Check out this RF Switch! WTF??

[dcescott]

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/dcescott/plug2.jpg

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/dcescott/plug3.jpg

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/dcescott/plug1.jpg

I bought a SNES at a flea market, saw the switch but got a good look at home. Thankfully I have A/V cables and just placed the thing on ebay for Christmas money (SMW, SMK all for 15 bucks, couldn't pass it up)

What's with the mod?? Thanks for the replies, I just wondering why someone added the extra plug.
Daniel

[Juganawt]

that is weird.

At first glance it looks like a power module for some sort of Wild Card device, but that leads to the question.....why the hell have it on the A/V lead instead of a power supply?

I see that mod has both Pal and US RF plugs on it, so maybe the third one is a very strange and uncommon home-made plug (cut from what seems to be a molex connector with the 4th hole removed) for av on a devkit or something??

Basically...I don't have a frickin' clue. It's definitely peaked my interest though. I'll dig around and see if I can find out anything for you though.

[dcescott]

Dev kit? Cooool.
Yeah me too. The lady had no idea, she probably got it from a goodwill auction to resell at the flea market to folks like me who work for a living. Yeah, I'm antsy to figure this out. It looks like the same type of jumper I used for a new cooling fan in my friends computer I installed last week.

[fuchikoma]

I'm afraid it's nothing as exotic as dev hardware. :(

Ever hear of Nielsen ratings? The Nielsen company figures out TV ratings by polling families over the course of a year. I used to be one. Back in the day, you just had to write down everything you watched. Eventually they switched over to electronic monitoring, which means you had to get every TV in your house wired up for their system, including game consoles.

http://homepage.mac.com/jkronk/.Pictures/dcrf.jpg

My old DC RF adapter.

[rbudrick]

So there's OMGR4RE Nielsen versions of every console out there?

Damn. I wonder if we could get a list of these.

-Rob

[Pantechnicon]

So there's OMGR4RE Nielsen versions of every console out there?

Probably not, but questions abound for fuchikoma here:

Did AC Nielsen supply you with that RF switch or did they mod one that you supplied them? If they supplied one, was it a situation where, when you were getting set up, they gave you a list asking which consoles you had in your house and then supplied appropriate RF adapters? As a Nielsen family, were you then more or less prohibited from using composite video on your game consoles? What did that extra plug connect to, exactly, and what information did it record? I'm imagining that maybe the Nielsen equipment monitored watched channels, time stamps and duration. But if you played your Dreamcast on a VHF channel which was also a local broadcast, e.g. - channel 4, how would Nielsen distinguish between gaming and watching television?

Sorry for all the questions. This is just an unusual niche of gaming history/technology and I'm certain everybody would like to know more about it.

[fuchikoma]

Hey, no problem. I'm more than happy to finally have something to contribute here.

This was 8 years and 2 houses ago, so my memories aren't great. Basically ACN went door-to-door in the neighborhood and asked if you wanted to participate. The offer was something like $100 for signing up plus $10 per month for each TV, plus they would cover any repairs needed. They took an inventory of all our TVs and anything that hooked up to it (consoles, VCRs, etc). A week or two later they sent out a pair of technicians who did the wiring.

At the time, we had one TV dedicated to consoles which was RF-only. The techs cracked open the RF adapters and modified them on the spot. We didn't get new adapters or pre-modified ones. Each adapter had the extra plug in the pictures that dcescott and I posted. That went into a ACN-branded box that was zip-tied to the vents on the back of the TV. I had a N64 and DC hooked up at the time. I could switch the adapters at the coax jack at the back of the TV, but I wasn't supposed to unplug them from the ACN box, even if one wasn't currently hooked up. They also zip-tied my DC composite cable together and said not to use it without calling first.

They could tell when something else was hooked up to the TV. I had borrowed a friend's Playstation for the weekend and on Sunday we got a call asking if we had got a new game console, because if so, they would have to send out a technician to make changes.

