BBC: What's 888? & What's with the Clock Shown All the T

First, I live in Istanbul, Turkey and subscribe to 2
different networks. KabloNet is an analogue service
which gives me access to 888 subtitles on BBC Prime.

I also subscribe to a digital network (Digiturk) which
doesn't supply a subtitle facility, but the quality of
picture and sound is much better.

I have found that it is possible to see the Kablonet
subtitles while watching the Digiturk picture.

This is great! However there is one problem, which I
think it should be possible to solve. The subtitles
start at the top of the page and slowly scroll around
the page horizontally.

If you come up with a trick which enables me to control the position of the
subtitles on the screen I'd be really grateful.

Two further points:
1. Digiturk uses a SCART connection to the TV
2. Kablonet (subtitles) uses the normal aerial
connection.

Sorry, a bit slow on the uptake, but I've just come across this:



It's not an edit of the LIVE bug, but is generated by a similar box. The reason it's the shape it is, is that the WT Astons were based on the English Regions package aligned for 14:9 LB, but of course Wales Today went 16:9 at the same time as TVC in 2000. This means that the alignments and aspect ratios aren't quite correct, so the red box which the clock sits in is slightly elongated. Of course it also has to match the LIVE bug, because the two go one above the other if there's a live piece into a breakfast bulletin. Both are generated by Miranda bugboxes, but the TVC clocks are, as far as I know, still generated by the Miles M44 clock boxes which used to generate the BBC One/Two in-vision clocks as well.

Incidentally, the Miles box has a function called 'Boing' to simulate the slight wobble of the second hand on the old mechanical clocks!

Teletext is different to the teldon though, as you only need a decoder in the TV to get it, not a phone line or anything.

I dont know if you understand how it worked, so just in case heres a one line answer!

Basically the first few lines of the television signal were changed to computer code, when a teletext compatable tv reads the code, it turns into the page of text. It can only send one page at a time, so when you selected a page, you have to wait for it to come back round again.

Teletext (or Ceefax on BBC) is stil better than the vast majority of digital news services, which are actually slower than this 25 year old technology!

888 is part of teletext, it places pre-captioned text over the programme, so the deaf can understand what is going on. The number 888 is used on all channels as a standard 'caption' number.

More recently, live broadcasts are also able to go out on 888, with text being typed using a special machine.

They've been doing this for years on the news! It's not a recent thing at all!

IIRC they were first used on the Pope's visit to England back in 1982. Blue Peter (ref) was the world's first live programme to be subtitled - but obviously scripted.

Edit...

Umm, a bit of research later and it seems that ORACLE had live subtitles for Charles & Diana's wedding in 1981 (ref)