Teletext, Television New Zealand’s new information service for disabled and general users, will be introduced on February 1.
It has cost about $1 million to set up and was funded by Television New Zealand and Rehabilitation International, an umbrella organisation for disabled groups. Part of the money for the service came from the Telethon held in 1981, the International Year of Disabled Persons.
During the next few weeks, staff at the Teletext newsroom in Christchurch, where the national service is based, will test and learn how to run the computerised system.
Television viewers who fit a Teletext decoder to their sets will be able to receive the new service free of charge.
The editor of Teletext in Christchurch, Mr Stephen Quinn, said about 700 people already had decoders. By the end of the year, it was conservatively estimated that there would be 6500 television sets linked into the system.
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A television set with a built-in decoder would cost from $900 to $2500. A separate decoder, which would fit on top of a television set, would cost between $500 and $1000. Hiring a television set with an in-built decoder would cost from $42.50 to $60 a month.
Viewers would be able to choose between two magazines of information — general information and specialised information for disabled persons.
General information would include news, weather, market reports, sports results, television programmes, consumer news, travel information ranging from road conditions to airline schedules, home and gardening hints, features and children’s games and entertainment.
Teletext could also be instructed to display news flashes while the viewer watched a scheduled television programme.
Teletext was sent out on the unused part of the television signal.
“A television picture is made up of 625 lines. What is broadcast uses only 600 of those lines, so there are 25 to spare,” he said.
“In 1973, British engineers discovered that you can send out information on those 25 spare lines. It piggy-backs the information out on the ordinary television signal and the decoder picks it up.”
As well as news and information for disabled persons, Teletext could be used in big-sized print for the partly sighted and could provide subtitles to ordinary television programmes for those with impaired hearing.
The service, which would start with about 220 pages of information, used only two of the 25 lines available on the television signal.
