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The Rise and Fall of Teletext - Really?


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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq97tTeGl14

a friend of mine linked this video to me. That actually surprised me because did not know there has been any large shutdown of teletext service. Ironic is that BBC was first to use teletext and then kill it.

On here teletext is still provived by Yleisradio OY (Public Radio company) and MTV3. YLE teletext shows weather, planes arriving/taking off times news, radioation levels per area (useful in case of emergency) and lot more. I use it daily. It is also just text based so no useless clutter like on internet mostly and news shows what really matter not useless stuff to increase read time for ad revenue

If you ask me Teletext does not equal to internet or Hybrid TV services. What if internet goes down? No more Hybrid TV services or internet news. Teletext works as long as got DVB-C DVB-T or DVB-T2 signal here so good in emergencies. There is actually 112 channel that shows any emergencies on YLE teletext. Internet cannot magically replace Teletext and fill it hole. Also it requires new end device and wont work oobe on my or anyone else old TV.

This question mostly applies to european members, but does anyone else here use/used to use Teletext services and what channels in your home country provides it?

I drop pic from our live weather on YLE teletext here.

teletexto.PNG.ee9feeb36e64af71cb17fe714f63da36.PNG

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  • 2 weeks later...

That's a pretty slick documentary. The use of 3D assets and vintage clips set to narration reminds me a lot of Mustard's style. I remember seeing another video on Teletext, but I can't find it. It covered some of the games available over Teletext. I could have sworn Techmoan did one about it but apparently not ...

Also, that moment when I realize that the "chat on Teletext via SMS" function was, in a way, an ancestor to Twitter.

neo's observation that "Teletext is a good example that if the constraints of a medium are truly embraced, the result can be a unique visual language that fits extraordinary well" is one I would say anyone familiar with the demoscene or retro game development (and I'm talking actually developing games for old platforms!) would be all too aware. Watching the "making of" videos for the NES game Micro Mages, or the early MS-DOS era game Planet X3, are fascinating in how they discuss the constraints of the target platforms.

On 10/9/2021 at 8:39 PM, D.Draker said:

This is where it's heading . No 2G , no simple phones , no teletext , but "smart" cities . I guess Europe is the main target for now.

That reminds me, I got a text from my cellular service informing me that they're shutting down the 3G network in a few months, and my phone is affected. I've got a hand-me-down iPhone 5S I've been using since 2016. Annoyingly, even though apparently the iPhone 5S' hardware does have native 4G LTE support, the phone cannot natively use a 4G network thanks to Apple shenanigans.

I'd resolved to only switch phones until my 5S finally, irreparably gave up the ghost. Now I'm gonna have to get a new one anyway, and probably a new plan too, since I had a pretty sweet "bring your own phone" deal specifically for that device.

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On 10/10/2021 at 6:39 AM, D.Draker said:

This is where it's heading . No 2G , no simple phones , no teletext , but "smart" cities . I guess Europe is the main target for now.

https://swprs.org/the-wef-and-the-pandemic/

Well I really hope laws will keep 2g up here (emergency requiment by authorities). What is funny that last year there was switch misconfiguration causing internet fail on Telia network. Lot said they were unable to call while me and my family had no issues. Then I realised it was since I had 2g Nokia brick and parents even though they had smartphones phone contract were limited to 3g. Lot used voLTE which is like VOIP and that was main reason why they were not unable to make calls. So is that voLTE that good at the end as only option?

2g is voice or data

3g is voice and data same time

4g and higher are data only and not designed to voice

Also seems impossible find new non smart TV on market. All includes smart features and keep broacasting stuff like bluetooth always even if not plugged in. I will keep my 32" samsung TV around for long. It is HD but it got no smart features at all and most fancy feature is USB port with built in media player that is ACTUALLY USEFUL. Also it got scart, composite, component and 3 HDMI ports.

Even harder was find non smart digital watch. I do not want device that sells my heart pulse, speed, sleep times and others to companies I want clock showing time. AFter hours of searching in town I found one store that sold casio watches and got casio F-91W that does not have any smart features.

I wonder if smart technology will turn against itself some point?

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6 hours ago, TrevMUN said:

It covered some of the games available over Teletext. I could have sworn Techmoan did one about it but apparently not ...

we had no teletext games as far know but we had interactive TV games controlled by text messages from late 90s until 2013 or so. They were mostly done with java. There was things like Rantalentis (Beach Volley), Mikämikä TV-Visa (MikäMikä TV-Quiz), Puhuva pää (talking head) and Tellus. They were controlled with text messages that had command or text. We also had GSM-Nightshows that were SMS based chat. Puhuva pää (talking head) was my favorite. You were able pick either male or female voice synth and make head talk.

