new ceefax slide

TBH I don't find BBCi that slow, well on Freeview anyway, I either Press Red or Text and takes a couple of seconds to load and I get the bar, if I do that on NTL, it can take up to the best part of a minute, and it brings up the old BBCi Bridge! Considering we have a bog standard el-cheapo Asda Freeview box, I'm impressed.

Teletext on ITV is another quick one on Freeview, I don't have any problem with this, though I was using at my friend's house once on his Sky box (on ITV2) and it took ages to load.

It's one of the reasons why no-one used Teletext when it was available on NTL, because it was very slow and very hidden.

Better with the slide than without. In the interactive digital age there is something to be appreciated about its simplicity, basic but clear.

I'm glad and somewhat surprised it's still going considering how digital is becoming ever more prominent.

I have no clue how soon it may end, or for that matter how long it may continue.

It all depends on your box, really. Until a few months ago, mine was a Nokia MediaMaster, but it broke down and I returned it to Currys. At this point the model was discontinued (but still under guarantee) so I had to settle for a cheaper Phillips model, with the difference refunded.

This box was a complete nightmare. Not only did it eff up my recording of 50 Years of ITV Westcountry (it couldn't handle 16:9 to 4:3 switching and stretched the picture off the screen) but the text was slower than British Rail. BBCi was OK but it took 20 minutes just to get the front page on ITV Teletext!

My patience finally ran out and I now have a Sony vertical box, the text on which is mostly quite fast.

I agree, I find that every new generation of DTT boxes can access digital text services quicker than the last; just like the introduction of (analogue) teletext decoders with things like 1000-page caches made teletext access (usually) quite fast.

I personally find BBCi incredibly slow and annyoing and so would use Ceefax just for the fact that it is much quicker and provides suitable information for the service. I think that BBCi needs a lot of improving before it is actually a decent service.

Didn't last long did it? The slide was only used at the start on Wednesday, then not at all this morning. Perhaps some jobsworth in Marketing noticed it had a retro Ceefax logo.

Bah, missed it. Did anyone get a screenshot of it?

As has been pointed out, the speed of the digital text services isn't so much down to the broadcasters (unlike VBI teletext), but down to the capabilities of you decoder.

I've a Thomson set-under (!) box, a Sagem box and a Nebula DigiTV PC card. For ITV Text services, the Sagem loads the index fastest, the Nebula the slowest. However, the Nebula is faster at 'turning the page' as it were. The Thomson box is slowest overall for initial access and then browsing.

Hear hear - you talk some sense!!!

I'm sure it will improve....but even if it doesn't - you will all have to get used to BBCi and all other digital text.....or even use the PC to access the information (since it is the same).

Keeping the likes of analogue-style Ceefax/Teletext going is like:

still running 405-line B&W TV
using an analogue mobile phone
running your home PC on Windows 3.0

'nuf said

The new holding slide was back in use this morning.

Screengrab?