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ceefax - good or not?

(January 2005)

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DV
dvboy
russnet posted:
I might as well pop this in here rather than creating a new thread. Here in the East. If I go to P603 on Ceefax, one of the fastext options says "Redirect" which is on the yellow button. If you press it, the fastext link takes you to P590 but after several spins around the 500s, ultimately it gets no where. Persuambly as there is no page 590. Does the page actually exist on any other of the BBC regions?


Same here on the Yorkshire version. My guess is that the yellow button used to go to 590 anyway but whatever was there has been removed and now the button says Redirect as an instruction (to Ceefax staff) because it has nowhere to point to.
DB
dbl
I would prefer analouge teletext to digital. I feel that you get more features on it like flight arrivals and departures, news, sport, tv guide, and games on Channel 4 Razz
I don't like the look and feel of digital teletext on the other hand the you can see the telly!

Result: Analouge
MB
Mark Boulton
I used to be a traditionalist where Teletext was concerned, and for some things I still am, but I must admit since upgrading from a tardy Nokia Mediamaster box to a Humax PVR (and possibly better programming from the BBC and TT) I've found navigation much speedier - almost instant nearly all the time.

I also like the re-introduction of page numbers which, even for those who don't find them easier than menu navigation, must realise that this gives programmes and trailers a direct link to quote - just like the old days of, "for more information, see Ceefax p612". Now, the same thing can be done with BBCi. Except very often they still don't - a programme will direct you to look at BBCi, but you have to look for the relevant page yourself - a bit like saying, you'll find our web page, "on the internet".

OK, so it's not too hard to search, but having a direct page number is far more user-friendly and, if the feature exists, it may as well be used.

Content wise, BBCi still lags slightly behind Ceefax, but it is catching up.
MB
Mark Boulton
Oooo... on the subject, if any DTT BBCi editors are looking in - could we please have TABULATED results sheets in the Tennis section of the BBC SPORT pages?

It should be fairly straightforward to make the BBCi score pages look like the broadcast score sheets (i.e. as seen in the TV coverage).

For those of you who don't know, the results are currently listed in plain text, without even differences in colour to highlight them, and whereas the names are padded out (tabulated), the scores themselves are scrunched up in a single line text list, left aligned, underneath. Then the next set of players' names appear in the paragraph directly below. All very hard to read - especially on a TV set. Looks to me like it is formatted for the fixed-width font of Ceefax, but doesn't work in the proportional font used on Digital Text.

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