BBC News report: extra second of time

I see the BBC has got hold of the fact that to bring UK time in line with
global timing, we are to have an extra second added to the end of the year
tonight (New Years Eve). What a pity the BBC cannot seem to get its own
ship in order when it comes to timing?. On Christmas Day 2008 the 'BBC One'
schedule ran 7 minutes 21 seconds late, which resulted in almost every
programme being recorded that night, missing the last 5 or 6 minutes.
Pathetic when you consider the technology they have at their disposal to
time programmes these days!

Jay wrote:
I see the BBC has got hold of the fact that to bring UK time in line with
global timing, we are to have an extra second added to the end of the year
tonight (New Years Eve). What a pity the BBC cannot seem to get its own
ship in order when it comes to timing?. On Christmas Day 2008 the 'BBC One'
schedule ran 7 minutes 21 seconds late, which resulted in almost every
programme being recorded that night, missing the last 5 or 6 minutes.
Pathetic when you consider the technology they have at their disposal to
time programmes these days!

Absolutely agree. There is nothing that infuriates me more about the BBC.

Jay wrote:

I see the BBC has got hold of the fact that to bring UK time in line with
global timing, we are to have an extra second added to the end of the year
tonight (New Years Eve). What a pity the BBC cannot seem to get its own
ship in order when it comes to timing?. On Christmas Day 2008 the 'BBC One'
schedule ran 7 minutes 21 seconds late, which resulted in almost every
programme being recorded that night, missing the last 5 or 6 minutes.
Pathetic when you consider the technology they have at their disposal to
time programmes these days!


What caused the delay ?.

The Queen would have gone out on time and someone else on another group says
it was for the full 10 minutes, so did the news at 5.45 pm over run ?

In message , Mike O'Sullivan
writes
Jay wrote:
I see the BBC has got hold of the fact that to bring UK time in line with
global timing, we are to have an extra second added to the end of the year
tonight (New Years Eve). What a pity the BBC cannot seem to get its own
ship in order when it comes to timing?. On Christmas Day 2008 the 'BBC One'
schedule ran 7 minutes 21 seconds late, which resulted in almost every
programme being recorded that night, missing the last 5 or 6 minutes.
Pathetic when you consider the technology they have at their disposal to
time programmes these days!

Absolutely agree. There is nothing that infuriates me more about the
BBC.

For those bringing in the New Year when watching digital TV or radio,
the magic stroke of midnight will already be around a second too late.
Should they start Ould Lang Syne on the 6th pip of the time signal?
This, of course, is normally the last, long pip. However, on this
occasion, it will be short, being the penultimate of 7 pips.
--
Ian

"Mike O'Sullivan" wrote in message
...
Jay wrote:
I see the BBC has got hold of the fact that to bring UK time in line with
global timing, we are to have an extra second added to the end of the
year
tonight (New Years Eve). What a pity the BBC cannot seem to get its own
ship in order when it comes to timing?. On Christmas Day 2008 the 'BBC
One'
schedule ran 7 minutes 21 seconds late, which resulted in almost every
programme being recorded that night, missing the last 5 or 6 minutes.
Pathetic when you consider the technology they have at their disposal to
time programmes these days!


There is a piece of technology called Programme Delivery Control (PDC)
which, with appropriate recorders, start and stop recording on transmission
of the programme. This is available on BBC1, BBC2 (and others?) and Channel
5 but not ITV1 or Channel 4 (This is not definitive!). Unfortunately this
does depend on the techies inserting the PDC code. I have missed recording
programmes either because the PDC code wasn't present or (for some reason)
only about the first two minutes recorded. There is also the problem of how
the recorder handles a following problem. Does it start immediately
(missing a few minutes) or does it not bother at all.

The BBC (and others) build in 'recovery time' into its schedules and also
includes repeats which can be pulled quickly when an 'important' programme
needs to be aired. What is VERY annoying is that even though the schedule
is running late it still insists on putting in trailers. Sureley these
could / should be dropped in an effort to regain lost time. I can
understand that commercial channels need to include advertising even when
running late but the comment on trailers equally applies to them.

