkansas to find unsold 'real" Coke.

Classic Coke is acceptable, but it's still not the real coke of the past when it was still made with sugar rather than frutcose and sucrose syrups.

Gimme that remote

[Triv]

This series was doing ethics themes based on designer babies, corporate controlled media, brain scanning and more before some of us were capable of hitting record on the old VCR.

Ahem. Speak for yourself. I was the only person in my family who could Program the VCR. I was 4 years old. My dad still hasn't figured it out.

Triv

Re:Gimme that remote

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes. I remember programing my old BetaMax with a strange little spindle-needle thingie. Had to set the timer like they were dip switches... *sigh* to be a kid again, when I knew everything.

Re:TechTV is owned by Paul Allen [Off Topic]

[rusty0101]

Considering the target market of TechTV, which is people who buy computers at superstores or from major online retailers (Dell, Gateway2000, etc.) I happen to think that they are very open minded.

They regularly let people know that Windows is not the only operating system available to them. They have interviewed a large number of very influential non-windows oriented people. While they do not have any programing specifically oriented at Apple, Linux, BSD, or Palm, they do include bits oriented towards letting people see the power of the alternative OS's, as well as providing some usefull tips on some of the newer capabilities available.

Hey, they even disassembled an iPod on the air the day it was anounced. They have shown case mods for Apple poroducts, done complete Linux OS installs live on the air, and so on. The news programming is tech oriented, but you will probably read about it here on /. first. The CyberCrime show has done in depth coverage on a number of online scams and illegal activities. FreshGear is more hardware oriented than software, though there are a few pices on new software.

To get an idea of what is covered, take a look at the show "The Screen Savers" portion of the site, and go through the show notes for the past couple of weeks. While it is predominatly Windows oriented, you will find the threads to show you that it is not all Windows. One of the hosts, and another of the major show participants are primarly Macintosh people. The other host has no problem with taking a sledghammer to hardware that is not operating as designed.

Paul Allen may have co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates, but he is not Bill Gates. He still holds a substantial stake in the company, but is not an active participant. He has diversified his finances quite well and Vulcan Venturs Inc. is not beholden to Bill Gates in any way that I am aware of.

Then again, I have been known to be wrong, and I accept the prospect that it has happened again.

-Rusty

Re:Ralph Nader can sux0r on this!

[Anonymous Coward]

That didn't widen my page you LOSER.

Where have all the Beowulf posts gone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we could create a Beowulf cluster of Max Headroom impersonators!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re:Where have all the Beowulf posts gone?

[borgheron]

*twitch* This gets old after a while.. :)

Re:Just leave my Coca cola alone this time, got it

[paganizer]

Hmm. can you get "New" coke anywhere anymore? they don't sell it in my neck of the woods. And some Pepsi Clear. yeah.

Re:wow

[shepd]

>wow, techtv is the best, i wish i got it where i live

Where do you live?

In the western hemisphere, try Satcom C4, transponder 12, or the various DSS providers.

In asia, try AsiaSat3S [listed as encrypted :-(]. 3,760 MHz Horizontal, MPEG2/DVB, Symbol rate: 26000 FEC:7/8.

Elsewhere, I don't know -- sorry. Since TechTV seems to be (generally) a FTA channel, you might get lucky if you check your local DVB listings...

Next thing you know

[shepd]

TV will be free again. Or perhaps we've really gone back to a time before the 80's and are just catching up again right now!

Max Headroom world is closer than you think...

[lightspawn]

If somebody told me teen would be locked up after refusing to watch TV commercials in school, I'd think they were kidding.

I can't provide a link to this one, but a certain religious radio station gave away three radios as a promotion in a very low-income area - radios that were locked into the station's frequency, with no way to change it.

An ATM tried to show me a commercial for something today.

Does it seem to anybody else that we're in a handbasket going you know where?

Re:Max Headroom world is closer than you think...

[SnakeStu]

An ATM tried to show me a commercial for something today.

Gas pumps have been doing that (with sound now, not just the scrolling "come in for a cup of coffee" display), so maybe the ATMs felt left behind. ;-)

Does it seem to anybody else that we're in a handbasket going you know where?

