Why No Embedded Time Signal in ATSC Broadcasts?

[SLK001]

Back in the NTSC days, many broadcast stations (mostly PBS, but occasionally others) would broadcast a time signal embedded in the non-display portion of the scan. The non-display portion could also carry other services too, like CLOSED CAPTIONS.

However, as far as I can tell, there is NO standard for an embedded time signal in an ATSC broadcast, even though they still transmit CLOSED CAPTIONS plus more content than NTSC was capable (ie, Program Guides).

In the "good ole days", you could set your TV and your VCR to automatically reset the clock daily, so things would start recording (in the case of the VCR) at the proper time. Now, we have to revert back to the times prior to the "good ole days" when you had to manually reset the recorder clock once or twice a month.

Does anyone know of any reason why a time signal is not being sent? It certainly isn't because of a "lack of bandwidth". I currently own a Toshiba DVR that I have to set manually and I have recently acquired a Magnavox MDR513 HD PVR that also needs to to have time manually set by hand.

I consider the lack of a time signal to be a huge step backwards.

[usually_quiet]

Back in the NTSC days, many broadcast stations (mostly PBS, but occasionally others) would broadcast a time signal embedded in the non-display portion of the scan. The non-display portion could also carry other services too, like CLOSED CAPTIONS.

However, as far as I can tell, there is NO standard for an embedded time signal in an ATSC broadcast, even though they still transmit CLOSED CAPTIONS plus more content than NTSC was capable (ie, Program Guides).

In the "good ole days", you could set your TV and your VCR to automatically reset the clock daily, so things would start recording (in the case of the VCR) at the proper time. Now, we have to revert back to the times prior to the "good ole days" when you had to manually reset the recorder clock once or twice a month.

Does anyone know of any reason why a time signal is not being sent? It certainly isn't because of a "lack of bandwidth". I currently own a Toshiba DVR that I have to set manually and I have recently acquired a Magnavox MDR513 HD PVR that also needs to to have time manually set by hand.

I consider the lack of a time signal to be a huge step backwards.

Actually, there is a time code embedded in the ATSC signal. I have ATSC to NTSC converter boxes that maintain their clocks according to the time code they receive, although that time is often incorrect by at least a couple of minutes, or as much as 5 hours. There is no way to set their clocks manually.

I'm not sure what the story for time codes is with clear QAM.

If your recording devices are receiving signals from an antenna, they either aren't finding the new digital time code, or the time code they are getting is wrong.