WeatherStar 4000 Simulator For Windows (Part 2)

 

It's time to get the weather forecast, 90's style.

Welcome to part two of the article examining the customization of the WeatherStar 4000 Simulator for Windows. This article is a in-depth coverage of the WeatherStar simulator offered by Taiganet. As mentioned in the previous article, the simulator can be customized in various ways. This part will cover the flavors built-into the simulator and segment customization within those flavors. The configuration of custom graphics will be covered as well. So lets dive right in!
The initial program

Under the Flavors sections, there are various flavor to choose one, sorted by year. A flavor is a particular presentation format that would have conformed to how the Weather Channel would have broadcast there weather segments for a particular time. For example, the "D(1991)" flavor would show the segments that the Weather Channel would have shown for 1991. These particular segments can be customized as well. The duration of most of these segments can be adjusted.

Usually, I conform the flavor's time length to conform to that of the MP3 that I'm using. In the screenshot above, the total duration of the flavor is 339 seconds, or 6 minutes and 39 seconds. The flavor "D(1991)" was customized greatly for my particular configuration. As notes, I have the local radar listed 3 times. The local radar's duration is set for 16 seconds. If you set the radar look for a duration longer than 16 seconds, the radar will continue looping for those first 16 seconds, and then remain still until the segment ends. This is why I added multiple radar segments rather than having one very long one.
The 36 hour forecast can have time duration adjusted for the individual screens as well. Most of these segments can have different time flavors as well. For example the 36-hour forecast can be set for its appearance in 1992, 1993, 1995, etc. One thing though is that I couldn't tell a noticeable difference between the time flavors within the segments.

One segment where the time duration is set and can't be adjusted is the "Travel Cities Forecast 9/93". This segment has a set duration of 47 seconds. The cities in the list can be customized though. This is done through the "Travel Cities" section.

One will need to know the longitude and latitude of the city in question. I may revisit this section at a later time. For now, I'm going to stick to the default values.
The "Add a segment" section

One can add segment to a flavor as well. This will change the time duration. This "Add a segment" is found under the Flavors section. These segments can easily be added just by double-clicking on them. One very niffy feature is that a preview is provided showing its appearance.
The customization of the crawl messages.
The timings of the crawl messages that scroll near the bottom of the screen can be customized as well. I haven't explored this feature that much either, so I'm sticking to the default values.
The "Render Options" section can adjust the graphics settings for the simulator. One can run the program full screen or in a window. The programs's screen resolution can be adjusted as well, regardless of whether operating in windowed mode or full-screen. Since I make these forecast for my Facebook timeline, I like to make the video's file size as small as possible. This is why I run the program in a window at 640 by 480.

At this point, the screen recording process will be covered. The Weatherstar forecast was recorded using the HyperCam 2 screen recorder. The screen of the simulator is selected and the recording starts. I'm using the x264 video encoder. With the audio settings for HyperCam 2, you won't be able to select a audio compressor. Using the Pazera Audio Extractor, a free program that can be found online, I extract the audio from the recorded AVI file and converted into a MP3. This allows for a much small file the uncompressed WAV file. Since the audio is going to be extracted and converted anyway, I set the HyperCam records from the Stereo Mix at a 16-bit sample size at 44100 samples per seconds. It's stored as a PCM WAV file in the AVI. The recorded AVI file is dragged over the Audio Extractor icon, released, and the program opens up with the appropriate file to convert. I adjusted the MP3 settings to extract the file as a 192KB MP3. 

Using VirtualDub, the file is open, and the file is re-encoded as a x264, but using the new MP3. The new AVI is much smaller in size, making it both bandwidth and upload-friendly. The forecast is uploaded to my Facebook Timeline.

In the "Simulation Customization" section, you can use your own logo that displays in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. This is typically the location where the Weather Channel would have placed there logo. Those who are familiar to my Facebook forecast would know that my particular WeatherStar forecast are branded as the "Pigeon Scope 4000". This can be seen in the screenshot below. One thing to note is that when using your own logo, it has to be at a very particular resolution. The pixel resolution of my logo is 112 by 84 pixels. The image won't be recognized if it's larger than that. My logo is saved as a PNG. I customized the logo using the GIMP image editor.

The "Latest Observations" segment being shown in the simulator. Note the logo in the upper, right hand corner.
The Radar Settings

I'm using the logo for the Radar segment as well. In order to customize the radar settings, you will need to go to the Radar Section. You can hide echoes below a certain frequency along with logo customization. 
Exploring this program has been very interesting. Granted, there have been some aspects that haven't been explored in depth, like the crawl messages. As mentioned in the previous article. There is a bit of a learning curve. However, once these features have been explored, one can put this software to really good use. Also, weather forecast software is by nature complex just because of the role that they serve.

Beyond that though, I think enough of the program has been explored for one to make there own forecast. Modern forecast in the mold of the classic Weather Channel broadcast in the 90's.
WS4000 Simulator - http://www.taiganet.com/

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