BBC News Interactive

And now NTL and Telewest have formed a partnership to develop Interactive services, it shouldn't be that long.

So it is just an upgrade that's stopping us getting it?

BTW: Does this UK Press Gazzette have a website?

To reply to MikeG first - yes the UK Press Gazette does have a website at http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/, although the article I saw was in the hard copy version.

And so to c@t:

'You can't tell me you've not read about Murdoch's disasters with the internet and BIB, can you?'

Yes, and the on-going row over Hughes and Echostar - disasters cost money which means $200m less to spend on programmes - exactly the opposite of what Dyke has been doing. Everyone at Sky News Active recently had to reapply for our own jobs, and that doesn't happen when expansion in on the cards.

'May I inform you of the fact that this has been in the pipeline for about 7 months now, and that according to Sky they've already developed the technology to supply News Active with 8 screens.'

Indeed - it's called animorphic stretching and they've already done it with Movies Active - the only problem is that even with the best source material, i.e. film, it still degrades the quality too much, so with ENG pictures I suspect the quality is pretty awful. Also just because it's 'in the pipeline' doesn't mean it will happen - a new series of 'Doctor Who' has been 'in the pipeline' for months according to the press, but it still ain't happened.

'If you'd bothered to read the blurb at the launch of News Active....'

I did, and it was out of date before it was released, and a right load of old PR tosh it was too. If you believe that, you believe anything.

I stated: '...News Active can't carry advertising, and is therefore a loss leader for News Corp.'
C@t, you said: 'Yes it can, and yes it will - according to a tech director I spoke to a few months ago.'

The advertising standards authority require all video ads to be run full screen, hence the lack of ads when Sky News is running in the quarter-screen alongside text. That only leaves banner ads, and the whole thing was so badly designed, there was no room left for them. Had News active been able to take ads, it would have done so from day one, as ITV Teletext did when it launched three months before News Active. (PS: On top of this a lot can changein a day, never mind a few months)

'But my point remains - for the time being it will NOT be on cable.'

But at least it's possible - Sky News Active doesn't seem to stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting on cable, and they've had 15 months to sort it out. See my post to MikeG below.

'You can do impressive, simple and practical. I've never found News Active to be anything other than any of those three.'

Beauty is in the eye, etc......and we'll have to agree to disagree there. I find Sky News active a pain to use, shallow and distractive.

'From what I understand, Sky operate many different channels on many different transponders. Therefore, it would be impossible for Sky to allow you to view a channel at the same time as the text service'

According to www.lyngsat.com, the BBC operate on three different transponders, yet they seem to be able to manage it, and it's not their satellite - how come it's so difficult for Sky to get it right?

'[Sky Election Active] was highly acclaimed by most people, The Guardian described it as 'amazing' if my memory serves me correctly. You've sort of ruined your own point here. You say that you shouldn't need special redesigns if the services is practical and flexible, yet go on to say how BBC Text was changed for election night. As BBC News Interactive is modelled on BBC Text it must mean that neither are simple, easy to read and flexible.'

You've missed the point - The BBC election Interactive service was also based on BBC Text, but from what I;ve seen, it had enhancements that used the same basic design - which proves it's flexibility, and BBC Text's ability to host bespoke services - so rather than contradicting myself, I was confirming my own view.
As for the Guardian using the word 'amazing' - your memory does serve you correct, but they were actually talking about the BBC's Wimbledon Interactive service. Again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I happened to think Sky's election active was shallower than the normal New Active and almost as ugly as Adam Boulton.


(Edited by burblebrox at 8:50 pm on Nov. 11, 2001)

On this subject, I think I should be the one who should be complaining the most - cable does get the run of the mill but I'm not. Now I know that I will get it (things do take time) that makes me happy. OK, Sky gets it first but at least when the coalition between NTL and Telewest's interactive services go through, I will get the same as the rest.

Afterall, Sky has a much larger viewership than cable and better capabilities (at present) for such a service.

I'm not bitter anymore - at least I'll be able to appreciate the presentation for the time being.

Good to see you mellow about this MikeG - apparently, according to advanced-television.com (http://www.advanced-television.com/pages/pagesb/inact2.html) it's all to do with the release of Liberate 1.2 which will alllow the cable companies to run the same kind of interactive applications that can already be done on the 'Open...' platform on Sky. Looks like it'll be early next year, so you shouldn't have much longer to wait - assuming the cable cos can get this release of Liberate to work with all the set-top boxes!!!!

BBC Text: It doesnt have the view other channels option on BBC 2 Wales / Scotland / N. Ireland, which are on differnt transponders to the Network services. They could have a switch to the BBC 1 in the appropiate regions, but that would break for people outside of the area becuase of encryption.

BBC News active is on the BBC Sport Interactive transponder, so I dont think it'll be in the normal BBCi Text service (well, they could swap BBC 1 Northern Ireland to somewhere else to fit the mosaic into the normal service). Which is a pity, although its not that bad if you still get to the normal BBC Text content while watching the feeds.

Sky News Active was awful to use the last time I looked (why the scolling text - the pages system on Sky Text / BBCi Text is better). Dunno about the video content.

Content: Personally I think they should have 'News' 'Sport / Business / Entertainment' (3ish minutes each, in a loop - a few seconds between each to say 'Next - Sport, in 3 minutes - Business' sorta thing, coll BBC News music ), 'Weather' and 'News Plus' on BBC News Interactive, but thats just me. Although News Plus does sound like well get stuff like World News, Business and Entertainment on it, which would be nice.