I miss more simple days when there was other than constant advertising on TV

6 hours ago, TrevMUN said:

That reminds me, I got a text from my cellular service informing me that they're shutting down the 3G network in a few months, and my phone is affected. I've got a hand-me-down iPhone 5S I've been using since 2016. Annoyingly, even though apparently the iPhone 5S' hardware does have native 4G LTE support, the phone cannot natively use a 4G network thanks to Apple shenanigans.

I'd resolved to only switch phones until my 5S finally, irreparably gave up the ghost. Now I'm gonna have to get a new one anyway, and probably a new plan too, since I had a pretty sweet "bring your own phone" deal specifically for that device.

"Good since that is consumer benefit to force them buy new equipment. Some just think it is harming but companies are your friend and care from your best."

ok lets cut sarcasm right here. This is all about money. Here carriers refuses to activate voLTE on some compatible handsets that been approved on other countries. Why? To sell you new phone. Pretty sure even if you hack it LTE, carriers would refuse give you voLTE. Teleoperators should not be allowed have any phone sales for good reason.

Also here Elisa started disabling 3g freqs. My Nokia E90 can no longer reach UTMS connction but works no issues on 2g. I use e90 as my PDA. When teleoperator decides to kill 2g and nobody offers it I will join @ArcticFoxie phonesless club for good. They killed landlines already so that is not option.

 

Also sidenote back in 2001 Nokia was on YLE morning show talking from UMTS and how it is revolutionaly and wont need new soluction, but later 4g was announced and same was said. Now same is said from 5g, but they already develop 6g...

This all feels nothing but milking from consumers. Soon we have 100g likely and it will need handset that costs more than brand new bugatti. Bad thing on 100g will be it useless to anything else than watching pictures of cats since wasn't that why phones were made to begin with. And whole thing collapsese because simple programming bug leaving whole world without internet or telecoms forever:buehehe:

 

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On 10/24/2021 at 2:08 AM, TrevMUN said:

the iPhone 5S' hardware does have native 4G LTE support, the phone cannot natively use a 4G network thanks to Apple shenanigans.

So don't buy from liars anymore.

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Well that isn't an example of smart technology turning on itself, more like the companies who made the tech turning against the people. Sure some people like the idea of interconnecting everything and it does sound good in theory but it just hasn't been implemented well.

I think a better example of smart technology turning on itself would be the products that have been running in botnets, due to the poor security implementation of these devices.

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On 10/27/2021 at 4:37 PM, Tripredacus said:

I think a better example of smart technology turning on itself would be the products that have been running in botnets, due to the poor security implementation of these devices.

they do and that is why i said smart speakers to be bad. There has been multiple firmware exploits on them that been used to listen owners by other than amazon and other companies. And when those are anywhere hacker could gain good wiretap network around. Second example is when I had server connecting outside some sort of IOT linux device tried connect to it. I did some scan and found was smart pump that did

Edited by Mr.Scienceman2000
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  • 4 weeks later...

We haven't had teletext for years since conventional PAL television was shut down. When I still had TV cable, it carried text over with foreign stations from Germany and the UK. But then the distribution network was changed to digital, with conversion to PAL at the premises, and it stopped containing any extras.

Browsing text on a television was uncomfortable because of small amount of cache memory. It could only remember a few pages besides the root page and the four chosen favorites. I had to wait a minute until the given page was transmitted again. Television receivers for a computer were nothing but a novelty and with poor reception quality.

A website containing the same volume of data as teletext, without script bloat and elaborate design would work quite well.

We no longer get the cell info over GSM, which allowed the telephone to display the name of the town.

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37 minutes ago, j7n said:

We haven't had teletext for years since conventional PAL television was shut down. When I still had TV cable, it carried text over with foreign stations from Germany and the UK. But then the distribution network was changed to digital, with conversion to PAL at the premises, and it stopped containing any extras.

we currently got digital TV on SD and HD quality. Here digital TV was rushed out but teletext stood luckily. How it was rushed out? Well YLE demanded all go digital in 2008 and did not allow compromise like analog to digital converters to end users to increase sale of digiboxes. End result was most were forced stuck with pixelated glitchy broacasts and most got mad and cancelled their TV licences that later lead YLE turning TV licence into mandotary tax that everyone need to pay even if wont watch tv. Also dynamic services on tv (Multimedia home platform) flopped and now they try repeat same mistake with HBTV.