Bill Ridgeway

"Bill Ridgeway" wrote in message
...
"Mike O'Sullivan" wrote in message
...
Jay wrote:
I see the BBC has got hold of the fact that to bring UK time in line
with
global timing, we are to have an extra second added to the end of the
year
tonight (New Years Eve). What a pity the BBC cannot seem to get its
own
ship in order when it comes to timing?. On Christmas Day 2008 the 'BBC
One'
schedule ran 7 minutes 21 seconds late, which resulted in almost every
programme being recorded that night, missing the last 5 or 6 minutes.
Pathetic when you consider the technology they have at their disposal
to
time programmes these days!


There is a piece of technology called Programme Delivery Control (PDC)
which, with appropriate recorders, start and stop recording on
transmission
of the programme. This is available on BBC1, BBC2 (and others?) and
Channel
5 but not ITV1 or Channel 4 (This is not definitive!). Unfortunately this
does depend on the techies inserting the PDC code. I have missed
recording
programmes either because the PDC code wasn't present or (for some reason)
only about the first two minutes recorded.

I agree, but would it not make more sense to keep to the schedule and proper
start time? I know there are odd occasions when a massive news story breaks
or somthing similar occurs when the schedule might be changed, but with
modern timing and digital methods they have no excuse for not starting and
ending programmes on time. Infact if I ran a radio or TV service, it would
be a priority to make sure timing was really accurate. It really is
unnaceptable for the BBC to be running such poor time keeping and I urge
everyone to complain to them about it.

wrote:

What caused the delay ?.

The Queen would have gone out on time and someone else on another group says
it was for the full 10 minutes, so did the news at 5.45 pm over run ?

AIUI the delay was mostly caused by Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special
overrunning. This programme was pre recorded on the afternoon of Monday 22nd
December, so why they couldn't edit it down to the allotted timeslot, when
they had 72 hours to do so is puzzling. In fact even more puzzling is this
programme was repeated on the BBC HD channel on Sunday evening, and ran for
its originally allocated timeslot of 60 mins !

The BBC/Red Bee could have eased the situation by ditching all subsequent
trailers, to move the schedule back towards the original timings. They didn't.
They even gave W&G a 35 second continuity announcement, FFS, just say " And
now, later than billed, Wallace and Grommet."

I'm afraid the whole sad state of affairs highlights the Beeb's attitude that
trailers and presentation are more important than the programmes themselves.
The apparent incomplete control of PDC, Freeview AR, and Sky+ triggers
displays technical incompetence, because those features are supposed to
safeguard situations like this, and whoever *deliberately* scheduled the
evening with those timings, just displayed utter contempt for the viewer.

In short a total disgrace.


--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

utter contempt for the viewer.




The BBC: "This is what we do"

I made my comments on this earlier, suffice to say, that if the recording
system worked on a unique ID on program content, rather than time, it would
really not matter.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________


"Jay" wrote in message
...
I see the BBC has got hold of the fact that to bring UK time in line with
global timing, we are to have an extra second added to the end of the year
tonight (New Years Eve). What a pity the BBC cannot seem to get its own
ship in order when it comes to timing?. On Christmas Day 2008 the 'BBC
One'
schedule ran 7 minutes 21 seconds late, which resulted in almost every
programme being recorded that night, missing the last 5 or 6 minutes.
Pathetic when you consider the technology they have at their disposal to
time programmes these days!

"Mike O'Sullivan" wrote in message
...
Jay wrote:
I see the BBC has got hold of the fact that to bring UK time in line
with
global timing, we are to have an extra second added to the end of the
year
tonight (New Years Eve). What a pity the BBC cannot seem to get its
own
ship in order when it comes to timing?. On Christmas Day 2008 the
'BBC One'
schedule ran 7 minutes 21 seconds late, which resulted in almost
every
programme being recorded that night, missing the last 5 or 6 minutes.
Pathetic when you consider the technology they have at their disposal
to
time programmes these days!

Absolutely agree. There is nothing that infuriates me more about the
BBC.



Actually it is nothing to do with the BBC. It is the world time standard
that is being corrected to bring atomic time back into sync with solar
time as the earth's rotation is slightly slower than man-made time.

There has been much discussion of late that, rather than add a leap
second (as it is known) every so often, they should be held back and one
minute added perhaps twice a millenium. If this were done the next
adjustment would not be until (IMSMC) around 2050. However that would
cause all sorts of problems for other reasons, so I think they have
decided to let things run as now.

If you want more info - from a British perspective - look at
http://www.npl.co.uk/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.3010 which explains it
all.


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com