C4 Drops Red Button Service

Ceefax is FAR superior to pushing red buttons, going through menus, waiting for it all to load and having the text squished into a single column.

When red button technology progresses enough to when red button content is easier, faster and more accessable than Ceefax, only then should Ceefax be removed from digital services.

BBCi is just an expensive gimmick. I wouldn't care normally, but then I'm legally required to help fund the BBC through it's wholly unfair tax.

Channel 4 have made an excellent decision. Teletext and Ceefax are far better than anything this gimmicky digital nonsense has to offer in terms of textual information on demand.

Don't agree with you there/

Ceefax and Teletext are the products of their time. They're dated and uneffective.

You have to wait for pages to cycle around, there's no decent images (like weather maps).

Yes, BBCi can be a bit slow but it is improving. The next gen teletext (on ITV and C4) is fantastic.

And they are copying the Sky model which is spot on. If you want interactive stuff you press red and if you want teletext you press text on the Sky remote. The BBC tried to do something different and are starting to realise that the Sky format works perfectly. It's only recently that they used the text numbers on Ceefax on BBCi. Sky said that this was easier for users but the BBC initially didn't want to do that. The BBC and ITV services could still improve because with Digital Sky text uses the same numbers as analogue Sky text; and everything you get on the analogue service is on the digital service. With the BBC you don't get all of the Ceefax services, if they bring these over it'll be perfect. It would also help if they could go full screen like you can with Sky interactive.

I personally think Sky One have got the best interactive offering at the moment - I can remember them having a 24 interactive thing when the last series was on and it was excellent. They should be used like this - providing trailers, teasers and extra info, instead of games you have to pay for and rubbish like betting which I can't imagine many people use. This is the main problem - they are more-often-than-not used merely as a way of making money, rather than offering something viewers genuinely would want to access.

Exactly - Who Wants to Be A Millionaire is another example of this. A free interactive play along game on a commercial channel which is funded by an advert which remains on screen throughout the game.

Anybody remember the Chicken Run interactive service over christmas on BBC 1 a couple of years ago - it had behind the scenes and extras (much like a DVD) another good example of giving viewers something they'll want to use.

I don't think that Sky Active (on the interactive button) is all that great anymore. Far too clunky in my opinion and too much rubbish on it. As a result it seems a bit slow.

Do people really want 16 mini-screens as a menu? In my opinion no, it certainly offends my eyes seeing so many little squares all doing different things!

It was much better in the days of Open.... when there was one quarter screen and a menu down the left. Things have come along a long way since then, and some of the services on Sky are excellent. Why can't they go back to a simpler model with these new services rather than an interactive video magazine with Brian Dowling presenting?


EDIT: Just thinking about extra services - ITV has recently launched a Corrie interactive service - another excellent offering (for those who like the soap) - a behind the scenes, catch up and preview video loop, some text news, and a couple of pay to play games to pay towards it. Excellent.

Sky Text and Teletext have made the change to digital text much better than Ceefax. The BBCi Text service is unneccesarily clunky and could be alot easier to navigate if they used the standard numbering system rather than just numbering the indexes, or giving strange 4 digit numbers to sections.


Have to say I've noticed Teletext on ITV now has an interactive Suduko puzzle on p841 - that could get quite addictive!

STILL upset about that BBC job, I see

Off topic I know, but there's no point opening a new thread; noticed in he past few days that C4 have started using the theme from the bowling ident on their menus. How long has his been in effect?