~ WEBTV INDEX ~
| From: | upgrades@corp.webtv.net | |
| Date: | Sun, Sep 21, 1997, 8:31pm (EST-2) | |
| To: | ulTRAX@webtv.net | |
| Subject: | WebTV Fall Upgrade |
WebTV's new Fall season
To some, September marks the end of Summer. While to others, it marks the end of Summer re-runs. Finally, new TV shows! It's a new season at WebTV Networks as well. We're updating your service by adding some great new features. Let's take a look at what's new.
You probably noticed your Home Page's new look. Finding your favorite TV shows is still a breeze using TV listings from TV Guide Online. The new Site Showcase section includes links to some of the most popular entertainment and educational sites such as E! Online, PBS Online, and Discovery Online. The new Community link is where you'll find local information in Around Town as well as on-line activities through Chat and Discuss.
We're pleased to bring more Chat services to the WebTV Network. This gives you new ways to meet and interact with other people on-line. The new Chat allows you to participate in live conversations. Your words will appear on screen as you type and people can respond immediately. Chat can be found under the new Community link on your Home Page.
We've made some big changes to Explore as well. Explore is still a directory of high quality web sites but it now goes a step further. We highlight the most entertaining and timely sites from the top providers of news and information. Every category of Explore will be updated daily with features from our highlighted web sites. We'll place these features at the top of each category so that they're easy to find.
On the video front, we're pleased to introduce VideoFlash. It's a technology that you'll only find on WebTV. It allows you to view full-screen full-motion video in a fraction of the time that it usually takes to play video on the Internet. We're featuring a sample of VideoFlash for Philips customers and Sony customers that shows the capabilities of this new technology. Look for more VideoFlash in the coming months. Your new upgrade also includes the ability to view MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group) video. While not as high quality as VideoFlash, MPEG allows you to view videos such as movie trailers at MovieLink (select the "Trailers" link). There are many different video formats so be sure to select VideoFlash or MPEG whenever you find video on the Internet. Since the video is coming through your phone line it takes some time before you'll be able to view it, however we'll show you the still frames as they come in.
We've also added two new styles of advertising to our service called "Video Spots" and "Surf Spots." Video Spots are 15 second full-screen video ads that use the power of VideoFlash and may appear when you're first connecting to the WebTV Network. Surf Spots are ads that are displayed only during the time it takes to go between pages.
We hope you enjoy the Fall upgrade and use these new features to enhance your television viewing experience.