Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

[darren]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

yes great there will be more channels shilts.

but yes ceefax was great i agree.

although there still is ceefax if u have freview i think it.
i get confused with itall.

i really miss ceefax .........used it for so many things ........ tbh i forget about the coloured buttons on the remote anyway ......i love the fact that there are more channels now and that we are lucky with the picture not pixelling out anymore but ceefax was so useful.

[80sChav]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

It is very sad, Ceefax has finished - I will sure remember the Ceefax very fondly, though i've not watched it for years really. For me it's heyday really was the 1980s and 1990s : eg watching the Football Results update before the Internet/Sky Sports News had the scores running constantly and viewing thing's like Film Information etc on there and other thing's like I believe you could find Pen Pals too.

I recall once going to the highest numberd page imaginable (how I got it, I don't know - just constantly changing the numbers on the remote all the time) and I got a really odd page that totaly scared the witts out of me! - I think that this was about 1989 or 1990. Never again - did I try that idea, as much as I desired to.

It is truly sad I think that Ceefax has not stood the test of time longer than the 38 years it has had, but in a way I think about thing's like Technology in this way The Boogles and their song Video Killed The Radio Star, sadly I guess they had a point in these lyrics regards new technology butin certain aspects I hope it will never happen though of course it does.

80sChav

[darren]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

i know what u mean but 38 yrs is a long time and sorry to go off topic but a lot of other things have bit the dust before teletext's end.

teletext was a special thing to have on a tv at one time.

i remember when we got a telly with ceefax teletext it was quiteexciting mate.

It is very sad, Ceefax has finished - I will sure remember the Ceefax very fondly, though i've not watched it for years really. For me it's heyday really was the 1980s and 1990s : eg watching the Football Results update before the Internet/Sky Sports News had the scores running constantly and viewing thing's like Film Information etc on there and other thing's like I believe you could find Pen Pals too.

I recall once going to the highest numberd page imaginable (how I got it, I don't know - just constantly changing the numbers on the remote all the time) and I got a really odd page that totaly scared the witts out of me! - I think that this was about 1989 or 1990. Never again - did I try that idea, as much as I desired to.

It is truly sad I think that Ceefax has not stood the test of time longer than the 38 years it has had, but in a way I think about thing's like Technology in this way The Boogles and their song Video Killed The Radio Star, sadly I guess they had a point in these lyrics regards new technology butin certain aspects I hope it will never happen though of course it does.

80sChav

[battyrat]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

I also used it regular as clockwork in the 80's and 90's but once I got the internet it seemed easier to find the info online so it fell out of use with me.I think the main limitation and thing that I found painfull about it was the time it took to load up pages.Seemed like ages on my tv at the time.Most searches I done was to see what was on tv or tide times,weather or in my mums case reading the stars.

[Star Attraction]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

I think the last ever Pages From Ceefax (in-vision, normal TV picture) was shown a couple of days ago.

Is Ceefax still available today (Tuesday 23 October 2012) in Northern Ireland on analogue terrestrial BBC1 Northern Ireland by pressing TEXT and punching in the desired page number, and set to close when analogue terrestrial BBC1 is switched off there around 11:30pm tonight? Can someone in Northern Ireland (there must be someone) test it this evening between now and 11:30pm to answer this question?

[ayrshireman]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13qT-LlZzCo

[phombus tucker]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off



Star Attraction, hope this is of help to you

[Arran]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

Teletext, and NICAM stereo sound, were great British inventions that very few American technology writers and documentary producers will ever mention because they were not used in their insular nation on the other side of the Atlantic. The US was the one and only advanced nation in the world that never had teletext apart from an odd few short lived and highly localised installations. Teletext was used in Canada but all Americans had was page 888 style closed captioning.

[Richard1978]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

I did read somewhere online that the American networks couldn't agree on a standard.

[Arran]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

The FCC did not develop a standard teletext protocol for NTSC and instead left it to the free market. What happened was that different TV channels ended up using different standards so a particular teletext decoder was 'matched' to a particular channel. The problem was intensified by a combination of the highly fragmented and localised TV broadcasting in the US - some TV channels only exist in a city the size of Bristol and nowhere else - and the price sensitive nature of consumer electronics where the Japanese manufacturers who were taking over the market in the 1980s refused to install teletext decoders in TVs for future use. Audio and video inputs were uncommon in TVs sold in the US except on top of the range models which made aftermarket teletext decoders that plugged into an aerial socket more expensive and difficult to use.

[Richard1978]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

This site has lots of good information on Teletext.

http://teletext.mb21.co.uk/

[Arran]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

The ultra cynical explanation why teletext never took off in the US are: 1. About 25% of the American population are too illiterate to read most of the pages Ceefax offered. The American attitude towards television is that it was invented to eliminate the requirement to be able to read in order to obtain information and knowledge. Teletext required the ability to read in order to use it so it was seen as a retrograde step - like the return of afternoon newspapers ever so popular during the early 20th century but killed off by television by the 1960s. 2. The Americans couldn't work out how to make money out of teletext. Europe and Canada has the concept of public services but if something doesn't make money in the US then it is a no brainer.

[darren]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

It would with reading skills and helping kids to read if nothing else if they had introduced it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know in a way we still sort of do have teletext one difference tho is with the old teletext it showed the time in the top corner in hrs minutes and seconds.

Now its just in hrs and minutes.

COULD THEY NOT HAVE JUST KEPT ANALOGUE TV ONLY REAL DIFFERENCE IS PICTURE QUALITY WHICH I DONT WORRY ABOUT AND YOU COULD STILL HAVE ALL THE CHANNELS WE HAVE NOW.

the ultra cynical explanation why teletext never took off in the us are: 1. About 25% of the american population are too illiterate to read most of the pages ceefax offered. The american attitude towards television is that it was invented to eliminate the requirement to be able to read in order to obtain information and knowledge. Teletext required the ability to read in order to use it so it was seen as a retrograde step - like the return of afternoon newspapers ever so popular during the early 20th century but killed off by television by the 1960s. 2. The americans couldn't work out how to make money out of teletext. Europe and canada has the concept of public services but if something doesn't make money in the us then it is a no brainer.

[trip2themoon]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

LOL at the OP's claim of virtually instant. Also when the wind blew a bit your page would become an incomprehensible text wall of crazy nonsense.

[Arran]

Re: Losing Ceefax: The Analogue TV Switch Off

COULD THEY NOT HAVE JUST KEPT ANALOGUE TV ONLY REAL DIFFERENCE IS PICTURE QUALITY WHICH I DONT WORRY ABOUT AND YOU COULD STILL HAVE ALL THE CHANNELS WE HAVE NOW.

The Green Party of England and Wales opposed the analogue switch off because of the potential that millions of perfectly good TVs would end up being scrapped and a similar number of video recorders and old TV aerials would also be added to the junk pile.

The reality is that retaining analogue broadcasts means having to maintain a parallel network of transmitters (similar in concept to the 405 line VHF transmitters after all the 625 line UHF transmitters were switched on) each of which consumes a large amount of electricity. There are also backwards compatibility issues when it comes to things like HD.