Intercast was a short-lived technology developed in 1996 by
Intel for broadcasting information such as
web pages and computer software, along with a single television channel. It required a compatible
TV tuner card installed in a
personal computer and a decoding program called Intel Intercast Viewer. The data for Intercast was
embedded in the
Vertical Blanking Interval (VBI) of the video signal carrying the Intercast-enabled program, at a maximum of 10.5 Kilobytes/sec in 10 of the 45 lines of the VBI.
With Intercast, a computer user could watch the TV broadcast in one
window of the Intercast Viewer, while being able to view
HTML web pages in another window. Users were also able to download software transmitted via Intercast as well. Most often the web pages received were relevant to the television program being broadcast, such as extra information relating to a television program, or extra news headlines and weather forecasts during a newscast. Intercast can be seen as a more modern version of
teletext.
The Intercast Viewer software was bundled with several TV tuner cards at the time, such as the
Hauppauge Hauppauge ( ) can refer to:
* Hauppauge, New York, a hamlet on Long Island in the United States
*Hauppauge Computer Works, a computer component company located in Hauppauge, New York
**Hauppauge MediaMVP, a network media player by Hauppauge Compute ...
Win-TV card. Also at the time of Intercast's introduction,
Compaq offered some models of computers with built-in TV tuners installed with the Intercast Viewer software.
Upon its debut, Intercast was used by several TV networks, such as
NBC,
CNN,
The Weather Channel, and
MTV Networks.
On June 25, 1996, Intel and NBC announced an arrangement which enabled users to watch coverage of the
1996 Summer Olympics
The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...
and other programming from
NBC News.
Intel discontinued support for Intercast a couple of years later.
NBC's series ''
Homicide: Life on the Street'' was a show that was Intercast-enabled.
References
External links
Archived copy of Intercast's web site from archive.orgMicrosoft press release regarding Intercast and Windows 98
{{Teletext
Television technology
Multimedia
1996 introductions