Broadcatching in the rural area of Saskatchewan

The author describes SaskTel's Superman 2 project. This project delivers video programming during 'night owl' satellite time to four schools in the rural area of Saskatchewan. The uniqueness of the project is that the delivery is totally mechanized. Directory and VCR control information is embedded in the vertical blanking interval of the video signals via teletext encoders. Code lengths are such that thousands of VCRs could be addressed in one second. VCRs of various brands are controlled via programmable infrared transmitters driving their interfaces. Program selection is determined by a telephone voice response system located at the satellite uplink. Any given day's votes are tabulated, and the computer allocates the programming time democratically. The generic name for a service of this kind is broadcatching.<
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