Anyone who wanted to watch their favorite quiz show or crime scene again after it had been broadcast on TV in the 1990s could record the content. A popular solution for this was Showview.
Every technical innovation solves problems, but usually creates new ones. That was also the case when the first video recorders moved into more and more living rooms at the end of the 1970s. Never miss your favorite show again. Finally, everything can now be easily recorded on a video recorder. However, this turns out to be not so easy in practice. There is often great frustration because the device has refused to record. In the early 1990s, Showview promised a numeric code solution that would make programming child’s play.
VPS works by TV signal
In fact, it was the TV stations that tried to offer a technical solution to the recording problem. A first attempt starts on ARD in 1985 with the Video Programming System (VPS). VPS makes it possible to record a TV show over a specific VPS time. The name sounds like great technology. However, the VPS time is usually synonymous with the actual transmission time, which is in the program guide.
In order to be able to use the advantages of VPS, it is sufficient to enter the VPS time as the start and end time in the video recorder. Older contemporaries are now justifiably asking: What is the advantage of VPS compared to the previous method? Because a start and end time for the recording was also necessary before and without VPS. This is exactly where many people have failed.
VPS brings a decisive advantage when the times have actually been programmed correctly: A TV show is recorded completely, from the beginning to the end. That used to be a problem with live broadcasts. Imagine the football game is heading towards the final climax. However, the recording ends punctually after 90 minutes. You only know the decisive goal in stoppage time for your favorite team from stories. A total catastrophe.
Thanks to VPS, the hit is actually on the videotape. Because the TV stations emit a television signal, similar to the radio signal on the radio for traffic news. Appropriate video recorders receive the signal and recognize whether the broadcast has started. Only then does the recording begin. This does not end after a predetermined time, but only when the corresponding signal is no longer broadcast.
A numerical code brings the breakthrough
VPS therefore means a significant improvement in terms of program recording. However, VPS is not yet really user-friendly. Therefore, in the late 1980s, the German manufacturer Blaupunkt launched a video recorder with a reading pen in stores. This allows the video recorder to be programmed using a bar code. However, the system fails due to technical quirks and quickly disappears from the shelves.
At the beginning of the 1990s, a new type of system from the US company Gemstar caused a great deal of excitement in the technology world. The system, initially marketed as VCRPlus, is said to work much more easily than VPS. Test operations will initially start in the USA.
VCRPlus works with number codes. These are usually nine digits. In order to record a TV show, only nine digits have to be entered correctly into a specially developed video recorder. Inside is a technical device that decodes the information contained in the code and automatically starts recording at the right time.
VCRPlus is called ShowView in Germany
The system appeared in Germany in 1993 under the name Showview. Thanks to a sophisticated marketing strategy, Showview quickly established itself in many living rooms.
Popular TV newspapers such as Hörzu, Gong or TV Movie soon printed the Show View number codes. In addition, the nine numbers can also be found on the program boards of the television stations in teletext.
Next to VPS, Showview is the second technical solution to simplify the recording of TV programs via video recorder. Compared to VPS, however, Showview has one disadvantage: the system does not recognize program shifts. Therefore, the recording fails if, due to current events, a program is postponed to another date.
However, customers love Showview. That’s why the manufacturers of video recorders rely on the number code system. Later, the technology can also be found in DVD recorders.
EPG helps Showview into the digital world
Thanks to growing data superhighways, the Internet is establishing completely new ways of watching missed programs. The TV broadcasters, for example, are expanding their own media libraries. Therefore, programs no longer have to be recorded or watched if the program guide specifies it. Your favorite series flickers across the screen via stream when the time is right.
Many TV sets now have a so-called Electronic Program Guide (EPG), a kind of digital advancement of Showview. This allows programs to be selected like in a TV guide and watched at any time. In fact, some TV manufacturers still offer the option of manually setting a program to record it for later viewing. Programming, however, now works quite simply at the push of a button and without frustration.