Date   : Sun, 27 Mar 2011 09:29:17
From   : heyrick.beebsoc@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: [BeebSoc] Re: Ceefax was the best thing BBC ever did ...

On 27/03/2011 01:53, Mick wrote:
> Rick Murray wrote:
>> On 25/03/2011 15:00, Rob wrote:

>>> That'll be me, then..
>> Me too.
> I feel lucky to live in London therefore still have CEEFAX (until next
> year) but definitely sad that a great innovation is about to be killed off.
> I think teletext was doomed anyway. The beeb are making cuts and nowt it
> free these days.<sad smile>

I like the "but all the time I'm thinking, 'this is bollocks compared to 
Ceefax'."

I'm tempted to suggest "get a life" as, well, comparing a costume drama 
to teletext is pretty insane however you look at it.

He has a point though. The BBC does costume drama well. It's just... 
woman in overstated dresses and men who all wish they were called Colin 
Firth. It is like identikit drama. At least ITV's Lost In Austin played 
with the concept, but then ITV has advertisers to please, so it will aim 
to do something "more exciting" than the BBC. Like, perhaps, Cathy, 
leaning out of her window, with an AK-47, wondering if that skanky bloke 
really loves her or if he has other motives... Still, it could be worse. 
It could be that remake of The Secret Garden where people died in an 
EARTHQUAKE because they figured PLAGUE was too, you know, gruesome.

On a more techie bent, he is right. Teletext had a design goal, and a 
purpose, and it perfectly fit that. Compare with digital teletext, which 
manages to: a, be slower. b, possibly present less information. c, be 
more annoying
Not to mention Sky and Freesat use entirely different data formats so 
identical content needs to be broadcast twice. Hence why the Freesat 
version is a stripped-down lame excuse of what BBCi is supposed to be.

Yes, people, we're looking at forty years of progress here. Gee, it 
"looks" better on-screen ... provided you can read it, that white-on-red 
doesn't do well through UHF modulation, CVBS mangles it a little, we're 
looking at SCART at the least. Maybe you'd squeak by this s-video, but 
not so many boxes offer that. Some don't even manage proper RGB in the 
SCART, using it more for CVBS and audio...

I think digital text is "teletext reinvented by committee". And it shows.


I was, however, amused to see the rolling page after the movie "The 
Hidden Blade" on BBC2 the other night. For some reason my PVR didn't 
stop recording, it just carried on until the USB key was full (hey, I'm 
glad it wasn't a 500Gb drive!) and there was a lot of teletext 
afterwards. And that soothing '70s music. That, I think is what is most 
irksome about BBCi - there is no soothing music to aid you through your 
explorations.
But, hey, my main satellite receiver is a little Silvercrest from Lidl. 
It doesn't do BBCi. I can use their website off my phone. That's perhaps 
how it ought to be, for it just wasn't a patch on teletext. Its absence 
does not concern me.


Best wishes,

Rick.