"Analogue" teletext
 

I notice in issue 22 of DVB scene, the leading article is about the
availability of the "analogue" teletext service via DVB-H, praising
this capability...

"Traditional teletext services remain one of the most valued TV
offerings by broadcasters around Europe attracting tens of millions of
viewers daily and generating millions of euros of revenue for
broadcasters every year. Retaining this revenue and loyal viewer base
is essential when rolling out new mobile TV services. Hannu Antilla of
Sofia Digital reports."

http://www.dvb.org/news_events/dvbscene_magazine/
http://www.dvb.org/news_events/dvbsc...Issue%2022.pdf

I recently visited a TV trade show in Cologne, and saw how the ability
to take "analogue" teletext data from DVB-T, -C and -S broadcasts and
insert it into the appropriate VBI lines for use with a standard TV is
seen as a key feature of all STBs.

Is it _only_ the UK, the country which invented "analogue" teletext,
which has been so keen to see it killed on the digital platforms?

I can understand why "analogue" teletext on DTV is an anachronism, and
why the BBC and others chose to dump it. Had they managed to make all
the content easily accessible via digital teletext, there would
probably have been few complaints. Yet everyone else seems to choose
to maintain the "analogue" teletext service in the digital world.

How did the UK decide to do one thing, and the rest of Europe decide
to do the opposite?

Cheers,
David.

"Analogue" teletext
 

In uk.tech.digital-tv Paul Martin wrote:
: Is it _only_ the UK, the country which invented "analogue" teletext,
: which has been so keen to see it killed on the digital platforms?

: The "Sky" platform in the UK has teletext capability (including VBI
: insertion). The Beeb could even put one teletext stream per MUX and one
: teletext subtitle stream per channel.

The BBC started with FULL VBI teletext on DSAT via Sky STB's but they seemed
to make a conscious decision to remove it - as they wanted to promote
the new "Digital Text" service.

Also, AIUI, VBI teletext was NEVER part of the UK DTT spec and so was never
broadcast (as most of the STBs could not handle it)

"Analogue" teletext
 

Paul Martin wrote:
In article . com,
wrote:

Is it _only_ the UK, the country which invented "analogue" teletext,
which has been so keen to see it killed on the digital platforms?

The "Sky" platform in the UK has teletext capability (including VBI
insertion). The Beeb could even put one teletext stream per MUX and one
teletext subtitle stream per channel.

Subtitles on the "Sky" system are teletext, and turned into bitmaps by
the set top box. Some of the BBC channels currently additionally have
DVB subtitles as a trial.

As a trial? BBC has had subtitles on dvb-t for as long as I can remember. Is it
a trial for dvb-s?

"Analogue" teletext
 

"Brian McIlwrath" wrote in message
...
In uk.tech.digital-tv Paul Martin wrote:
: Is it _only_ the UK, the country which invented "analogue" teletext,
: which has been so keen to see it killed on the digital platforms?

: The "Sky" platform in the UK has teletext capability (including VBI
: insertion). The Beeb could even put one teletext stream per MUX and one
: teletext subtitle stream per channel.

The BBC started with FULL VBI teletext on DSAT via Sky STB's but they
seemed
to make a conscious decision to remove it - as they wanted to promote
the new "Digital Text" service.

Also, AIUI, VBI teletext was NEVER part of the UK DTT spec and so was
never
broadcast (as most of the STBs could not handle it)

Yes but on both DTT and DSAT the digital text is abysmally slow, and my TV
doesn't cache it (unlike analog or even VBI insertion) and is so poor I
don't even bother with it.

Moreover you normally have to change channel to see it, losing sound and the
ability to overlay the picture.

"Analogue" teletext
 

R. Mark Clayton wrote:
"Brian McIlwrath" wrote in message
...
In uk.tech.digital-tv Paul Martin wrote:
Is it _only_ the UK, the country which invented "analogue"
teletext, which has been so keen to see it killed on the digital
platforms?

The "Sky" platform in the UK has teletext capability (including VBI
insertion). The Beeb could even put one teletext stream per MUX and
one teletext subtitle stream per channel.

The BBC started with FULL VBI teletext on DSAT via Sky STB's but they
seemed
to make a conscious decision to remove it - as they wanted to promote
the new "Digital Text" service.

Also, AIUI, VBI teletext was NEVER part of the UK DTT spec and so was
never
broadcast (as most of the STBs could not handle it)

Yes but on both DTT and DSAT the digital text is abysmally slow, and
my TV doesn't cache it (unlike analog or even VBI insertion) and is
so poor I don't even bother with it.

Moreover you normally have to change channel to see it, losing sound
and the ability to overlay the picture.


I use 'Digital' text on both DSAT and DTT with both it's almost instant.


--
60 day free DVD rental: www.southeastbirmingham.co.uk/dvd
Mobile Offers: www.southeastbirmingham.co.uk/mob
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/230volt

"Analogue" teletext
 

"Analogue" teletext
 

On 5 Jun, 19:56, "{{{{{Welcome}}}}}"
wrote:

I use 'Digital' text on both DSAT and DTT with both it's almost instant.

It depends almost entirely on the STB.

There were various blunders, and two glaring omissions with "digital"
teletext: no page numbers (most broadcasts at least), and no
dynamically updated pages. The former have been introduced (but are
more clunky than on "analogue" teletext), the latter is apparently
impossible with the current version of MHEG.

Issues like lack of content and slow STBs (have you used an OnDigital
one recently? !!!!!) can be overcome, but it certainly makes the news
service less attractive than the old for some users.

Cheers,
David.