As it relates to commercialization, I think we were in the handbasket through much of the 20th Century, and now we've already arrived. Or at least we're in free-fall with not much time left. Taking the example of my "favorite peeve" of commercial entertainment, when was it that people starting thinking that entertainment can only be good if it has a well-recognized logo?

Re:Max Headroom world is closer than you think...

[juju2112]

I went down to the courthouse with my fiancee today to get a marriage license.

Along with our new marriage license, which cost us $45 (damn the man!!), we were given free samples of Tide, Bounty napkins, Secret deoderant, Folger's coffee, an ad for custom checks, and an AOL cd (1000 hours free!).

From the Tide sampler:

You're starting a new life together, so we'd like to offer you a new way to get your laundry remarkably clean. The deep clean formula brightens and whitens {blah blah blah..}

Jesus holy mary mother of god.. I simply cannot escape advertising!! AHHH!!!

Re:Max Headroom world is closer than you think...

[Saeger]

How does that work? I mean what business does our gov't have pushing these "helpful" products? No doubt the money these corps are paying the gov't (I would hope!) for the product placement privelage isn't offsetting any taxes...

I feel your pain... I'm waiting for the day I can buy a pair a augmented reality glasses that I can wear to tune out "banners" in real life. I can hardly wait to overlay every fuck'n ad with the ACME brand + whitespace. :)
--

Re:Max Headroom world is closer than you think...

[gfreeman]

Maybe
It's not all overt.
Consider that subliminal ads are
Really just as, if not more, effective
Over a period of time.
Surely
One should look out
For any sort of subliminal advertising
Thesedays.

Graham
-------

Re:Max Headroom world is closer than you think...

[great om]

I filled out a mail fowarding form the other day. Had ads for Garden State Insurance and Loew's hardware stores. Postal worker said it was becuase they (the post office) was required to be profitable, a law of some sort. Without the ads, stamp prices would have to go up again.

I'm all for keeping postal rates down, but really --is this kind of schilling neccessarY?

Re:Max Headroom world is closer than you think...

[MAJ Rantage]

I went down to the courthouse with my fiancee today to get a marriage license.

Along with our new marriage license, which cost us $45 (damn the man!!), we were given free samples of Tide, Bounty napkins, Secret deoderant, Folger's coffee, an ad for custom checks, and an AOL cd (1000 hours free!).

Heh. My wife and I also got this sort of "gift bag" when we got our license...and we celebrated our fifth anniversary last Friday.

Makes you wonder how long this has been going on, huh?

Re:Max Headroom world is closer than you think...

[jafac]

Wait till you have a baby.
The hospitals have the same kind of racket going with the diaper and formula people.

Re:Max Headroom world is closer than you think...

[geekoid]

"An ATM tried to show me a commercial for something today."

did it also charge you 1.50 for the privelige?

I was at a gas station when the where installing new pumps that play commercials why you pumped. The guy asked me what I thought. I said, "if your going to make me watch these, then you had better lower your price, or I won't come here anymore."
He was stunned. He could not believe that someone would not want to watch commercials, and that they wouldn't pay extra for the privilage!
now if he was playing exclusive trailors, then maybe I'd chose his place over another one where the gas was the same price, but thats it.

But what about...

[Galvatron]

...when Max Headroom receited the alphabet on Sesame Street? I was, sadly, too young to catch the original on TV the first time around, but the stuttery, spoken alphabet "song" will forever be burned into my subconcious.

Re:But what about...

[Necro Spork]

I was too young to see the actual show also. I think I also saw him on Square One or 3-2-1 contact! It's sort of fuzzy now.

Ah, those were the days.

[Necro Spork]

I never really understood him when I was younger. I was always mystified how the picture was so clear yet had so many audio "glitches"
I'm reminded of the horror each time I see the old Coke vending machine. C-C-Catch the wave...
Wasn't he on Square One too?
Now as long as Alf stays dead.

Re:Ah, those were the days.

[AtariDatacenter]

It could be WORSE.
You could be seeing a talking coca-cola vending machine.
Don't forget your change!

Re:Ah, those were the days.

