Ceefax?

Posted by: tman

Ceefax? - 23/09/2004 11:48

One for the UK people but anybody actually use Ceefax? Apparently it is it's 30th birthday today.
Posted by: Cris

Re: Ceefax? - 23/09/2004 11:58

I use it all the time, page 606 or 120 on ITV for Now and Next is the best thing for seeing what is coming up on the 5 standard channels.

No good of course if I'm watching freeview via the Tivo, whih has just broken

Cheers

Cris.
Posted by: Roger

Re: Ceefax? - 23/09/2004 12:30

Quote:
I use it all the time, page 606 or 120


Yeah, 606 is about all I use it for.

Anything else, I just wander into the spare room to use the Internet, or (for more pressing things, like arguments that can only be settled with IMDB) I grab the laptop and use the WiFi.
Posted by: furtive

Re: Ceefax? - 23/09/2004 13:26

Haven't used it since I got Sky Digital a few years ago. I didn't know you could still get it
Posted by: andy

Re: Ceefax? - 23/09/2004 14:19

Oddly there is more Ceefax on Sky Digital that just about anywhere else. Quite a few Sky Digital channels transmit Ceefax signals in their broadcasts.
Posted by: andym

Re: Ceefax? - 23/09/2004 15:22

Yup 606 and 120 and occasionally 888 when somebody's on the phone. I also sometimes read the news in bed too.
Posted by: drakino

Re: Ceefax? - 23/09/2004 16:25

Seeing teletext used while I was over in Europe this past summer made me really wonder why it never made it to the US. It seemed really handy for all kinds of things, like watching the football score of multiple games at once.

Just another thing we brought over in an incomplete form I guess. Along with the concept of just one cell phone frequency standard and RDS. *sigh*
Posted by: andym

Re: Ceefax? - 24/09/2004 07:26

I'm sure one reason it never made it in the US was the lack of an adequate number of spare lines in the 525 NTSC signal. Mindyou, you guys are certainly making use of the technology, closed captioning seems to make use the VBI, or at least it did on the badly aligned TV i watched in my NY hotel room a couple of years ago.
Posted by: schofiel

Re: Ceefax? - 24/09/2004 16:43

All the time over here - 601 and 602 for BBC times. My Dad and brother use it all the time (301) for football news. Over here it's pretty truncated now, but still useful.

Happy Birthday, Ceefax!