I heard a long time back that they were going to launch a BBC WORLD interactive service at the same time, someone said on the forum that they had seen an advert on world advetising this new service. I havent heard anything more of it. And why is there no business, it seemed to be getting a much higher profile on news 24?

Quote: from burblebrox on 10:45 pm on Nov. 10, 2001

>Yes, and the on-going row over Hughes and Echostar - disasters cost money which means $200m less to spend on programmes - exactly the opposite of what Dyke has been doing. Everyone at Sky News Active recently had to reapply for our own jobs, and that doesn't happen when expansion in on the cards.

There was a big shakeup at Sky recently, what with the business unit going and feature programming being axed. Yet they still expanded and took on new hacks...
Dyke has been cutting costs... you simply can not argue with that.

>Indeed - it's called animorphic stretching and they've already done it with Movies Active - the only problem is that even with the best source material, i.e. film, it still degrades the quality too much, so with ENG pictures I suspect the quality is pretty awful. Also just because it's 'in the pipeline' doesn't mean it will happen - a new series of 'Doctor Who' has been 'in the pipeline' for months according to the press, but it still ain't happened.

Well, like I said, they've already done it with News Active - it's obviously been tested. It was obviously deemed good enough quality for them to issue a press release about it.

>I did, and it was out of date before it was released, and a right load of old PR tosh it was too. If you believe that, you believe anything.

I believe my eyes... Sky News Active - as the PR stated - was designed in a similar fashion to the website, I hardly think that's tosh.

>The advertising standards authority require all video ads to be run full screen, hence the lack of ads when Sky News is running in the quarter-screen alongside text. That only leaves banner ads, and the whole thing was so badly designed, there was no room left for them. Had News active been able to take ads, it would have done so from day one, as ITV Teletext did when it launched three months before News Active. (PS: On top of this a lot can changein a day, never mind a few months)

So why are Bloomberg and CNBC still in business? I've never seen a full screen ad on Bloomberg, I've never seen a full screen ad on Sky Sports on a Saturday afternoon either...

>But at least it's possible - Sky News Active doesn't seem to stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting on cable, and they've had 15 months to sort it out.

As Sky News isn't as widely available on cable as News 24, I doubt Sky will want to invest in putting it on. They haven't bothered with Sky Text and that isn't badly designed.

>Beauty is in the eye, etc......and we'll have to agree to disagree there. I find Sky News active a pain to use, shallow and distractive.

You sound like yet another person with a hatred for anything created by Sky.

>According to www.lyngsat.com, the BBC operate on three different transponders, yet they seem to be able to manage it, and it's not their satellite - how come it's so difficult for Sky to get it right?

I think someone has addressed with in another post.

>You've missed the point - The BBC election Interactive service was also based on BBC Text, but from what I;ve seen, it had enhancements that used the same basic design - which proves it's flexibility, and BBC Text's ability to host bespoke services - so rather than contradicting myself, I was confirming my own view.
As for the Guardian using the word 'amazing' - your memory does serve you correct, but they were actually talking about the BBC's Wimbledon Interactive service. Again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I happened to think Sky's election active  was shallower than the normal New Active and almost as ugly as Adam Boulton.

And I don't think BBC Text is particularly flexible. They copied Sky for god's sake, by adding an election section to their text service. Sky's election service was excellent. If two speeches were taking place at the same time there was an aston put up telling you that you could watch the other one on Sky News Active, very practical and clever idea. What did the BBC do? Took the Labour speech, d'uh!

No, the Guardian described Sky News' coverage as 'Amazing'. I'll find the article if you're going to be that petty about it.

Adam Boulton just happens to be the best political editor in the country, the fact that he isn't the most attractive man alive doesn't have anything to do with it. Leave him alone.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'shallow', I found it impressive and I know that practically everyone on here found it really impressive because they said so in the special Election Forum.




(Edited by c@t at 5:18 pm on Nov. 18, 2001)

C@t ... nice to see you back in your arguementative form again Love it!

Couple of quick points.

Dyke has been cutting costs - but not from programming. It's mostly gone from admin. I for one -- working in English Regions -- have seen an amazing transformation on cash attitudes of recent.



Wierd one this, isn't it? I always thought they couldn't run the ads because of the news content on screen at the time. If you notice, Teletext's news pages do not have adverts.



Hang on! BBC Text was around on DTT BEFORE Sky Text, so how did they copy them?



Yup - Sky were damned good during the election. I do like Adam Boulton. Gets some fine stories.

sorry, some of the quote bits are munged there. I'm sure you can work out what's what.

i thought BBC News Interactive launches today?
Am I wrong?

PS - BBC TWO new look is horrid!

I saw a BBC Two ad on BBC News 24 and the info of when it was on was behind the clock!

Surely they must have thought about the positioning of the writing when the ads are to be shown on News 24! Or is the clock moving to another side?

My thought - although it'll never happen:

The time maybe bottom right with the BBC News 24 Logo below it in a purple background?(and the purple aston goes underneath it and the clock could go in the 'subject' aston)

Well its been linked from the BBC Text blue menu (as Latest in Video) since shortly after 6am, but haven't seen the press red graphics yet.

It seems to load quite quickly, but you still have to have a blue interactive BBCi holding screen between BBC text and the service itself.

Nice 90-second trail on option 4, Live Plus, and I've just been watching the News and Sport on demand bulletins, which seem to be about 3 minutes long each.

I reckon I'm most likely to use it for sport, weather and live plus rather than news, simply because there is so much news otherwise available. Looks nice though.

William