[Kredal]

Alf is doing 10-10-220 commercials... That show lasted at least a few seasons, I wouldn't be suprised if it came on sometime soon, right after "Little Wonder"

Re:Ah, those were the days.

[/dev/trash]

Alf is doing 10 10 220.
he's also ( well the gus who doe steh voice) is shopping for a talk show.
He's also to be in NBC's 75th anniversy show.

Re:Ah, those were the days.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now as long as Alf stays dead.

In Canada, you can watch Alf every day on the Family Channel!

Re:Ah, those were the days.

[Anonymous Coward]

They already *had* these! I'm sure of it... Back in the late 80s. What a stupid gimmick.

Request For Help

[ShawnDoc]

Hey, anyone in Orange County, California willing to record these for me? I don't get Tech TV. I'm willing to provide VHS tapes, or blank CD-R's (Plus a few $ for your trouble), or I could trade. I have the old Max Headroom interview/video show on tape (US version).

Re:Request For Help

[zemkai]

I would be shocked -- SHOCKED -- if these don't show up in alt.binaries.multimedia or .vcd shortly after they arrive on the air. Look there.

--Zk

Marty McFly was full of crap

[ArizonaBay]

Well according to Back to the Future II, Max Headroom is still supposed to be around hawking Pepsi!

And one would think that the skyway system for our flying cars would be in place by now as well.

And if my 2015 World Series bet on the Cubs falls flat, Spielberg is going to have a lawsuit on his hands.

Re:Marty McFly was full of crap

[AlgUSF]

Max Headrom sold Coke, not pepsi!

Now where did I park the Delorean?

[Dreamweaver]

Y'know, I look at advertisements for new model cars, and I look at the state of the economy, and I look at Slashdot stories like this and I just have to wonder... Maybe Back to the Future II was really shot on location in 2015 afterall.

Re:Just leave my Coca cola alone this time, got it

[yack0]

You don't get to Canada much eh?

Check the ingredients list on a can of Coke in Canada - Sugar - not Corn Syrup or High Fructose corn syrup. They use real sugar. Compare side to side and you'll taste the difference.

Of course, the problem comes when you come back over the border :

"Anything to declare son?"

"Yeah, I got the backseat full of Coke"

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, Coke - lots of it. I can't get it like this in the US so I come up here".

Actually, that last line usually goes "Yeah, Coca-Cola - lots of it.... " to save me too many problems.

Get ye to the Great White North. Revel in the coke that was - and still is.

I wonder how many of my cow-orkers were waiting for me to post this message - knowing me to be the guy to make the office REAL COKE run to canada.

-yack0

(Oh, and BTW, after all of what people called a fiasco of coke/new coke/coke II overall sales after it were UP. So it proved the theory that 'all publicity is good publicity')

Re:Just leave my Coca cola alone this time, got it

[thumbtack]

Nope, it died a deserving death: alone, unwanted and when it died no one noticed, not even a obit. (except probably the wall steet journal)

Max Headroom: an awesome Halloween costume

[bjtuna]

Max was my favorite show for a while there, back when it was on. I don't remember how old I was... couldn't have been more than 7 or 8.

Anyone one year for Halloween, my sister WAS Max! My father and aunt helped her turn a big cardboard box into a wearable TV set, with holes in the sides (arms), bottom (legs), and front (so it looked like she was a head inside the TV looking out). We even got wood-colored wallpaper so it looked more like a TV (remember it was the 80s, and lots of TVs were still built like furniture, with wood siding).

Definitely a cool costume.

I wonder how long it'll be...

[BrokenHalo]

before Max gets to Australia - can't wait.

Tho' I guess I'll have to... :-|

woohoo

[waspleg]

better break out the bet-bet-beta max ;P

A propos 80s: LaserDisks to FireWire, anyone?

[WalterSobchak]

Speaking of Max Headroom, I have the really splendid British pilot episode of this series on LaserDisk. Does anyone have experience with transfering this stuff to digital? And I mean better than just connecting it to Video-In...

Alex

Re:A propos 80s: LaserDisks to FireWire, anyone?

[n6mod]

There is no "better than connecting it to Video-In..."

