I was hanging out with Mamma and Pappagene this weekend and I heard something while watching cable that I remembered was kind of common.
Occasionally during commercial breaks, usually in between individual commercials, there is a rapid succesion of beeps, like a touch-tone speed dial kind of sound. Five or so.
The way I figure, this is some sort of ID. I’m not sure how widespread this phenomenon is. Anyone know the SD on what these beeps are for?
If I wanted smoke blown up my ass, I’d be at home with a pack of cigarettes and a short length of hose.
Those tones were used to trigger the commercial replay machines in your cable system’s headend. There are other ways to do this now that don’t intrude on the viewer, so it’s rare to hear the tones anymore at home. Must be an old cable system.
That is a cue by the nation or world-wide vendor (network, channel, etc) to the local cable system that there is so many seconds of space available for them to run their local advertising (The cable companies cut) as opposed to nation-wide commercials that the vendor sells. This is known in the biz as “commercial insertion” and it is all done automatically with computer controled tape machines that know what the beeps mean.
Elmer J. Fudd,
Millionaire.
I own a mansion and a yacht.