[mythtv-users] MythTV does not handle daylight savings properly

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Thu Nov 8 02:01:56 UTC 2012


On 11/07/2012 07:10 AM, Brian J. Murrell wrote:
> On 12-11-06 06:29 PM, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>> Not only have I been saying that we need to get rid of DST across the
>> US, I would also love to get rid of time zones and have the entire world
>> use UTC in their daily lives.  I'd have no problem whatsoever having
>> breakfast at noon and lunch at 5pm and dinner at midnight, nor putting
>> in a grueling day of work from 2pm to 10pm.  Unfortunately, it seems I
>> have to convince most everyone else in the world.  The only reason
>> people think that noon is lunchtime is because that's what they're used
>> to--but if they grew up having lunch at 5pm...
> There are real problems with this scheme.  To keep things quite on topic
> let's look at national television broadcasting.  Having each "region" of
> the country aligned on a timezone based clock makes announcing staggered
> schedules easy.
>
> For example, a single "announcement" that "television program foo will
> be shown at 8pm" can be made and, no matter where you live, it's on at
> the one time they said it would be.
>
> The alternative would be a huge announcement saying that at locations a,
> b, c and d (where this list would probably be longer than just 4) the
> program is shown at X and at locations e, f, g, h and i the program is
> shown at Y and at locations j, k, l, m and n the program is shown at Z,
> etc.  It would be a rather nasty announcement to make and nastier to
> have to pay attention to, waiting for your location.
>
> And no, the answer is not to stop staggering the showings (more
> generally any event that is currently staggered) because given the
> preference that (most) people have to planning their activities around
> daylight and night-time, when things happen for people are timed (more
> or less, seasonal change notwithstanding) according to when it's light
> and when it's dark, so events still need to be staggered across the
> east/west.
>

Doesn't it go, "Tonight at 9, 8 Central and Mountain," even /with/ the 
staggered time zones?

Mike


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