Date   : Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:21:59 +0200
From   : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: Fw: Fwd: ITV Teletext to shut down in January

Philip Pemberton wrote:

> Many thanks for your communication dated __29_July_2009____, in which 
> you commented on:

Love it! :-)


>> Blob, splat, same difference. It is on ITV2, ITV3... Thankfully
 >> ITV1 is not as yet 'infested'.
> Probably because they weren't "infested" to begin with.

And that would stop them? Perhaps the real reason is ugly DOGs are 
something of a rarity on analogue TV, but sadly very commonplace on 
digital. It's almost tolerable when a broadcaster uses a small 
semi-transparent logo in the corner of the screen, but it's pretty awful 
when it is a bright bold solid vibrant logo that's about twice as big as 
it needs to be...


> They do turn the thing off for adverts, though.

Whoo... For me, advertising = tea&pee break. They could have dancing 
weathergirls (that Irish one from Sky News by preference...) in between 
DFS' latest sale and some generic car ad and I'd miss it...


> Most of it should be if the receiver designers have done their jobs 
> properly.

That's the thing though, while most FTA receivers pop up a list of 
available audio, and some even get it right with less common languages 
like TV Pologne or TRT; this is all missing from the prepack stuff aimed 
at the British market. You try finding it on a Sky or Freesat box. 
You'll find your choice of audio is English, Welsh, or Gaellic... as if 
we even have services offering all of that (I think BBC Alba is one or 
t'other, and S4C Digidol is mostly all Welsh). Hell, NHK World doesn't 
even bother with its Japanese option on 28E, though multilingual 
programmes still carry the caption saying they are such.

The only "other" use for multiple audio on British DVB-S is the "audio 
description" track.


> Multi-audio is a feature of the MPEG Transport Stream

Indeed, as anybody with a DVD player will attest. I often look for DVDs 
with an English soundtrack in addition to French. This often comes with 
the caveat that:
   French no subs
   English subbed in French
are the only two options permitted; but in that case it's not too much 
hassle to pass my purchase through the DVD ripper and just not include 
subtitling. It's also useful for killing macrovision as that really 
upsets my ancient telly.


 > as such *any* DVB-compliant receiver should be able to handle a channel
 > with multiple audio tracks.

But there's a big difference between handling it, and giving the user a 
choice.


 > doesn't have an AC3 decoder, then you just get the MPEG-2 track.
> I have, however, seen some amusing examples of this falling over...

Oooh, do tell!


> The important question is, how many channels actually broadcast multiple 
> subtitle streams?

Is this even supported on DVB? Sky Digibox Pace BSkyB 2500B. Freesat 
Goodmans FS100SSD (or something like that). SilverCrest SL65. All of 
these have digital subtitling (as opposed to teletext, etc) as an "on or 
off" option. There does not appear to be a choice of which.

I would suggest looking at S4C Digidol as much is dual subtitled via 
teletext means.


[it is a shame so many PVRs and digital recorders only attempt to grab 
the visible frame (at most 720x576, often somewhat less). So still no 
opportunity for recording/reconstructing either teletext subtitles or 
the American "closed caption" system.


> by tying the Promax TV analyser to the 19.2 feed, then plugging its ASI 
> output into the AD952 transport stream analyser. Of course, I don't have 
> access to those kind of toys any more :(

I think those are the things advertised in the back of French satellite 
magazines. The boxes with lots of buttons and really scary price tags.


I just wish there was an info option on my SL65 where it would report 
the bitrate to me. One of my DVD players did this, so I know budget 
discs (usu. DVD5) run about two and a half megabit, while decent discs 
(DVD9s) run to five to seven megabit. Zone Horror? ITV2+1? Pure guess 
comparing to material I've transcoded myself, I'd say we'd be pushing 
the wrong side of one and a half if we're lucky... Hell, sometimes I 
feel if ZH's bitrate gets any lower (like, say, The Vault) it'll be low 
enough you could decode it on a Master! :-)


Best wishes,

Rick.

-- 
Rick Murray, irregular internet access at local library.
BBC B: DNFS, 2 x 5.25" floppies, EPROM prog, Acorn TTX
E01S FileStore, A3000/A5000/RiscPC/various PCs/blahblah...