Laserdiscs are, believe it or not, analog. (The video is, anyway, there were a few incarnations of digital audio.) Worse than that, they're composite video, so you need to decide whether the comb filter in your capture device is better than the one in your LD player. (Decide this by testing with a good monitor. Dot crawl sucks.)

I have a pretty sizeable collection of Laserdiscs, and keep meaning to start converting these to DVDR. I have this bizarre hangup that I need to move the AC3 audio, and I haven't found any way to capture AC3 with a S/PDIF card. (Pointers appreciated!)

The reality is that I should ignore that, since anything I might have with AC3/DTS is recent enough that it's likely to be rereleased anyway.

Back to your question, spend as much money as you can bear on the capture device, (I have a Director's Cut, but would get a DA-MAX if I were doing this for money.) think about a proc-amp (might not be necessary) and go for it.

Re:A propos 80s: LaserDisks to FireWire, anyone?

[WalterSobchak]

Oh, I was aware LDs are analog. However, you addressed two points I was wondering about (AC3, capture device) so that is really helpful input. When I get started to convert all my stuff I will let you know!

Alex

Re:A propos 80s: LaserDisks to FireWire, anyone?

[Babbster]

I think the biggest problem capturing the AC3 tracks from LD is that they, as I recall, used an odd RF interface to transmit the audio which is incompatible with the current optical/75-ohm RCA connectors. I would imagine that you would probably need some kind of transcoder, perhaps built from tearing apart an old receiver/prepro that has both types of inputs?

You could also, I suppose, somehow capture the 5.1 channel audio from a receiver/prepro with 5.1 outs. Unfortunately, I can't think of a consumer-grade device that would take those inputs and make it digital again. It should be possible to capture the six channels separately via analog and then remix and re-encode them via DVD/audio authoring software, ending up with an MPEG audio track that you could then resync and save on the video (of course, you've just added another D/A->A/D conversion to the mix, degrading the quality, probably by a not insignificant margin).

Whew, all of that sounds like a helluva lot of work for a relatively small number of titles that might be worth it (like the Indiana Jones movies, which still haven't made it to DVD). I'd probably just wait for the DVDs. :)

-Aaron

vidcaps anybody!?

[cpgeek]

so, somebody must be capping these episodes. anybody wanna give me a url/ftp or other point of access to these caps?!? much appreciated

Re:Just leave my Coca cola alone this time, got it

[Detritus]

It's too late for 2002, but in many areas you can get Coke made with real sugar during Passover. Look for the "kosher for Passover" markings.

US right?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering, since it seems you post about every tv show and when it is on for the US, whether you could extend the same courtesy to the huge swathe of readers who don't live in the US.

For instance, could you please post when the next series of 'Black Books' will be shown on channel 4 in the UK?
I'm not joking, its only fair that if we have to read about your TV schedules, you should read about ours...

Re:US right?

[gfreeman]

It's a shame (Manny! put that down) that they don't (drinkies...) get Black Books...

Put in on giFT

[Anonymous Coward]

Put it on giFT too, PLEASE! Some people don't like spyware.

Re:Put in on giFT

[martyn s]

Then try kazaa lite, with no spyware aftertaste

The Art of Max..

[eshefer]

the title music was one of the cute things aswell, by british band The Art of noise, another part of the show that was about 15 years ahead of the times..

Re:The Art of Max..

[awrc]

Again, not the case for the original UK pilot. That had more of a soundtrack than just title music, running right through the show and into the end theme. It was by Midge Ure and Chris Cross of Ultravox, if I remember correctly.

Even better was Reg's TV station

[Dokta_C]

Big Time Television.
Tagline: "24 hours a day, making tomorrow seem like yesterday"
It seemed to show a lot of videos with Divine in it.
Best of all was Reg's voice over:"This is Big Time television, filling your minds with endless drek, next up" pauses to look at schedules "more of the same"
Insightful.

Re:I still listen to "Paraniomia" by "Art of Noise

[gfreeman]

AoN lucked out with the Max bandwagon.

Once they dropped Paul Morley things looked up. (I dislike Paul Morely intensely. I refrain from libel ...)

