[ntp:questions] Re: no more leap seconds?

shoppa at trailing-edge.com shoppa at trailing-edge.com
Wed Aug 24 14:06:22 UTC 2005


>  So, everybody should be glued to the tube
> on the occasion of leap and see if
> the start of the midnight program is one
> second early.

All of my local TV stations (Washington DC area) start programs 10 to
14 seconds late, and my discussions with the few knowledgable broadcast
engineers I've been able to find tell me that this is because of
digital compression on the way to the transmitter site.

Several local radio stations are delayed by similar amounts (I cannot
fathom what audio compression requires such a delay.  Of course when I
was in the biz we did all this with copper phone lines... multiple sets
if we needed hi-fi!)

Tim.




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