Text on Text

I've decided to deley the guest nation teletext for a while as their is a not very suprising lack of information. The country shall be Solveina though. I've found out a bit already and it's quite interesting. Well, as interesting as the history of a smal europen countries teletext service can be. It seems they where(and are) great inovaters of teletext. I'll say no more.

I've added a new link today. It's to the online equivlent of Paramount text's mailbox. I think I've mentioned it before but mailbox was a letters page which was entirly made up of random drivel. Though the odd serious issue arrose. I remember the first letter I read on it was about someone who was feeling depressed. It certainly didn't set the tone though. You could spent around half an hour reading it and it was compleatly entrancing. You'd never be able to read it and accully understand what the hell they where talking about in one time round. Or two most of the time. I planned on contributing but my TV often lost in for months informing me there was NO TEXT. I could never remember the adress ethier. It ended quite soon after my arrival. A fragmented version of the last edition is probably still on the Paramount Comedy Channel( 127 if you have SKY digital in the UK) It's still fun to read but it definitly loses something not being on text. It can't really obtain new followers where as previously around 50% of the nation could access it. It's got that horrible internet messageboard exclusive club feel. Respected regulars, smileys( work of satan.) Mailbox doesn't have smileys that was just my example of the growing alfulness of internet message boards which I use to quite like. Moderaters. Another thing mailbox doesn't have. So check it out if you wish.

Teletext feature of the day-TV review-p135 ITV
I'm highlighted this because I believed it was dead. But it seems it was just pretending. It is under a section called coming up. And even the title says TV preview. But the article title reads "We review Joey."Sounds like a review to me.

Acutul news on teletext today. Well, for anolouge televison. The signal will begin to be switched off in 2008. It will be done region by region until a complete turn off in 2012. This would spell the end for classic teletext in the UK. At the minute only 60% of people have any sort of digital televison and the figure is unlikley to increase massivly over the next few years as digital buying has probably peaked. I was wondering though could pirate televison stations be set up on an anolouge signal? Brodcasting equitment would become worthless and could be picked up cheaply. Even weak anolouge transmitters could be obtained cheaply. So then the question is, could pirate teletext be set up? Probably not. As teletext requires a good reception to be readable so only small areas would be likely to recieve a teletext ready signal. There are others options for the continunity of teletext including the internet. Call me a purist but I think putting TELEtext on the internet defeats the purpose somewhat. As the government havn't confirmed this yet it's not offical but it's very likely they will. Then again 2012 is 7 years away. Even if Labour wins the next election they wouldn't nessacerily be in power for the crucial date.

Teletext continues to thrive in other nations ,of course, where full digialisation( did I make that word up or just spell it wrong) is still some way away. Indeed I'm going to be having a look at another countries teletext system tomorrow or Friday. Not sure which one yet but I hope to make it a regular feature so they'll get mentioned. Cause you just know Armenia's proudest moment would be to have it's teletext service mentioned on an unread blog.

Teletext thing of the Day-Turner the Worm-c4
A very strange childrens text comic. It's aimed at pre-schoolers but I laughed at every scene. Maybe it was just the idea of seeing a worm potrayed as a hero in a text-based comic trying to save the world from some alien thing. I didn't pay much attention to the plot. Watch it if you can!

Since I started this blog I've been doing a bit of research and found that despite age teletext is improving. A few years ago something called High Text was developed. Basicly an improved version of teletext that carries more colours, better graphics and can store more pages. That equals no flicking around and a very quick service. It seems no teletext service is willing to apply the service though as all engeries (and more importantly money) are centred on digital-interactive- PRESS THE FUCKING RED BUTTON NOWWWW!!! craze of the moment. It would also slow down the service apparently. Yeah, that doesn't seem to make much sense. Certain new televisons advertise high text though I'm not sure if that can work without the brodcaster trasmitting high text. As you've probably guessed I don't have High Text and had never heard of it till last week. I'll be checking all my friends TV's soon though. Anyone who knows more about it feel free to comment.

Teletext thing of the day!-Letters pages-Multiple pages-main 346 on ITV, 145 on Ceefax.
Something that for some reason has never been transferred to digital text. In fact the idea that Digital text is more interactive is let down by this. Admittly some of the opinions are, shall we say eccentric, but it's certainly entertaining. And if you want to know the opinions of conservative pensioners and bored poor people theres no better way.

One of my favorite things about teletext is the number system it operates. The beautiful well thought out posistions. On BBC1 the letters page is 145 on ITV 346. The polls are placed beside the letters so people looking for a barometer of opinion are in the correct place. On BBC the now sadly defunct And I quote page was also beside the papers page. Their is the opinions of the establishment.

Each text service also seems to try to reflect the channel it inhabits. Ceefax is vast,fast, diverse and informative. ITV teletext is flashy, colourful and selective over what it covers. C4 Teletext is quirky, alternative, doesn't have a proper news or sport section but covers music,films and computer games in great detail and is full of games and subtle humour. Whats my favorite? It depends. If I want information on something Ceefax. If I'm bored or can't sleep C4 Text because of it's iclusive magazine feel. I only really read ITV text when I want to read a poll or letters or sometimes sport. PText on paramount was excellent though I can no longer access it as my TV refuses to let me read anolouge text on Sky simply blaring "NO TEXT" in a red box. The mailbox was the only compleatly pointless letters page that resembled an internet message board. I beleive it is now defunct which is a pity. The only other example of a "teletext club" seems to be the deadfully named "Mega-Zine" page 382 on C4 text. Not near Mailbox standard for utter gibberish postings but pretty damm good and doesn't have the snobbish attuitude problem of internet fourm "regulars" cough: LOSERS:cough.

That was more a quick summupence of my love for text than anything else but I promise my next post will chronicle the happenings in the world of text.

Text feature of the day:
Ten things we didn't know last week.-BBC ONE and TWO, p129- A study of ten of the weeks stranger news items. Always interesting, sometimes dubious and occasionly amazing.

Hello. I created this blog a while ago but didn't really know what to do with it. After all theres no point me talking about somehting I know much less about than sevral hundred other people who has blogs on the subject. A moment of inspiration hit me earlier today however and I have know decided to report on what will probably be last days of Teletext. And by that I mean all anolouge text services in Britain. Well, hopefully there will be a few forign oddesys in time.

When I said a brief history though I also mean of teletext. I wasn't born when Ceefax first aired in 1973 so it's based on second hand information which there isn't alot of. It was joint research from ITV and the BBC which created teletext. BBC used Ceefax( phoniticlly See Facts) while ITV went with Oracle which seems to have been replaced by Teletext around the early ninties. Recently teletext has disapeered from nearly all Digital chanels and even the anolouge service is looking a bit neglected. It will definitly leave us when the much mooted anolouge swich off happens. Mind you, that was originally in 2006 and is now rumored for 2012. It will most likly go before then though as digital text imporves. (Still not near Ceefax but maybe I'm baised) That was very condensed and if you want more go to http://teletext.mb21.co.uk/. I took most of information from it anyway. The evening with Ceefax is amusing if immensly weird.

So that is all. I hope everyone can now appericate those clunky, ridiclously dated characters on your televison much more now.