The whole '80s thing seemed to be a reflex - end of the '70s == Hurrah! and finally there was money around for all and we all par-tayed. Until Sir Bob pointed out that, well, the money we had tended to be made directly or indirectly at the expense of Africa, and people were dying because of it.

If you remember anything about the '80s remember Live Aid. The world woke up to it's global conscience that day.

Graham
--------

20 Minutes into the Future was last fall...

[LittleGuy]

The short-lived drama, The Beast, starring Frank Langella. It showed how very close the 'Network 23' universe we are as far as ratings, omnipotent reporters on the air, etc.

And let's not forget the truly tragic....

[Anonymous Coward]

ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 game versions... http://www.zxscreens.i12.com/zxscreens/max_headroo m.htm

My Max Headroom

[cr@ckwhore]

Cheesy story ...

When I was a very young geek lad, I had a TRS-80 color computer. After watching Max Headroom, I decided that I wanted my own max headroom. So, I layed awake in bed one night, excited about the prospect that there could be a slight chance that I could build a max headroom with my TRS-80.

The next morning, I tried. It was my first programming experience. It went something like:

10 say "hello, I am max headroom"

I couldn't figure out what "syntax error" meant, and my dreams of my own Max Headroom faded into the past.

Re:My Max Headroom

[interstellar_donkey]

You think you were bad...

]10 ? "Hi I am Max Headroom. What is your name?" A$

]20 Print "Hello, " A$ "Do you like Automan too?"
]30 Goto 10

I was a terrible geek in the most pathetic way. And I don't even know if I'm quote basic properly anymore (I had a //e)

--

Re:My Max Headroom

[vistic]

Who needs Max Headroom when you've got a Tandy Color Computer! You got the funky mutli-color, seizure-inducing cursor!

(my first comp was a CoCo2 with 64K)

Re:My Max Headroom

[cr@ckwhore]

Actually, really funny that you mention "seizure-inducing". I remember a specific Max Headroom episode where they were battling against some evil dude that made a really flashy tv commercial that would induce seizures and hypnosis. Evil evil man. Don't worry though, Max caught the bad guy somehow.

Re:My Max Headroom

[cr0sh]

If you are serious...

I have an old copy of the Rainbow magazine, in which someone submitted the program source (which you could type in - those days are long gone) to make Rainbow's mascot, CocoKat (that may not be right, but it is close enough) display on the screen with funky "Max Headroom" visuals, and say things if you had the speech synth pak.

...

Re:My Max Headroom

[Cruciform]

Would that be the "blipverts" that caused the viewer to explode?

please post on kazaa useing divx

[coderwolf]

My motherboard will be in the shop at that time. Please post so that I can still archive to cd.

Satanic!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in 7th grade when the show was on, and I remember a kid telling me his mother had told him Max Headroom was Satanic. She thought he was real; the story was these kids had been playing on a computer and he just popped up out of nowhere.

Re:Just leave my Coca cola alone this time, got it

[Kredal]

Sure, get real Coke in Canada... but no caffeine in the Mountain Dew up there. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!

Don't forget the toys....

[mblase]

Transformers are back and as popular as ever, along with G.I. Joe and a new, improved line of Masters of the Universe figures. Ahh, my childhood is "cool" once again.

Tech TV is improving, slowly

[FreeUser]

I just got the channel a few months ago, it isn't what I thought it would be, I dont like it.

I don't imagine too many /. types will be fans of a network that is so Microsoft centric, with an occasional aside for Apple (though last night the guy said something to the effect of "well, they set me up with an Apple again and I've already shown you how to use the ipod, so will skip the 'tips' sequence and move on to something else...") and, even rarer, a mention of GNU/Linux. TechTV simply isn't relevant to what most of us do, nor are they particularly close to the leading edge of software.

That having been said, they do have an excellent show on in the evenings entitled "Big Thinkers," which last night featured an industrialist working on developing nano-technology, and a night or two ago had Lawrence Laessig on discussing the debacle that is current copyright law. That, and the airing of max headroom, will mean I'll end up watching techtv more than any other channel ... all of 4 or 5 hours / week (OK, so I don't watch much TV. Since they cancelled Max Headroom there really hasn't been much on worth watching).

