[Premium-Rx] Time Signal Station Receivers sought

[John]

Hi,

John Collins here.  I speak Broadcast Video, HDTV, etc.  Can you describe 
the "receiver" in more detail?  In Asia/China/Mid East, etc, there may be 
time signals, as there are everywhere else...BUT they are not necessarily 
time-of-day (TOD).  It may be that you have a SMPTE (Society of Motion 
Picture and Television Engineers...a standards body) or EBU (European 
Broadcasting Union) time code reader.  This code might be TOD in some 
circumstances, but more usually will be associated with time as it relates 
to the particular program itself.  It's used to id each frame of video, 
measure time into program (for station/network cueing purposes), and trigger 
switching events in the station/network.

The timecod3e can take either or both of two forms:  LTC (longitudinal time 
code) which resides on an audio track, and VITC (vertical interval time 
code), which resides in the vertical sync/blanking interval in the video 
signal.  You can see VITC by misdjusting the vertical hold (if your tv has 
one) so as to float the sync interval mid screen...if there is VITC, you 
will see a rhythmic counting of white dashes (actually binary coded decimal 
white pulses which are decoded by a reader or receiver.

You might also misadjust the V size to see this signal.

These pulses are decoded and fed to visual displays for manual reference by 
personnel, automation systems for automatic switching and cueing, and in 
some cases, to billing systems for commercial playout logging.  The code can 
also be visually "burned" into a video signal, such that it appears on 
screen just like closed captioning for the hard-of-hearing.

Probably more than you wanted to know, particularly if the thing you've got 
is not a timecode device, but is a time receiver for some system I don't 
know about.

regards

John Collins
_________________________
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <wb6nvh at mbay.net>
To: <premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2006 10:16 AM
Subject: [Premium-Rx] Time Signal Station Receivers sought


>I have a mainland Chinese time signal receiver which appears to use a time
> signal "hidden" somewhere in the TV video in that country, and which is 
> mostly
> a mystery to me.  A big solid state / IC thing in a 19" rack mount with an 
> LED
> readout. Apparently they use the TV broadcast system as one method to 
> propagate
> time signals.
>
> Geoff
> WB6NVH
>
>
>
>
>
>
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