How It Works
It was launched in the United States and Japan in the mid-1990s, and is now being deployed throughout Europe. It is available in Canada, France, Germany, Spain, the UK, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy.
The updated programme listings are provided to users free-of-charge, regardless of whether they receive their television signal from an over-the-air (OTA) broadcast or via cable TV or Satellite TV. The service is supported by advertising.
The original analog TV service uses the vertical blanking interval (VBI) of host television stations that datacast the service, similar to the way closed captioning and teletext are broadcast. This can take 24 hours to download on initial setup because the information is sent at a low bitrate.
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Famous quotes containing the word works:
“We do not fear censorship for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue—the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word, that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.”
—D.W. (David Wark)