Just because you can afford and understand it, don't expect everyone else to.
Goodbye Teletext
- Thread starter Dave89
- Start date
Just because you can afford and understand it, don't expect everyone else to.
All it needs is a specific interface to work in the TV context - which is simply fast access to information and not fannying around link hopping or using RedCafe, just a phones need a specific interface. The web browser on the computer doesn't quite work on the TV, especially with a normal remote. PS3 hasn't got it right, basically because it uses a bog standard PC browser. You also need to know where you are going, just as you do with a computer, but then that means typing shit in. A system where the information links were indexed and broadcast with the TV signal, and then you had a limited link clicking capability would probably be the best way to go. The TV itself could offer the browser as a fully fledged one as the PS3 does outside of that context, so you would have the best of both worlds.
You could have used the same argument in the mid 80s to mid 90s, in that not everyone had a TV capable of teletext.
Nowt is for free these days.
What was the alternative that they scrapped?
I have access to it in my student digs. Outside term time you never see me on here.
Eh? I never had teletext at home as a kid, even when I left in 98. In fact, my dad still watches TV using a 25 year old Mitsubishi Blue Diamond screen that we always had - it's not capable of teletext. It's just been connected to a Sony DTT box for the past five years. Believe it or not, some people still watch TV in black and white.
The red button as it stands gives you the basic core of information that Ceefax used to do. Obviously where I come from, the analogue signal has already been switched off. He's 63, he has a net connection, he gets his real-time information through the web.
The 'red button' is shit, I never use it in the same way I used to use teletext - mostly because it takes even longer than old skool teletext to load up - progress, my arse!
Of course it takes longer, it's broadcast information, and requires more bandwidth than teletext. It's there embedded into your TV signal whether you want it or not. If your TV or set-top box had enough cache memory, it would be just as fast as teletext. "Old Skool" teletext was as slow as hell, until the TV manufacturers started putting some memory into their TVs to buffer the data - it was called Fastext.
I have no idea about the geeky tech details behind it all - I just know that the arrival of digital teletext has seen a massive amount of people abandon teletext altogether (and many still switch back to analogue just to use the 'old skool' text service) - im sure most people cant be arsed with it and just use the internet instead now.
They will, yes, because it's the most sensible solution. Constantly broadcasting information with the video and audio signal no longer makes sense. It would make more sense to use that bandwidth to up the bit rate of the video and audio.
Teletext is an afterthought of how to use the time during the vertical blanking interval of a CRT display, where a beam was swept as you look at it left to right, top to bottom. The time it took to reset the beam (horizontally and vertically) is called the blanking interval, and in that time, the data in the air went unused, so some clever clogs decided to stick some information in there that could be picked up whilst the beam was being reset, in the case of teletext, the vertical blank, which would take quite a few lines on the TV screen in terms of time to do.
Modern flat panel displays don't work like that, they don't have an electron gun raster beam, so it makes no sense, and thus with a digital signal, it makes no sense.
Old teletext however, and these figures are not factual, just illustrative, was never fast without memory in the TV to store them. The data was being transmitted constantly, page per page, so say if there were 999 pages, and there was space for 50 pages per second, each page would get broadcast every 20 seconds, so in the worst case scenario, you would have to wait 20 seconds to get at the information that you wanted. Hardly rapid was it?
Teletext is an afterthought of how to use the time during the vertical blanking interval of a CRT display, where a beam was swept as you look at it left to right, top to bottom. The time it took to reset the beam (horizontally and vertically) is called the blanking interval, and in that time, the data in the air went unused, so some clever clogs decided to stick some information in there that could be picked up whilst the beam was being reset, in the case of teletext, the vertical blank, which would take quite a few lines on the TV screen in terms of time to do.
Modern flat panel displays don't work like that, they don't have an electron gun raster beam, so it makes no sense, and thus with a digital signal, it makes no sense.
Old teletext however, and these figures are not factual, just illustrative, was never fast without memory in the TV to store them. The data was being transmitted constantly, page per page, so say if there were 999 pages, and there was space for 50 pages per second, each page would get broadcast every 20 seconds, so in the worst case scenario, you would have to wait 20 seconds to get at the information that you wanted. Hardly rapid was it?
Subtitles. 
Digital subtitles are nothing to do with teletext, and analogue subtitles will remain on p888 apparently.
Erm, mine is still working, is this just in England?
What services have you?
Only certain regions of Britain, they are going round one by one turning the analogue signal off.
I used to love teletext, used to be the 'internet' for me in the 90s.
Not if there is no analogue signal.
But I imagine they'll stop updating the non-profitable ones.
Technology moves on, get over it
As far as I know, Ceefax will be updated in all regions with an analogue signal until the last ones go off in three years time.
Are you talking about the ITV/C4 teletext services here?
As I said, teletext is actually embedded into the analogue signal, no analogue signal, no teletext. Of course, it would be very easy to embed a teletext like thing in with the digital signal if you were daft enough to do that. If you had no analogue TV image, what would be the point of analogue subtitles?
Definately had it's day
Still, was handy as feck in the past. I don't miss the days of having to follow a game by teletext, but you can't help but feel some nostalgia for it
So long and fairwell
Still, was handy as feck in the past. I don't miss the days of having to follow a game by teletext, but you can't help but feel some nostalgia for it
So long and fairwell
Sorry, was talking specifically about teletext ltd, formerly Oracle.
I shouldn't have been facetious in my reply.
Pages 310-19 were footy on BBC I think, or was it 302. 600 for TV listings.
140 was footy on ITV, 130 Sport.
Teletext was great.
140 was footy on ITV, 130 Sport.
Teletext was great.
It was not cak before the internet.
If you didn't have radio 5 live, or radio 2 in the very old days, how the feck would you find out any footy result? Wait for Sportsnight with Steve Rider? feck that.
Let me know if that link works, had to post it via google without actually going into youtube, and the video will be blocked for me.
Seriously, I'd rather look at teletext for the rest of my life than watch little britain. But thanks anyway PJ.
Aw, they sing about teletext!
I actually dislike digital TV when it goes through the air, it's simply not robust enough depending upon signal strength. Where at one time you would simply get noise in the picture (the classic old snow) or sound, because there was a torrential downpour outside, now you will get no signal at all because of the way that general digital video compression works (especially MPEG2) - saving only the changes from the last frame. Well, if you didn't receive the frame from a few seconds ago for whatever reason, then it rather goes to pot. It's getting better though.
The reception's shocking in my place. They insist it'll improve once analogue's turned off, but if it doesn't, there's no back up.
Cant agree more man. I went for NTL / UPC (Cable network) because of that very reason. When it downpours the signal goes tits up. Very few problems at all with Cable!
Not even a handshake?
It's Derry, more chance of a headbutt
Yes but at the time we had nothing else so the speed (or lack of) wasnt a problem.
Subtitles.
I used to always put them on when watching Nevermind the Buzzcocks for the intros round