The Guest Choice B Video Distribution System was a project I was both a design engineer and project manager on. Back in my design engineering days I was fortunate enough to work at a company called SpectraDyne/ SpectraVision were I had the opportunity to learn many things about audio & video as well as remote controls.

This remote control patent was actually the first handheld device to process credit cards; as a guest turned from watching a movie to turning to a shopping channel (before QVC existed), guest could select an item, pay for it on the remote with their credit card and have the item delivered to their room.

Everything above was done on a closed loop MATV System and just what is a MATV System?

MATV (Master Antenna TV)… Master Antenna Television or MATV, describes an analog cabling network which is used to distribute various television signals throughout a facility. With the installation of multiple satellite dishes, for centrally subscribing and distribution of any channel, from any part of the world (both Pay and Free TV services) can be delivered locally using the technology popularly termed as SMATV or Satellite Master.

The Guest Choice B Video Distribution System was a predecessor to today’s… On Demand Video and home Pay Per View.

Also during this time SpectraDyne worked with Sprint to bring Fiber Optics to the curve in residential communities.

As a design engineer I designed a remote control and worked on the SpectraMate set top box, the first box to interface directly with a specified port on the television, which allowed the set-top box to be hidden from the users view. Previously a set-top box was on top of the television and had many redundant features including a tuner. The SpectraMate significantly cost less than other set-top boxes by using an interface to control the tv, which allowed us to remove redundant circuits in our box because they were already on the television. 

I also designed the controller board that processed delivery of movie selections to the appropriate hotel room. This board was the brains of the entire system and controlled audio, video and data.

The player controller card which held the processor and memory were on located in the center with connectors on the corners of the board to connect the audio and video routers to it and they also passed power between the 3 boards which allowed us to use a single power supply.

Guest Choice B Systems was a modular design that allowed you to expand a single 64 player rack to up to 4 racks for a total of 256 video selections.

Notice on the bottom of the pages shown you’ll see this was back in 1993.

The things learned taking this product from conception to production was priceless and at that time, working a 75 hr work week didn’t matter because it was my project. 

Being involved in significant technical advances in the Hotel Pay Per View industry allowed me to quickly grasp new technologies and that experience taught me how to develop products.

SpectraDyne was located in Richardson, Texas off Campbell & Plano Road. 

They also worked directly with Playboy in 1991… Playboy Enterprises and Spectradyne Inc., which provides movies on hotel-room television sets, have reached an agreement in principle to produce a guide to in-hotel television for the United States and Canada.

The joint venture is expected to be announced this week.

The first issue of the yet-untitled monthly magazine will come out in September. It will include an in-hotel movie program with listings and reviews of available movies. There will be features on the making of these movies, the celebrities who star in them and articles of interest to travelers.

The magazine will be placed in the 750,000 rooms in the Hyatt and Sheraton hotel chains that have Spectradyne's pay-per-view Spectravision service.

The new magazine, which will be given to guests without charge, will get its revenues from advertising. 

Cindy Rakowitz, vice president of public relations for Playboy, said that while specific demographics were not yet available, readers would be "very upscale, because Spectravision is only available in upscale hotel rooms."

I have pleasant memories from my days as an engineer working at this company!