"Analogue" teletext
 

On 6 Jun, 01:03, (Zero Tolerance) wrote:
On Tue, 5 Jun 2007 15:29:49 +0000 (UTC), Brian McIlwrath

wrote:
Also, AIUI, VBI teletext was NEVER part of the UK DTT spec and so was never
broadcast (as most of the STBs could not handle it)

The UK DTT spec which was of course drawn up by, amongst others, the
BBC, who effectively conspired to kill the existing analogue teletext
format so as to "year zero" themselves into a dominant position in a
newer market populated only by the "big fishes" who could author and
broadcast the new digital format.

That sounds very "new BBC", and therefore plausable. However, it seems
unlikely that it would have made much difference in practice.

I reckon, given the inevitable introduction of "digital" teletext,
someone thought it wise to limit the time scale over which they'd have
to double author all the content (once for "analogue", once for
"digital"). In reality, with the same content being re-purposed for
the internet, DVB-S, DVB-C, DVB-T, mobiles / handhelds, and goodness
know what, an integrated authoring system which translated
automatically into various formats was inevitable - and maintaining
"analogue" teletext as one output of this system would have been
comparatively little work once set up correctly.

VBI teletext of a very limted sort was broadcast on DTT, as ondigital
used hidden teletext pages to cue their external internet STB to pop
up a web link in time with certain commercials. Not all ondigital STBs
supported it but most of the later ones did. So it is possible - it
has been done before and could be done again.

That's interesting. I would imagine almost all chipsets are capable
anyway, but it's a software/firmware issue.

Cheers,
David.

"Analogue" teletext
 

Alan Pemberton wrote:

It looks as though in the UK therefore, teletext has been the
victim of the runaway success[1] of MHEG5.

[1] In the sense that it is almost, but not quite entirely,
completely unusable, in the same way that DAB is almost, but
not entirely unlistenable. Fortunately, FM and Digital telly
are catching up and will soon have achieved the same
technical quality.

Both MHEG-5 and MHP are based on the same premise: you have computer
programs (Java applications) streamed to your set-top box as a part of
the broadcast, and the set-top box will run them on the tv screen to the
best of its ability.

It looks neat on paper but manufacturers of set-top boxes (and, in the
end, the market) are too cheap to pay for decent processing power,
memory (for caching the Java programs and content), sufficient testing,
etc. - so the real-world implementations tend to be only so-and-so -
pretty sluggish and buggy.

There ought to be a standard that would lay out the minimum requirements
and test procedures fot these things - not only for functionality, but
also for performance: response times and such. But we can't have that,
now can we? It would surely be in a grave violation of some "free
market" ideology or the other.

--
znark

"Analogue" teletext
 

On 7 Jun, 22:42, "Jukka Aho" wrote:
Alan Pemberton wrote:
It looks as though in the UK therefore, teletext has been the
victim of the runaway success[1] of MHEG5.

[1] In the sense that it is almost, but not quite entirely,
completely unusable, in the same way that DAB is almost, but
not entirely unlistenable. Fortunately, FM and Digital telly
are catching up and will soon have achieved the same
technical quality.

Both MHEG-5 and MHP are based on the same premise: you have computer
programs (Java applications) streamed to your set-top box as a part of
the broadcast, and the set-top box will run them on the tv screen to the
best of its ability.

It looks neat on paper but manufacturers of set-top boxes (and, in the
end, the market) are too cheap to pay for decent processing power,
memory (for caching the Java programs and content), sufficient testing,
etc. - so the real-world implementations tend to be only so-and-so -
pretty sluggish and buggy.

There ought to be a standard that would lay out the minimum requirements
and test procedures fot these things - not only for functionality, but
also for performance: response times and such. But we can't have that,
now can we? It would surely be in a grave violation of some "free
market" ideology or the other.

I think the problem is the lack of performance metrics. When people
compare a £25 STB with a £60 one, there is no apparent difference,
because no where on the box or in the specs does it say "loads the DVB
reference text page* in 3 seconds (average)" or whatever.

You don't need to stop the free market, just provide a standard way of
measuring performance and require manufacturers to state how their
product performs against the standard measure. We do it very clearly
with power consumption on many devices now.

Or else, as with most things, it's just buyer beware / be informed /
or be stuffed!

The problem is, if someone buys a £1000 TV without doing some research
into the pros and cons of each model, it is, to some extent, there
fault if they buy something which is worse than they expected.
However, given that the government is forcing _everyone_ to buy one or
more STBs over the next few years, it would be nice if the situation
could be made clearer.

Still, I think Sony, Philips, and other purveyors of STBs which retail
above the minimum price point have missed an opportunity to
differentiate themselves here.

Cheers,
David.

* - I just invented that!

"Analogue" teletext
 

On 7 Jun, 18:01, (Alan
Pemberton) wrote:
Jukka Aho wrote:
It was originally thought that Teletext data on DVB services would only
be broadcast during a short-lived transition phase, but it now seems
this is still years, if not a over decade away.

It looks as though in the UK therefore, teletext has been the victim of
the runaway success[1] of MHEG5.

[1] In the sense that it is almost, but not quite entirely, completely
unusable, in the same way that DAB is almost, but not entirely
unlistenable. Fortunately, FM and Digital telly are catching up and will
soon have achieved the same technical quality.

I guess the other comparison is that the only way they can make
everyone use DAB is to switch off FM (which they're not going to do
for a long time, whatever anyone says). The only way they can make
everyone use MHEG5 is to switch off teletext.

It would be nice (in fact, it should be a design goal) that new
systems should so much better than what they replace that people
desert the old system for the new. The old system should be switched
off because no one wants or needs it anymore, not simply to force
people onto the nwe system!

(Mind you, I can talk high mindedly about other people's work like
this - I wouldn't necessarily apply this approach in my work - real
world commercial considerations etc!)

Cheers,
David.