Quote:
Originally posted by andy
I like the Zenith Digital system 3 sets. They are hard to work on because of their odd design and millions of plug in connectors, but they seem to be reliable. They're the only US sets I've seen that supports the European style teletext.
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My Zenith Sentry 2 has 2-mode teletext. I never saw it work, but I do know it's there. It is accessed (at least on my set) via the "captions" menu, which gives you four options: caption 1 and 2 and text 1 and 2. (My RCA XL-100 set in my living room also has dual-mode CC, but not teletext.) Caption 1 is, of course, standard closed caption; CC2 is now being used for Spanish-language closed captioning on certain network shows (Jay Leno's Tonight Show for one; David Letterman's Late Show could be another, and ABC World News Tonight may be captioned in Spanish on CC2--I do know the audio for WNT can be heard in Spanish via the SAP function on stereo TVs).
Personally, however, I don't think teletext ever caught on in this country. It may be a lot more popular in Europe than it is on our shores. Our answer to teletext seems to be closed captioning, but of course that doesn't even come close...or does it?
I don't think so. Teletext, what little I know about it, is (or was) a text-based video information service, encoded in the vertical blanking interval. I seem to remember, a few years ago, Atlanta's WTBS was experimenting with teletext (I tried to access some of their test programming using the teletext decoder in my Zenith TV, but saw nothing); however, whether the service was on the station's satellite feed for Superstation TBS, I don't know. Since I live in Ohio and, of course, only receive Superstation TBS (with TNT and 500+ other stations) on digital cable, I have not seen what, if anything, is being presented on the station's metro Atlanta terrestrial signal. My best guess at this point is that, if they were experimenting at all with teletext, it may have been strictly on a local basis, in the metro Atlanta area.
Teletext must have been an unqualified flop in this country, since Zenith/GoldStar no longer includes the teletext decoder in its new sets; there was no content on the service, at least not here in northeastern Ohio (all I ever got with the teletext decoder in my set switched on was a large black box covering much of the screen).
What gets me is this. If teletext was such a bomb here, why on earth did Zenith even bother putting the teletext decoder in sets made for the North American market? Seems to me they could have sold the sets a lot cheaper had they omitted the decoder, which of course was of no use to anyone in the United States. Did Zenith have a vision some years back that teletext might eventually catch on, as an information service (video newspaper or newsmagazine, etc.) or even an emergency alert service?
