RTÉ Launches Digital Teletext Service

The Irish Republic's national broadcaster RTÉ has successfully launched the new Aertel Digital version of its online teletext service www.rte.ie/aerteldigital

It is powered by Screen's SysMedia Plasma Gold technology and the expansion is an important step for RTÉ in the move towards digital switchover as it replaces website content currently reproduced from its teletext service on analogue TV.

The Aertel teletext-on-the-web service derived from RTÉ’s analogue TV output has been tremendously popular.

Emer Conlon, IT Project Manager, RTÉ, said: "The analogue service accounts for 10% of the total www.rte.ie traffic.

"At analogue switch-off we must replace this with a replica of our digital TV teletext output and that's what the Plasma Gold technology is enabling."

She also highlighted the fact that online Aertel users value the 'short-bite' form of information and the ability to navigate quickly using well-known page numbers, and this functionality has been maintained in the new version.

Over 500 pages of up-to-the-minute news, sport, financial and other popular listings are carried, including a dating service.

The service is managed through the Plasma Gold system that powers both the current digital TV teletext system as well as mobile output.

A new XHTML Output Gateway has been integrated with RTÉ’s website.

"We had to work through quite a few specific browser issues to make sure this service worked correctly, a process that the company was able to advise closely on."

Aertel Digital online is the latest example of an ongoing digital multiplatform extension of RTÉ’s teletext services.

Key to this expansion strategy is the need to avoid duplicating editorial effort.

Equally important is the ease with which advertising is supported across the multiple platforms: enabling existing content and advertising to be leveraged in this way to broaden reach without extra editorial effort is one of the key benefits of Plasma Gold.

SysMedia is a screen subtitling company that manufactures products for the broadcast television industry to produce and transmit value-add content such as subtitling and closed captioning, teletext, digital text services and interactive TV.

With over 30 years of experience in this specialised sector, customers include BBC, BSkyB, Red Bee Media, Ascent Media, Technicolor, Teletext Ltd, ARD, RTÉ, TVNZ and over 100 others in more than 25 countries worldwide.

(BMcC)