Presfax closes

On another note, sort of related to the Presfax/Playout changes - the Trails on BBC1 still seem to be in SD, except the Oneness bumpers and a QT trail a bit earlier. Are they not making Trails in HD yet?

They’ve replaced the CRTs now though

Stand by for tonight’s @BBCLookNorth at 6.30 pic.twitter.com/oTWE2MvC92

— Ian White (@IanWhiteNews) November 24, 2017

Always surprised they haven't used the Ceefax brand for any digital services such as red button. It was so iconic.

RTÉ kept their AERTEL name for their text service. I guess the FAX part of CEEFAX sounded very dated maybe?

That is Xplayer, which wasn't a replacement for Presfax as such. It was used for other purposes mainly, but was always available as a web based backup to Presfax (Presfax being encoded into the network feed).

A switch to new circuits for the network feed last year meant that Presfax was no longer available to all, so Xplayer has been in use as a Presfax replacement for a while. However it is not the permanent replacement for Presfax. A new system, giving a view of the network schedule and derived from the new playout kit, is available.

I've mentioned this before, but my wife's first job in telly was as a Prefax clerk typist. She sat at the back of the London Presentation gallery inputting the info into the system as and when. Early 1980's.

Was there a delay of any sort on the analog Presfax?

Promos have been made in HD for ages now*, it's more an agreement with Ericsson I believe.



*Most if not all Creative departments are HD as standard

I seemed to recall a tomorrows world report explain the name as "See Facts" rather than from a facsimile but I may be wrong.

Not sure what you mean by an analogue version except for sending schedules through the post

Yes, it was See Facts, and ORACLE was Optional Reception <something> Coded Line Electronics


I can see that 'fax' could be seen as sounding outdated though

I suspect rkolsen means the first-generation version that was only ever distributed in the analogue network VBI, unlike the current version which is digital WST packets (as there is no VBI left to insert it in!) - though it may also have been distributed in the analogue network (itself carried as 140Mbs digital signals in most areas) VBI at one point.

The current 'CEEFAX-like' version (i.e. the one that uses a teletext packet distribution and teletext-style display) is definitely a newer version than the one in use in the mid-90s which was entirely monochrome and could display much larger numbers for the junction count-downs (don't think they were Teletext chunky bitmaps but they could have been). (It didn't look to use a teletext character generator for output)

And to answer the question - YES! It wasn't unusual for it not to be updated (or not to be received) and to be totally incorrect...