Eventually I purchased a new TV and hooked up the DC via s-video. The tech they sent out only wired up the TV to their little ACN-branded box. He didn't make any modification to the console or s-video adapter. He also added little rubber caps to cover the front RCA jacks on the TV and explained again that I would need to call if I wanted to use them.

Each of the little boxes communicated wirelessly to the main box behind our TV in the family room which would dial out to ACN each night at 2:30 (I remember specifically because my DSL would always drop at exactly the same time until I figured out that phone jack their box was connected to needed a filter).

As to what information exactly was sent back to ACN or how it distinguished different channels I don't know. You'd need to track down one of their techs for answers there.

It was a year-long contract with no offer to renew. Once it was over they took all their branded hardware back. The only thing I have left is my modified DC RF adapter.

[Pantechnicon]

Thanks for the info. Very informative.

Wow...Nielsen literally bound and gagged all of your composite cables?! And then they'd called you up when an unregistered Playstation was detected in the house via electronic surveillance?! That there is some hardcore statistical gathering techniques. LOL

[Vectorman0]

That's really interesting, thanks for sharing.

DP never ceases to amaze me with the wealth of information collectively available here.

[boatofcar]

That's really interesting, thanks for sharing.

DP never ceases to amaze me with the wealth of information collectively available here.

No kidding. Awesome story. I did the Neilsen thing once in 2002. All they gave me was five bucks and a little booklet to write down what I watched.

[jcalder8]

That's really interesting, thanks for sharing.

DP never ceases to amaze me with the wealth of information collectively available here.
I agree with you there.

This was a pretty cool story.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Cool and yet very creepy. "Mom, the guy on the phone knows I'm playing playstation!" O_O

[dcescott]

Well what can I do with it? It looks like I can hook it up to a computer tower somehow.

[rbudrick]

Awesome story, thanks, man. So they paid you, the $100+$10/mo, right?

Otherwise, what a pain in the balls. I wonder what they do with HDMI and shit nowadays.

Also, I wonder if the Nielsens are obsolete. Don't all paid providers of TV service take note of everything watched anyway? Wouldn't Nielsens be only effective on rabbit ear TVs?

-Rob

[Pantechnicon]

Heh. I wonder how many Nielsen families with reasonably tech-savvy children have family arguments because of this: "Mom! Goldeneye looks like ass on the RF switch! Please let me hook up the composite cable! Just for an hour? No one will know..." LOL


Also, I wonder if the Nielsens are obsolete. Don't all paid providers of TV service take note of everything watched anyway? Wouldn't Nielsens be only effective on rabbit ear TVs?

Last question first: If data is being recorded with pen and paper, then it doesn't matter. As for electronic monitoring, if they measuring signal ranges then it doesn't matter whether it's VHF or something like old-style analog CATV, whose channel frequencies correspond to VHF ranges regardless of whether they come through a cable or an aerial. This is how I theoretically assume Nielsen could monitor console usage in a house.

Paid providers can and probably do monitor what's watched, but they're under no obligation to share that information with competitors, and could easily manipulate the data if they ever did. An independent organization like Nielsen is a better source for objective data as such.

So Nielsen is probably not obsolete, but according to their Wiki even they admit that they have to revamp their whole system to accommodate tracking data for all the new television viewing technologies such as Tivo and Internet.

[Ze_ro]

Heh. I wonder how many Nielsen families with reasonably tech-savvy children have family arguments because of this: "Mom! Goldeneye looks like ass on the RF switch! Please let me hook up the composite cable! Just for an hour? No one will know..." LOL
Anthony1's personal hell?

--Zero

[DarthKur]

That sounds way too much like Big Brother to me. I think I'd have to pass. Besides I barely watch anything on the idiot box anyways. Mostly movies on VHS/DVD.

[dcescott]

Well it's a cool conversation piece by accident. Just like the rest of us scavengers, we see a box of games and console super cheap and buy it quickly, then look at the contents at home, or while opening the truck of the car. I really appreciate the explanation, just wish I could figure out if I could do something cool with the modded switch:)