44 minutes ago, j7n said:

Browsing text on a television was uncomfortable because of small amount of cache memory. It could only remember a few pages besides the root page and the four chosen favorites. I had to wait a minute until the given page was transmitted again. Television receivers for a computer were nothing but a novelty and with poor reception quality.

I did not have that issue on Salora or Philips or Nokia CRT televisions I used to use and neither does my "new" (2011) samsung dumbtv. Also my TV tuner on pc seems handle Teletext just fine, but software does fetching. I guess it can be depent on broadcasting system.

47 minutes ago, j7n said:

A website containing the same volume of data as teletext, without script bloat and elaborate design would work quite well.

I would say we need both to have reducant system in emergency. TV broadcast can be kept up and teletext work if main transmitter is on without broadcast.

Last time when internet crashed here for day everyone were "omg we are going to die", most were unable to call, read news or listen radio (over internet) while I was also able read news on teletext, listen radio using FM reciever and call on my "bad" and "old" GSM phone since it did not use VOLTE or other VOIP protocol. I actually disable VOLTE from devices I work with to fix call drop issues.

On other hand internet may still be reachable it TV broadcast tower suffer bigger issues so that will work on that case.

Going all go over IP is horrible idea on crisis or emergencies. TV over IP, Radio  over IP, voice calls over IP, authorities communication over IP all in same network. They plan kill Virve radio network here to use 4G LTE from major teleoperator for communications (someone must have gotten new car from operator). Things like fire department, police, paramedics etc uses virve.

Imagine what will happen when all is put on single point on failure. On emergency nothing will work and whole country falls withing hours from internet failure

I am not saying those cannot be option but not only option since less options means bigger point of failure. But of course nobody ever listen common sense until it is too late

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I had a relatively recent Philips 21'' television from 1999, with extras such as stereo and nicam. When browsing text, it displayed a page counter. If the channel had more pages, the required one would take more time to come around. Of course teletext data is tiny for any PC, and it can save it all. For a TV tuner the inside of a PC is a hostile environment.

Do you have text on digital systems? I don't own a compatible television anymore and don't subscribe. I see that DVB offers a program guide, and I can read that without decoding the video (because it requires a new codec). The signal also seems to be more robust than text because I can receive it simply by touching the antenna connector. I do it to receive the current time.

I think that codecs are changing too quickly with digital broadcasting. The first generation TVs can't decode current broadcasts anymore. This had upset older people who depend on TV and don't want to use computers. Compare that with conventional TV, which stayed unchanged for decades, and remained compatible even when color systems changed. We have like 6 or 8 broadcast channels, and I think there is enough space in the decimeter band to fit them without the latest compression.

It doesn't make much sense to send broadcast over IP network because the same data needs to go to many listeners. It adds a variable delay, and makes it impossible to set the time. You can't have multiple radios playing simultaneously in different rooms. Digital drops out entirely when the signal is poor rather than reducing in quality.

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38 minutes ago, j7n said:

Do you have text on digital systems? I don't own a compatible television anymore and don't subscribe. I see that DVB offers a program guide, and I can read that without decoding the video (because it requires a new codec). The signal also seems to be more robust than text because I can receive it simply by touching the antenna connector. I do it to receive the current time.

We got text on DVB-T/DVB-T2/DVB-C. I took those screenshot from channels directly using my computer. I got few usb tuners for my computer and non smart tv TV from 2011 I got for free. Most of time TV serves use for console. Also here We got free over the air tv and free cable tv with around 14 free channels. But to be honest I rarely watch them other than watching news or read teletext. There is nothing but ads after ads after ads after ads expect on YLE which is funded by gov (good and bad thing).

Feels modern TV overall is made more for mass consooming of contect instead of having less but good quality contect. Makes me sad to think how awesome TV was back in day. There was actually end of broacast, channels had rememberable logos and jingles, TV news were actually better made and studio looked like nerve center.

Over time I guess I will pull more and more side from some technology-

38 minutes ago, j7n said:

I think that codecs are changing too quickly with digital broadcasting. The first generation TVs can't decode current broadcasts anymore. This had upset older people who depend on TV and don't want to use computers. Compare that with conventional TV, which stayed unchanged for decades, and remained compatible even when color systems changed. We have like 6 or 8 broadcast channels, and I think there is enough space in the decimeter band to fit them without the latest compression.

Here HD standard changed 3 times. First it was 720p, then all tv turned into 1080i and after it 1080p was final and before 1080p we had no HD channels. We had MPEG2 and H264 codecs in use and still got. I like SD broacasts with MPEG2 since less taxing for cpu. Lower quality works just fine for me.

Edited by Mr.Scienceman2000
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