[Technologist]

The Whole concept of Additional services Like Ceefax/Oracle/Teletext Ltd and Datacast etc
and Anciliary services like Subtitles PDC and "this channel Programme listings" and related material (Synopses Recepies etc) (Plus AD etc)
was very powerful division of what was going on in the VBI.
(and subdivisions on the text services News, Sport , fuller Listings , informational , Advertsing etc)
In Simple terms
Anciliary services could be put on line pairs close to the Active Picture
and thus could be passed through the playout and distribution system with the picture.
the BBC passed through Line 20/333 Subtitles 21/334 One line ITS, 22/335 Notionally empty
Commercial PSB used 335 for subtitles and had 22 and I think 21/334 for the "mag6" Anc Text.
With Teletext LTd inserting at the Transmitters the itv companies only had Limited teletext kit may be just subtitles....

so When Teletext Ltd stopped transmitting those Itv companies without Ancilliary Text
lost all their subtitles being received ... (And thus were in breach which did not impress OFCOM)
as ALL TV sets cannot decode Intermittent Teletext (and thus are non complient with EN 300 706)......
Much panic with the engineers having to get something done (But Teletext Ltd did help)
and the Lawyers on how something that was being transmitted could not be recieved
- so the Station output extend beyond when the signal left the Building and relied on others with whom itv/Ch4 had no relationship (They also got a quick lesson on DVB SI)
..... much assistance from BBC - who had seen this one coming!

[Stooky Bill]

No, unsurprisingly no one recorded and kept GMTV!

There are some Westcountry pages with a 640 GMTV section. Maybe they were Intelfax production later on but originally they looked very different to the others and had no Intelfax credit



The Teletext Archive has some grabs of the holding pages for the Ancillary Service as it was at the start of 1993

www.teletextarchive.com 

Details - Teletext Archive
The Teletext Archive Home Services About Contact Register Login Carlton, Monday …
  Source: www.teletextarchive.com

And then used to apologise for the subtitling teething issues happening at the time. In 1993 the broadcasters took them over from Oracle

www.teletextarchive.com 

Details - Teletext Archive
The Teletext Archive Home Services About Contact Register Login STV, Sunday 10 J…
  Source: www.teletextarchive.com

[WillPS]

No, unsurprisingly no one recorded and kept GMTV!

There's loads of off air recordings on YouTube, and I bet there's loads of taped Power Rangers etc still (possibly some in my parents loft!), just no tapes donated it seems.

They do have some TV-am ones though, which you'd expect would be harder to come by.

[Technologist]

Certainly when ANC services started West Country was a DIY rather than Intelfax service....
I cannot remember if they were using MRG (TeD) or Softel Orgination kit.
A simple say under 200 page service was easy to maintain on just one PC ....
with the data insterter also holding the service - so you could read back if PC failed.
More complex Multi terminal/PC sytesm were from VG/Sysmedia or Softel

[JexedBack]

Come 1993 ITV Network Centre was responsible for the channel.
Did anything change for playout? For example did Granada have a line booking for transmitting Coronation Street, or was there a centralised distribution centre, a clean feed for regions to opt in and out of?

[Bluecortina]

Yes that was the 'Ancillary Teletext Service' on P600-699 as I say it was only allowed to have programme related content so not to compete with Teletext Ltd.

London's didn't start till late on, possibly September 1993, it changed between LWT, Carlton and GMTV. As I mentioned, Westcountry's was up and running a lot earlier, there's was done in house I think. Most regions including London was done by Intelfax, a stones throw away from TLS in Lower Marsh


The London news, travel, adverts etc were Teletext Ltds thing, they came from Fulham and I settled at Crystal Palace

I don't recall the London local teletext service starting other than day one? I can clearly see in my minds eye the equipment bays with the kit in it, I sometimes very rarely see the projects engineer who installed it all and I can ask it but it may be a very long while. Do you have any more info on that start date?

---

Come 1993 ITV Network Centre was responsible for the channel.
Did anything change for playout? For example did Granada have a line booking for transmitting Coronation Street, or was there a centralised distribution centre, a clean feed for regions to opt in and out of?

At the start of 1993 nothing changed at all with regards to the physical routing of network programming. Network switching became the responsibility of LNN TX - but all circuits still went via the TLS Lines area.

[Rdd]

ITV Network Centre, in its original incarnation, was primarily responsible for planning and scheduling the network schedule - it wasn’t a broadcaster in its own right, its role was to support the work of the ITV Director of Programmes. The name was a bit of a misnomer in that regard.

Changes in play out did occur in the 1990s but this had little to do with the Network Centre - but more to do with mergers and the merged groups centralising play out and continuity.

Afaik there wasn’t a proper “network feed” of ITV, other than overnights, until the centralisation of continuity for England and Wales in 2002 and there wasn’t a clean feed until much later - as recent as 2012.

[Bluecortina]

My understanding is that at the regional centres their presentation area was switched out of line during GMTV and the signal path went through their news gallery.

If so my guess would be that the teletext for each company was added before that switch and GMTVs passed through the gallery. Therefore the teletext service broadcast just followed which was on air.

The main Teletext Ltd service didn't care which company was on air as it was added right at the last point of the TX chain

Pre 1993 national teletext was bridged across from the incoming network circuits to the outgoing circuits with additional lines added if required by the inserters, plus ITS. Teletext/ITS etc would be stripped off before being fed to the internal distribution within a tv centre. Post 1993 it would be the same but obviously just the local teletext service including subtitling etc.

[Stooky Bill]

I don't recall the London local teletext service starting other than day one? I can clearly see in my minds eye the equipment bays with the kit in it, I sometimes very rarely see the projects engineer who installed it all and I can ask it but it may be a very long while. Do you have any more info on that start date?

The kit would have been there from day one, it would have been needed for subtitles. However the content was a long way off, possibly as late as September.

Teletext Archive has this capture of Carlton's local magazine from 4/1/93. The same page appeared in other regions hence the ITV+ naming. Looking at the page list of the capture the same thing appeared on all the pages p600 to 699

www.teletextarchive.com 

Details - Teletext Archive
The Teletext Archive Home Services About Contact Register Login Carlton, Monday …
  Source: www.teletextarchive.com

[TesTVWhirl]

The ITV+ test pages (already complete with the references to P600-698 where they would eventually be going) were even present prior to the 1993 switchover while Oracle were still on air. They were just hidden away on a completely different number prior to things swapping round in January.

From 24/12/1992 (courtesy of TV Whirl)
www.tvwhirl.co.uk