In short, it looks like they may have realized how out of touch they are with the tech savvy crowd, and are doing something constructive about it, "Screen Savers" notwithstanding. :-)

Re:Tech TV is improving, slowly

[GraemeL]

I discovered Tech TV through "Big Thinkers" two or three months ago. Prior to that it was a channel I just surfed over because I thought it was still ZDNet. Very much an improvement, but as you say, getting better only slowly.

While "Screen Savers" is MS centric, they do devote more time to Mac and Linux than would be dictated by userbase alone.

They are not above bashing MS, especially on security issues or when they do something stupid.

They are very much in opposition to the RIAAs online music services. They take the reasonable position that "pirating" music is wrong, but taking away the users ability to space shift their music is just as bad.

Plus, any show that has Woz' on twice in a two month period is cool by me.

and Frewer's next project?

[studboy]

after the Max Headroom series, he went to play in

.... wait for it...

Ishtar! , which scored 3.6/10 on imdb. Major suckage.

- j

Re:Just leave my Coca cola alone this time, got it

[great om]

You can get real coke (the kind with sugar) in America if you are lucky. Around Passover time (sometime around easter usually), observant Jews can't have corn syrup (it's complicated --it rises a little) for about a week (7 or 8 days depending on the sect), and, so, many bottlers make coke with sugar in it for that week. A lot of it doesn't sell right away; try looking in a Jewish delicatessin (or other store that has a kosher/kosher for passover section); some times you can can find it

-good luck

TechTV is on DirectTV

[Krashed]

You can get TechTV if you subscribe to DirectTV. Time Warner digital cable also carries the channel. I guess that this would be a good time to order the service.

If you can't, don't worry, I (meaning me and 50,000 other people) have the TIVOs programmed and ready to be re-digitized into MPEG format. The battery backup is in place too. I am even considering hooking up my computer to the box and broadcasting live to as many people I can send to without overloading my cable modem. Check for a reply here from me if I do.

The Quote on the Barrier Arm

[Crash Culligan]

The actual quote on the barrier arm that Edison Carter smacked into face-first was:

MAX. HEAD ROOM 2.3M

That's how, in the American series at least, Max got his name: it was the last thing Edison saw before being walloped into unconsciousness and having his brain scanned. When his braindump came online, it was the first thing it tried saying, and it stuck as a name.

The cyber-battle leading up to that was also loads of fun to watch, but I won't spoil how it happens; it's well worth a chuckle.

What a trivia geek I am too, but in this case I don't see that as a bad thing.

Buy it around Passover

[epepke]

No corn syrup. Cane sugar.

Re:Just leave my Coca cola alone this time, got it

[zeugma-amp]

(Oh, and BTW, after all of what people called a fiasco of coke/new coke/coke II overall sales after it were UP. So it proved the theory that 'all publicity is good publicity')

On this point, you are absolutely correct. I worked at a market research company that did all the tracking studies for CocaCola before, during and after the entire campaign. We were doing massive usage tracking the whole way through and it was a beautiful thing to watch as supplies of Origional Coke dried up throughout the nation.

We'd call people all across the country and ask them what they'd bought in the past 7 days... time after time you'd get responses of 'coke, coke, coke' right down the line. Then when you asked them about what they thought about 'New Coke', they'd bitch, piss and moan about how much they hated it. BUT, the point was, they were still buying it!

The end result of the entire campaign was literally hundreds of millions of dollars in free advertizing, and when all was said and done, Coke gained 6% market share! 6% of the cola market is bloody huge.

To this day, I have the utmost admiration for the guy who piped up in a board room saying 'hey, why don't we change the formula in coke'.

btw: there were at least 6 different formulations scattered around the country. Some regions got more carbonation, some got less, some were sweeter, some less sweet. It was facinating to watch it all from before the public was even aware of it, all the way to the end.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

It used to be the case that TechTV was mostly restricted to Satellite, but more and more cable providers have been providing it, recently. My cable co., RCN, just added TechTV in the Boston area. So it's getting more and more accessible.

