[mythtv] NTP config

[Ben Rigby]

On 10/21/05, Colin Humphreys <ch at encypher.net> wrote:
> Steve Adeff wrote:
> > On Thursday 20 October 2005 11:03, Rudy Zijlstra wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>In the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany - those i am certain of -
> >>programs can start more than 20 minutes later than announced. Not on all
> >>channels, some are worse than others, yet most channels are "late" by
> >>23:00 or later.
> >
> >
> > wow, thats so weird. why do they do this?
>
> In Australia it seems to be to make schedules between stations out of
> kilter. The idea being when you flip channels after the show you are
> watching is finished, the other channels are in the middle of a program,
> so they hope you will flip back to the original channel. They are also
> keen on running the end and start sections of programs right next to
> each other without ads. (The next frame after the closing credits are
> finished is the opening scene of the next program) Of course this
> happens 10 minutes after the scheduled finish time.
>
>

There seems to be a general feeling amongst Australian television
channels that they can pretty much do as they please and the viewers
will eat it up and come back for more anyway. Perhaps this is due to
the fact there is only 3 commercial stations, plus two government
sponsored channels (who behave much better). There isn't a lot to turn
to when you get fed up with the treatment of viewers by one channel.

They regularly run late. They mix repeats in with new series to pad
them out. For example, I think one channel was padding out NCIS by
alternating between a new episodes and old ones for most of this year.
They often take programs off the air without any announcement, leaving
you with no idea if they're ever going to come back to it. They also
run series out of order. I have no idea how they think this benefits
them, but they do it. They'll also cut bits out of programs to fit in
more ads. Repeats of the Simpsons reguarly have scenes cut to allow
more ads to be shown.

Ok, that was a bit of a rant, but I think it might help for the devs
to have an idea of what we're using Myth to deal with when they're
making decisions about the future of Myth (eg. the cutting post-roll
to 30secs debate).

This is the first time I've posted to -dev, so I'd like to thank
everyone who puts their time into Myth, it really makes all the
difference to watching TV for me.

Ben Rigby