Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pasteur!cory.Berkeley.EDU!jlemon
From: jlemon@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Jonathan Lemon)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: automatic commercial deletion
Keywords: commercials, compressors, VCRs, film editting
Message-ID: <17402@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 20 Sep 89 07:56:28 GMT
References: <6428@ingr.com> <11213@fluke.COM> <1680@ns.network.com>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: jlemon@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Jonathan Lemon)
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 25

In article <1680@ns.network.com> logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) writes:
]inc@tc.fluke.COM (Gary Benson) writes:
]> I mean, every station in the nation doesn't have a
]> dedicated engineer sitting there watching a clock count down and then
]> pressing his "goto local" button!
]
]But that doesn't necessarily mean that such automatic signaling is
]available on the outgoing video/audio signal.  It could either be
]stripped off, or come over a completely independent channel.

A few years ago, a friend who worked at a TV station explained it this way
to me:
   For most of the mainstream affilates (CBS,ABC,etc..) they pull their
   signal off the satellites, and there is a marker (I don't know what
   kind) in the signal indicating commercial breaks.  The station then
   re-broadcasts the signal a few seconds later, with local commercials
   included, but WITHOUT this marker.  Thus there is no definite marker
   in the signal you are receiving.  (I imagine that if there was, they
   would lose LOTS of advertising revenues.)  I have no idea if this is
   true for every station - possibly the independents do it another way.
   But one thing stuck in my mind - if you have a satellite reciever, you
   can (or should, or I am wrong. :-) ) get the complete program without
   any commercials.  Has anyone tried this?
--
Jonathan   ...ucbvax!cory!jlemon    or    jlemon@cory.Berkeley.EDU