"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.

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)

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?

"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.

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

wrote:

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.

Many DVB-S/T/C STBs from various manufacturers also have a built-in
teletext viewer as a part of their firmware - either in addition to, or
in place of the VBI Teletext insertion feature.

The UK apparently gets special firmware versions with this feature
removed or disabled and the MHEG-5 "red button" support shoehorned in
its place.

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

Finland, for one, tried to make the switch - using the MHP platform [1]
for what the UK uses MHEG-5 platform.

[1] http://www.mhp.org/

Great plans were made about a unified MHP-based "national EPG" that
would work the same among all main channels, a "Superteletext" based
news service (which would be kind of like regular Teletext, as far as
the content goes, but with a web browser-alike user interface: including
proportional fonts and font styles, photographic inline pictures instead
of crude block graphics, hyperlinks, etc.), and other services such as
interactive ads, online banking, interactive extra services for sports,
elections, science/educational programmes, and the like, etc. etc. Even
some healthcare applications were envisioned for the elderly and people
in the remote areas.

The manufacturers and the market, however, didn't seem to want that. Or,
rather, there were some severe publicity blunders concerning the
deployment of the system, and the manufacturers were too slow to produce
working MHP-enabled set-top boxes. The system kind of fell to the
sidelines - for now, at least.

Public debate focused on the so-called "return channel" - a required
aspect of the MHP system for certain kinds of interactive applications,
such as online banking or online betting via the tv screen. The "return
channel", as it turned out, meant an old-fashioned modem built-in to the
STB. (The MHP specification for an Ethernet-based "broadband" return
channel wasn't yet available - it is now, but wasn't back then.) That
did not fly well in a country where many don't subscribe to regular
landline telephone services any longer. There was also some uncertainty
as to who exactly would maintain (and pay for) the required centralized
phone service at the other end. As a result, the whole MHP platform got
publicly ridiculed in the Finnish media as being "outdated".

The fact that there were only a couple of MHP-enabled set-top boxes
available in Finland, and the early ones were technically very shoddy
(with a limited colour palette, agonizingly slow processor, not enough
memory for caching the object/data carousel, bugs in the firmware
causing crashes, etc.), didn't help much, either.

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. Some MHP services are
apparently still on air, but from a marketing viewpoint, the launch
failed miserably. MHP would need to be relaunched at some point in the
future - with full support from the STB manufacturers, retailers, and
broadcasters - if there's any desire to get rid of the "old-fashioned"
Telext. (In the meantime, the full Teletext service is being broadcast -
and will be broadcast - on all major digital channels in Finland, for
years to come.)

--
znark

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.

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.

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

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!