Continuing from the last article, it was noted that the WebTV Viewer for Windows 98 kept it's channel settings in a ODBC Database that could be modified with Microsoft Access. Wanting to explore the databases even more, Office 97, which includes Access, was installed onto my Win98VM. Afterwards, the TSS.MDB database located in the "C:\Program Files\TV Viewer" directory was opened.
In order to add a channel, changes had to be made in a few of the tables. The following tables that need to be modified include: Channel, Channel Enhancements, Enhancements, Lineup, and Station. Starting with the Channel table opened, I've created a new entry for my example channel. It's important to remember the values of the field name, as it will correspond to field names of the other tables as well. Anyone familiar with database programming will know that a table will have a primary key, which is an identifier meant to impose a unique value for each table. Each channel will be unique after all!
In the Channel Table, which adds new entries. These entries will be similar to the two example channels provided: Configuration (Channel 96) and Program Guide (Channel 97). You can modify the Channel Enhancements afterwards. However, the changes made there won't go into effect as the values in that table are determined by the values of the other tables as well, which we will make changes to.
Modify the Enhancements table next. You might need to reference some of the values from the Channel table and put them into the field cells of the Enhancements table. Now, each channel will use a unique EN Enhancement ID. Just copy and paste one the channel rows and make the needed changes. Just increment the EN Enhancement ID by one (5C478383 will now become 5C478384) and make the needed changes to the other fields as well. The Enhancements table is also important because the folder location of the HTML file that needs to be loaded is defined in this table as well.
The Lineup table is next. Just make the appropriate changes using the entries of the other channels as an example. After making the changes to the Linup table, it's now time to proceed to the Station table. You might need to go back to the Channel Enhancements table to make some corrections. The database automatically saves itself after individual changing of a field value. Exit Access and create the folder and create/copy the corresponding HTML as specified in the Enhancements table of the TSS database. Afterwards the new channel should load. Of course, since VirtualBox doesn't emulate a TV Tuner, the HTML file can link to an AVI, MPG, or ASF file.
The Internet
In theory, WebTV should be able to load webpages. Channel 96 was originally a redirect to a webpage in the first place. I created a new channel called FrogFind, designed to load the FrogFind website. I was able to FrogFind into the WebTV Viewer, but I couldn't quick in the search prompt until the channel bar on the top of the screen. Afterwards, I was able to type and load any website from within FrogFind. WebTV uses Internet Explorer for its rendering engine (what a surprise). As such, WebTV web-browser is just essentially IE running fullscreen. While it's an interesting novelty, there isn't any practical reason to modify the WebTV Viewer for Windows to display webpages when Windows 98 already has IE, and one can install the much better Netscape anyway.
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