Digital Text on Freeview on both Sony TV's I have is very quick to load - much, much quicker than on a Sky HD box. It's also really quick in Windows 7 Media Center.
I think older boxes are a bit flaky - but those built in the last few years should be OK. My mum's Sony Freeview adaptor is also really good for digital text in my experience.
Shame Oracle can't come back. I wonder if Teletext's closure will be anything like Oracle's, or will it just go out with a wimper?
I doubt anything would come out of it, at the end of the day Teletext's demise has been blamed on the Internet and there's not much they can do about that sadly. For me I've never had any trouble accessing Teletext on DTT, it's usually fast and reliable, it just doesn't seem to hold the charm that Analogue Teletext does. It's still sad to see it end, but I guess it was inevitable.
And for Oracle, I doubt ITV would have the money to put up for it these days, but as said Teletext isn't profitable anymore. I'm sure Oracle would have ended up the same way, or maybe even pulled off sooner.
It's entirely appropriate as 20 years after that campaign 'public service teletext' is on the way out.
The big difference this time is that it's a mostly voluntary closure - Ofcom have said that they probably won't license it after 2014 and Teletext are bailing out early
Since when? It's never worked for me on Freeview. Digital Teletext either freezes the entire box, takes all day to do anything and is so much of a pain in the behind it's unusable. Four Freeview boxes, same issues on all of them even brand new out of the box. I haven't used it on Sky so to me it'll be no great loss but I don't know if it works better on Sky than it does on Freeview, though I fail to see how it can be any worse.
I guess that's very bad luck then - had three or four boxes ourselves and never had a major issue, though the newer ones are quicker. Sky though is a different story - painfully slow. Did it ever make it to Freesat?
And as for whether it'll go out with a whimper - it probably will. It doesn't seem to have been widely reported at all today
The cheapy Dixons' Logik boxes are a nightmare (not just teletext I add). You wait ages for a page to appear then it flicks past because you've pressed every button under the sun to try and get a response from the damn thing. Also, last year they decided to do a software update for an option to ditch the in-built EPG for the Teletext TV Guide instead. Like to see what happens there.
I can understand that Teletext will be withdrawn on Analogue but it's a shame that it's going to be withdrawn on Digital TV aswell. I access text both on Analogue and Digital at least once a day.
Do they have to pay OFCOM a fine/compensation to stop, because they have the ITV and Channel Five
licenses
to provide it for the current 10-year cycle?
Or are OFCOM being more lenient than that, especially as they are, as reported in this thread, talking about not advertising a new license?
Do they have to pay OFCOM a fine/compensation to stop, because they have the ITV and Channel Five
licenses
to provide it for the current 10-year cycle?
Or are OFCOM being more lenient than that, especially as they are, as reported in this thread, talking about not advertising a new license?
I don't see why they would have to pay because they're giving up their licenses.
Many Tv and radio stations have given up their licenses over the past few years - they just hand them back and stop paying Ofcom their yearly fees. I assume that's why it's finishing in Jan... that's when they started, they've paid up till then
It did, yes. They've launched a very limited service, but it's hidden away at the end of the EPG with the regional variations, and I've never seen it advertised.
It did, yes. They've launched a very limited service, but it's hidden away at the end of the EPG with the regional variations, and I've never seen it advertised.
So not accessible via the text button on ITV/C4 then. I bet they'll make sure Teletext Holidays is easier to find though.
What doesn't help with both text and interactive TV is how companies basically have to set up completely different systems for different platforms.