The end of Pages from Ceefax

Felt this deserved a thread of its own.

From the Ulster DSO thread:


The above link reveals this:


So, special continuity or anything?

I'm starting a new thread because James Vertigan posted this in a thread about Ulster Television for some reason.

The 'some reason' would be the end of analogue television in the UK (and therefore the end of Ceefax) i.e. DSO which happens next week in the Ulster/BBC NI area.

Looks like the first non-Ceefax gap in programmes is night of Thu 25th/early hours of Fri 26th, there's a 35 minute gap between BBC News ending and Learning Zone beginning. In the Freeview HD app it's labelled "This Is BBC Two" whereas night of Sun 21st/early hours of Mon 22nd still "Pages from Ceefax", so the end does indeed appear to be nigh (no surprise there obviously).

The first "This is BBC Two" barker will be at around 3:30am on Thursday night/Friday moring, if you're wondering. Think the plan is to have something a little like the BBC HD preview.

Posts from The end of Ceefax? have been merged into this topic.

Will BBC 1 still simulcast the BBC News Channel, now that every household in the UK is now able to receive the latter ?

Yes, as will BBC Two when it's not on BBC One, just as it's been for a few years now. The news channel is the main overnight filler for both channels, BBC Two would then go to Ceefax (and now the barker) whenever both channels were in downtime so you don't have the same thing on both (well, all three) channels.

Having the same thing on three channels would in any case seriously affect the stat muxing on DTT.

I still think it's pointless, simulcasting anything. I my opinion BBC 1 and 2 should simply show a static (aka non bandwidth wasting) caption after closedown saying 'Back at 6am'. Or even a giant Red Button that transports the viewer to the News Channel. Foreign PSBs don't ponce about overnight, in the same way the Beeb do.

Here's a novel idea... Why don't they just go back to showing the test card overnight?

Given time, I expect the quantity of Signed material will increase, Ofcom have ideas of doing this, Allocating 5.5 hours overnight nominally on BBC ONE would solve that, enabling the simulcast of BBC News to run on BBC TWO overnight exclusively.

There is also the possibility that when DQF is implemented, some adult BBC FOUR material might be rebroadcast on BBC TWO post midnight to enable it's HD transmission.

Surely any simulcast of the News Channel would be dropped once everyone's switched to digital - they'll already have it in the EPG!