Max headroom on Channel 4

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

I thought the original film was good, especially the two goons Breugel and Mahler :) But my favourite bit of "Max" was the chat show he had on British Channel 4, which was fairly wierd and anarchic, at the time we all thought it was amazing that you could do that with a computer... :)

Still cool though, and he did play some very odd video's and interview some very odd people.

Ah the 80's, I remmeber thee well :)

later
jb
(praxis22@hotmail.com)

Matt Frewer

[deadhammer]

For a while he was doing this Canadian science fiction series (Psi Factor) and he was pretty good in it. It was a shame when he left the show. Sure he's had crap roles (AKA Lawnmower Man 2), but this does not change the fact that Matt Frewer is God. :) If the rebroadcast ever does lead to a NEW, IMPROVED Max Headroom (never happen, but hey, we can hope), I honestly hope they cast Mr. Frewer as the lead again.

Theora ruled!

[Clarissa]

I'm so with you on that - I had a huge crush on Theora when I was in junior high.
She was the ultimate badass geek chick - I just loved how she could circumnavigate any security system, taking control of and using big-brother's own security cameras to do it.

Apparently you can order techtv from...

[Mashiki]

Rogers or Shaw via their digital cable...but as much as it's a channel I really want...I don't feel like being at the "whim" of rogers or shaw's big corporate thumb.

oh hell, I remember this

[Anonymous Coward]

A$="..."

Heck, yeah, I remember!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You remember that too, huh? I think I still have some of that episode on tape. I dunno what all in that show that appeared ad-libbed might actually have been scripted, but if not, Matt Frewer was real sharp as Max. I remember guest Rutger Hauer musing to Max "Have you got a soul?" and Max saying in a cartoony-high voice, "I haven't got any feet, how can I have a sole?" Oh well, ya hadda be there!

Remember Max's inexplicable love of golf and his tendency to ask any guest about the game? He almost had a - what, CPU attack? - when Vidal Sassoon teed off (sorry) on him, saying "It's an old man's game!!"

I am just sorry I didn't catch more episodes. That show taught "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" a thing or two about an unhinged chat show.

Re:Heck, yeah, I remember!!

[Alan Partridge]

AFAIK, almost all of the insane chat was Frewer's own. I think they had a plan when they started, but it outgrew them and turned into something altogether more fantastic.

Preview from TechTV is on Kazaa

[Anonymous Coward]

I place the preview on Kazaa for now. Search for Max Headroom and Tech. I only have a modem, download it and share it for all.

Re:Just leave my Coca cola alone this time, got it

[Pope]

unless you've gone over your import/time limit, you don't have to declare anything if you have it on your Customs form.

Mr. Belvedere! Agggggghhhhhhhhh!!

[Mittermeyer]

I bought a 27" TV and what was an outrageously costly $400 VCR in order to capture and enjoy Max. I'm all set to go when I sit down to watch and record, but when I turned on the channel Max wasn't there. He had been replaced- by Mr. Belvedere! Ohhh the pain, the bitter irony, the hole in my wallet!

I will enjoy watching Max on the same TV and VCR which has outlasted 90% of my friend's electronics. It will be bittersweet venegance for the pain inflicted upon me.

Re:Let me try to explain

[jred]

I'm sorry, that was just lame. You lost me on the first line. That was unimaginitive & just sucked. Very poorly written. You should go back and read crovira's post again, maybe look as some of his other posts. And practice a lot more before you post in a public forum. Please.

So where's the link?

[darkonc]

I can give you a link if you'd really like to know how it was done

I'd really like to have the link, and I'd expect that many others would like that link too.

Re:Let me try to explain

[jred]

The whole Jew/Muslim/Christian thing. Just about every capitalized word in your post could be replaced by another. Whites hate Blacks. Blacks hate Whites. British & Irish. Etc. etc.

People hate people. It doesn't matter who you are, what ethnic group you're in, or where you are. Your people have been screwed by someone else. And you've screwed another group. The whole Jew thing is just so tired it's just ridiculous.

"The Origins of Violence in Our Modern World in 60 Seconds or Less"? How about:
Ogg see Gur. Gur have pretty woman. Ogg bash Gur in head with big rock, take woman.