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BBCi / Press Red

Name change? (August 2008)

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IS
Inspector Sands
r2ro posted:
I think the biggest problem with the interactive viewing is that it is far too slow. You press the Red Button, there's a jump in the programme, an information box pops up saying 'please wait' then anything up to a minute later the homepage will appear. Repeat this several times for every page and it soon becomes tedious.

I wonder if in the grand scheme of things if people actually bother with it. The biggest usage I can think of is where there is no alternative - such as the news multiscreen, multi-sport events like the Olympics and music festivals. Otherwise I can imagine people turning onto terrestial and using Ceefax for the fact that it's simpler, quicker and more informative.

If the Red Button could be quicker then I think it may take off a bit more, but I don't think this is possible due to bandwith problems.


It's not a bandwidth issue, it's the speed of the box to load the software needed to display the text which it needs to do first
PT
Put The Telly On
It's often annoying when I'm telling my folks to convert to digital (they still use the damn Ceefax service "as it's quicker") then it takes ages to load (both Sky+ and Freeview) and because you've pressed the button twice thinking the service isn't loading it goes off again.

Although my Sky+ loads quicker.
R2
r2ro
nok32uk posted:
It's often annoying when I'm telling my folks to convert to digital (they still use the damn Ceefax service "as it's quicker") then it takes ages to load (both Sky+ and Freeview) and because you've pressed the button twice thinking the service isn't loading it goes off again.

Although my Sky+ loads quicker.


The thing with Ceefax is that you can see the page numbers scrolling as it is getting the page you asked for. Also you can deselect and reselect the service as many times as you want whilst it is loading. The press red you don't know if it is still loading or has crashed.

I tried the red button again this morning and it took an average of ten seconds to load each page. Regardless of whether or not Ceefax is slower than this, Ceefax certainly seems faster and I'd rather use that than faff about with the red button.
MI
Michael
r2ro posted:
Also you can deselect and reselect the service as many times as you want whilst it is loading.


Only on some more modern TVs. On my parents portable if you press TV/TEXT it re-sets to P100 - so they opt for MIX.
BA
bilky asko
r2ro posted:
I think the biggest problem with the interactive viewing is that it is far too slow. You press the Red Button, there's a jump in the programme, an information box pops up saying 'please wait' then anything up to a minute later the homepage will appear. Repeat this several times for every page and it soon becomes tedious.

I wonder if in the grand scheme of things if people actually bother with it. The biggest usage I can think of is where there is no alternative - such as the news multiscreen, multi-sport events like the Olympics and music festivals. Otherwise I can imagine people turning onto terrestial and using Ceefax for the fact that it's simpler, quicker and more informative.

If the Red Button could be quicker then I think it may take off a bit more, but I don't think this is possible due to bandwith problems.


My Sky box crashes when you press red, but after a restart its fine - but still faster than one minute, despite it being 8 or 9 years old. My Freeview box takes 4 or 5 seconds and was a £20 cheapo Argos box. It even has a loading icon when a page loads.
BR
Brekkie
Notice this afternoon the "i" has disappeared off the Press RED prompt for the Olympics and it's now just an red button. The bridge though and service itself is still labelled BBCi.


So it looks like another brand that's established itself in the last few years is to be ditched for something far more unimaginative by the BBC - if they're still called the BBC that is. After all, that's a rather meaningless acronym isn't it!
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Still there on DSat. Well Sky anyway, might not be on FreeSat I guess.
NG
noggin Founding member
MHEG digital text can be nearly instant - as it is possible to pre-load the interactive application. (This is used by both Freeview and Freesat) Because OpenTV is a closed application - it only runs on Sky boxes - so it isn't possible to do much to spped this up.

Some PC MHEG implementations do this - as when you Press Red the menu appears almost before your finger has come off the button!
NW
nwtv2003
Brekkie posted:
Notice this afternoon the "i" has disappeared off the Press RED prompt for the Olympics and it's now just an red button. The bridge though and service itself is still labelled BBCi.


Noticed that this morning although we're still getting 'Press (i)' for the News programmes.

On Virgin they've still got the same PRESS RED promt they've had for years, but we've got a new one for the Olympics, that just has OLYMPICS with a red dot next to it.
SP
Spencer
Slightly o/t, but it does bug me (no pun intended) when broadcasters use footage from other channels with the press red DOG still showing on screen.

This is particularly noticeable at the moment on ITV and C4 news when they show Olympic footage from the BBC, with the Olympics Press Red bug on all reports.

Surely someone could set the 'Interactive Icon Timeout' to On on their Sky box (or disable the MHEG if they're using DTT).



Goodness. 4000 posts. Deary, deary me.
BR
Brekkie
Spencer For Hire posted:
Slightly o/t, but it does bug me (no pun intended) when broadcasters use footage from other channels with the press red DOG still showing on screen.

This is particularly noticeable at the moment on ITV and C4 news when they show Olympic footage from the BBC, with the Olympics Press Red bug on all reports.

Surely someone could set the 'Interactive Icon Timeout' to On on their Sky box (or disable the MHEG if they're using DTT).



That really irritates me too - it's not that difficult to do, and you'd thinkg for the purposes they use the pictures for they'd want as clean a picture as possible.

I do think though it's wrong the BBC leave the press red DOG on screen - I'm sure they used to fade out after 30 seconds or so.
NG
noggin Founding member
Brekkie posted:
Spencer For Hire posted:
Slightly o/t, but it does bug me (no pun intended) when broadcasters use footage from other channels with the press red DOG still showing on screen.

This is particularly noticeable at the moment on ITV and C4 news when they show Olympic footage from the BBC, with the Olympics Press Red bug on all reports.

Surely someone could set the 'Interactive Icon Timeout' to On on their Sky box (or disable the MHEG if they're using DTT).



That really irritates me too - it's not that difficult to do, and you'd thinkg for the purposes they use the pictures for they'd want as clean a picture as possible.

I do think though it's wrong the BBC leave the press red DOG on screen - I'm sure they used to fade out after 30 seconds or so.


If you want to get rid of the BBC dog on Freeview, press GREEN.

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