BBC News Interactive

C@t I don't know when you were watching, but Sky totally missed the Byers announcment on Terminal5 because they were on an add break at the time. They joined the commons about two minutes after the announcment.

News24 carried commons from the start of the statment for about 15 minutes and then pulled out, pointing viewers to the interactive service., although it would have made much more sence to point people to BBC Parliment to get full screen coverage

>> An age? My dear child, it takes less and half a second on my screen. Are you using an Amstrad processor? I do find that BBC Text takes longer to load on my digibox than Sky News Active. <<

The main point about slowness was the scolling etc. It takes about a second to get to the next item on the lists of articles, change video feed et. on NA, while BBC Text / News Interactive the change is instantaneous. The scrolling on SNA is stupid. Read teh first page. Then you have to spend ages while the very jerky scroll effect to get to the rest of the text. On BBC Text it uses pages, and it goes instantaneusly.

I dont know about page / service loading speeds though, I dont go around with a stopwatch...

BTW I use a Grundig box. I have no idea who makes the processor.

>> I don't... ever tried to read a book and watch the TV at the same time? Don't make me laugh, it doesn't work.
Sky runs two seperate services because that's what it wants to offer. As you say, you rarely look at the two services and so cannot make a decent comparison. <<

>> Agreed, this has always p*ssed me off about SNA, and no doubt if and when they do redesign it (they're going to eventually!) it will allow this to happen. <<

I'm not sure, but are you contradicting yourself a bit (like me with the fact I cant decide how much I use Sky Text / News Active). You dont think its useful to be able to watch TV when browsing text, yet you want SNA to implement a feature so you can have a choice of channels to watch while browsing text...

>> You're obviously thick then. It's not hard to remember a set of three numbers.
BTW, the Teletext index is 101. <<

No, I'm just a bit forgetful. I have trouble putting names to faces as well.

>> So you do use Sky News Active, or you don't use Sky News Active? I rarely watch the video bulletins anyway, I tend to use the text services. <<

I've only ever used Sky News to go 'coo' (and 'god this text thingy is slow' (esp. now compared to BBC Text). I tried watching a couple of the bullitins, but I found them too long.

>> Does he have a temple now? God, and to think I wasn't invited to the housewarming. <<

I gather it was a rarther exclusive do - Hitler, Stalin (wouldnt stay in the same room together though), Lucifer, Cromwell, Richard III, Count Dracula, Davros, the Wicked Witch of the West, Bill Gates, the bogeyman etc.

>> It is not at all the case that everything anyone else does is 'crud'. It is merely the case that Sky News do things better than any other news channel. I have great respect for things like Five Live, Despatch Box on BBC2, and the World Service. But they've had since 1997 to work out that News 24 should not be an hour long 6 o'clock news, and it still hasn't sunk in. <<

Not all news channels have to be the same. I quite like the News 24 format, but thats my personal view.

i think i speak for eveyone when i say


STOP BLOODY WHINGING FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.


Ahem, so how's BBC News Interactive faring now it's a few days old?

(Edited by Hymagumba at 7:46 pm on Nov. 23, 2001)

Not bad actually - they did a good interactive debate on the Footy strike yesterday. They used Mary Rhodes who fronts some of the News 24 sports bulletins so I guess everyone will have a go on it at some point. I'd like to see what Paxo makes of that - not being able to ask his own questions 17 times!

Is it me or does the noise on the sting between the weather forecasts sound like someone frying chips? I know it's meant to be rain, but it makes me hungry every time I hear it.

BTW - Pete Davis' reply on Murdoch's temple had me in fits - well said that man!!!!

I saw a bit of the football forum - I noiced they used the Liquid News set, which seems to get a lot of use...

BTW sorry if I was whining...

Don't you just LOVE it when C@t gets up on his high horse We've missed it.

Couple of quickies for ya ... not wanting to get into a repost arguement!!

BBCi is MUCH faster on both my Digiboxes ... SNA is quite slow in places, especially when the scrolling stop for no reason whatsoever.

Did you know, the news heads and sport feeds along with the Live Plus feed are going to be shared with News Online?

Did you know in the new year they are going to become less reliant on Ceefax, and start sharing longer versions of news stories (with graphics I hear) from News Online?

Looks to me like someone has a very distinct advantage over SNA But then, as C@t will tell you I am well and truely bias.

BBCi is on Sky Digital has only really started in development terms, they're doing a whole load of cool stuff soon !

By the way, C@t ...

'My dear boy' ??

You're back to being patronising again

I hope you're wrong - trying to read a News Online story on thetelly is simply the pits (almost as bad as reading one on SNA, know what I mean c@t? ).
I wouldn't mind if they used some of the online special stuff such as the clickable picture guides, but just using text would be horrible on a TV, and very difficult to read.
I have to agree with you though, launching with four video windows and linking to text seems a tad light. The fact that they're simulcasting the News Online forums (which is very clever) seems to point to a tie up with News Online - so I wonder whether this is just a 'starter' version with the video and that they're planning further developments in the New Year.
If what c@t says is true about SNA, I wonder if this means they could go to eight windows as well?

They are going to use more News Online stuff - it's a fact ...

It'll be easier than SNA - I tend to find the problem with reading long texts there is the scrolling screws up. There's stuff up on BBCi that's 10 odd pages in places, which I find perfectly fine to read.

That guy was me, yeah that BBC World ad said they'll be providing enhanced coverage as they put it, infact it tuened out to be the European Breakfast service and what they meant really was more business and sport, not interactive!