[opendtv] Re: A full explanation of the PSIP time issue.
- From: "John Shutt" <shuttj@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 18:53:18 -0400
Bert,
Believe me, it's the PSIP software.
Television stations have been running the correct time for station
automation and even the mundane things like hitting the network at the top
of the hour for decades now. We all have master clock systems that are
locked to GPS or more likely nowadays are IP based and locked to USNO. We
all have clock displays in Master Control and Studio Control and a dozen
other places that all are fed the same timecode from the Master Clock.
Stations provide this same timecode into their PSIP generators, and garbage
is spit back out. We have been back and forth with our PSIP software
vendor, and since we didn't pay the $10,000 maintenance fee, we are stuck
with what whatever bugs we now have.
We are pursuing another source of PSIP software, but they are turning out to
be just as big a bunch of flakes, who still after several back and forths,
including a personal site visit, still can't take a simple Protrack log and
spit out a proper EPG, or take in our station clock and spit out the correct
system time for receivers.
I can't for the life of me understand why PSIP is so hard to implement in
software, but apparently nobody can do it properly, with the possible
exception of John Willkie. We haven't demoed his PSIP software because it
was out of our budget. If the Yahoos we are dealing with now don't get
their act together, we may either go back to our former vendor and eat the
outrageous annual maintenance fee, or go knocking at John's door.
John seems very willing to work with his customers.
John
----- Original Message -----
From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
But I think that Ron's and my experiences go way beyond these minutiae.
The errors are egregious and commonplace, which says to me that either
the software is beyond poor, or that stations don't much care.
I tend to believe the latter, because this software is just not so
complicated.
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