BBC News report: extra second of time

In article , Brian Gaff
writes

anyway, what are you all going to do with your extra second.

Spent mine watching next door's kid scorch themselves on a firework.
With hindsight it probably took less than a second for it to launch and
bounce off him, it just seemed longer - with me having to find somewhere
stable to prop my beer before checking he was OK!
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)

Max Demian wrote:
"Mike O'Sullivan" wrote in message
...
Bill Ridgeway wrote:
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!).
Only works on analogue transmissions doesn't it?

There's an equivalent available on Freeview as part of the Freeview+
recorder spec (e.g. Humax PVR-9200T with up to date software). It works
reasonably well, though it misses out the first and/or last 30 seconds or so
of programmes sometimes. I doesn't seem to miss programmes altogether like
PDC (mainly BBC).


The DVB spec contains a facility called "Running Status Flag". It
should be toggled by the broadcaster a few seconds in advance of the
actual programme start. A PVR will then use this, and the F+ spec
requires a min 10 sec scan for it, to start (and end) a recording.

With the help of contacts in the industry I established that itv1 expect
to toggle at the start of the ad break before the programme, and BBC1 at
the start of the last ad. Extensive testing and checks of the SI show
this (for the beeb at least) to be true. The fact that the Humax 9200T
apparently has a software bug that will occasionally miss the start,
record for only a second or chop the end. Hopefully Humax will work on
this in the new year.

Richard

"Dickie mint" wrote in message
...
Max Demian wrote:
"Mike O'Sullivan" wrote in message
...
Bill Ridgeway wrote:
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!).
Only works on analogue transmissions doesn't it?

There's an equivalent available on Freeview as part of the Freeview+
recorder spec (e.g. Humax PVR-9200T with up to date software). It works
reasonably well, though it misses out the first and/or last 30 seconds or
so of programmes sometimes. I doesn't seem to miss programmes altogether
like PDC (mainly BBC).
The DVB spec contains a facility called "Running Status Flag". It should
be toggled by the broadcaster a few seconds in advance of the actual
programme start. A PVR will then use this, and the F+ spec requires a
min 10 sec scan for it, to start (and end) a recording.

With the help of contacts in the industry I established that itv1 expect
to toggle at the start of the ad break before the programme, and BBC1 at
the start of the last ad. Extensive testing and checks of the SI show
this (for the beeb at least) to be true. The fact that the Humax 9200T
apparently has a software bug that will occasionally miss the start,
record for only a second or chop the end. Hopefully Humax will work on
this in the new year.

I don't think they have any plans to update the 9200T software - probably
they'll just fix the 9150T and 9300T.

--
Max Demian

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
Jay wrote:

You said it was to bring the UK in line with global timing, which is
wrong.

Weell I was only repeating what the **** at the BBC said !
If I was wrong, then he was wrong as well...

"Bob Latham" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Max Demian wrote:

"For thousands of years the definition of a day was easy enough: the
length of time it takes for a full rotation of the Earth around its
axis.

"Since ancient times, clocks of various descriptions have helped us keep
track.

"But recently, clocks have become so accurate that it has emerged that
the Earth's rotation can take slightly longer or shorter than 24 hours."

Well the time taken for a full rotation of the earth on its axis is
about 23 hours 56 minutes, never 24 hours.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the '24 hours' came from the amount
of time to get the sun into the same place in the sky the next day. As I
understand it, the reason that this is not a single perfect rotation of
the earth is that the earth itself has moved position in its orbit of the
sun. The earth's shift in solar orbit accounts for the 4 minute
difference.

That's right, and a point not made clear in the BBC article.

--
Max Demian

The message
from Alan White contains these words:

On Thu, 01 Jan 2009 12:01:10 GMT, Bob Latham
wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the '24 hours' came from the amount
of time to get the sun into the same place in the sky the next day. As I
understand it, the reason that this is not a single perfect rotation of
the earth is that the earth itself has moved position in its orbit of the
sun. The earth's shift in solar orbit accounts for the 4 minute difference.

You are correct.

That's the difference between a solar day and a sidereal day. BTW, it's
the solar day that's 24 hours long with the sidereal day approximating
very closely to 23h:56m:04s. There's a wiki article at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_day

which explains it in somewhat more detail.

--
Regards, John.

Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

On 31 Dec 2008, 13:22, "Brian W"
wrote:
"Jay" wrote in message


Strange. I managed to record 'Doctor Who' on my PC (with a manual tuner
setting - no EPG auto-updating) and didn't miss the end. I added two minutes
of padding and this was more than enough.

That didn't work for me using a TV + Sony HDR on Freeview. Dr Who was
before Strictly... and two minutes padding left me minus about 1
minute of the programme plus the credits. Same thing happened with
Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death which was after
Strictly.... The recorder sets correct clock time itself of course,
but, after losing bits of two programmes, I checked it against a radio
time-signal controlled clock which is always correct to the second.
The recorder was spot on. I redid both shows on New Year's Day now
with 5 minutes padding both ends which caught everything but meant
that the recorder picked up the previous programme title text which
had to be edited.

Unfortunately there's no PDC on Freeview digital and I find using the
EPG very unreliable. You'd almost think it relies on a little man in
a cupboard watching the channel output and then pushing a button to
update the EPG data stream. Sometimes he falls asleep - especially on
ITV.

In this age when we all have recording gear with accurate clocks and
most of us have digital multi-channel Freeview , Satellite or Cable, I
can see no reason at all for pre-recorded programmes not running to
exact schedule. All of those channels exist for one declared reason:
Viewer Choice so audiences can be maximised either to generate
advertising revenue or to justify the existence of the BBC. We make
that choice from published schedules and, yes, trailers. I know the
broadcasters want and indeed need us to catch their trailers and
promotions but they can and should engineer their schedules so that
the actual programmes fall inside a fixed start-finish timeslot. With
24 hour news, nothing short of global war or national disaster should
cause BBC1 news bulletins to overrun. "Coverage of our main story
continues live on the BBC News Channel" is all that it needs. Similar
for sport or other live events - "Use the Red Button" etc.
"Scheduling Flexibility" is a term which should be banished from some
channels as it's just another way of saying "upsetting viewers who
missed what they tuned in for".

Sparky writes:

"Scheduling Flexibility" is a term which should be banished from some
channels as it's just another way of saying "upsetting viewers who
missed what they tuned in for".

And the weekly schedules, especially Saturday evenings, need to be more
consistent. On BBC1, the time of programmes like Casualty vary from week
to week, some weeks there is a 'full length' lottery show and other
weeks just the draws are shown.

Sparky wrote:
Unfortunately there's no PDC on Freeview digital and I find using the
EPG very unreliable. You'd almost think it relies on a little man in
a cupboard watching the channel output and then pushing a button to
update the EPG data stream. Sometimes he falls asleep - especially on
ITV.

There doesn't need to be! See my other post in this thread describing
the mechanism provided in the DVB spec for very accurate start
recordings that manufacturers of PVRs seem not to be able to use properly.


Richard

On Sat, 03 Jan 2009 11:15:31 +0000, Kay Robinson
wrote:

Some programmes
always overrun because they use the full 30 minutes for content such
as 'Top Gear' and shows the typical bias of the BBC toward the lower
orders of the male species.

Apparently Top Gear attracts female viewers.
http://www.independent.co.uk/student...gs-421897.html

Top Gear: The Race For Ratings
Friday, 27 October 2006
....
The show can currently claim a 32 per cent share of the 16- to 34-year-old
male viewing figures. But it also manages to attract 40 per cent of female
viewers - quite an achievement for a programme claming to be an "oasis for
motorists".