PBS Project Could Set VCR Time in a Flash

The flashing “12:00” on videocassette recorders represents everything wrong with modern technology. But help may be on the way with better equipment that automatically sets VCR clocks en masse.

The half-million-dollar program sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Assn. would replace outdated gear at public television stations nationwide designed to automatically set the clock on VCRs by sending out a time stamp over the air or through cable.

The CEA grant, which has not been announced, could come within the next few weeks.

Most VCRs already can read the time stamps. But the current 6-year-old system depends too heavily on frequent maintenance by local stations and is prone to sending out the wrong time. The new system is highly automated.

Without a correctly set clock, VCRs can’t be programmed to record shows when the owner isn’t around. Maybe that’s why, even though 95% of American homes have VCRs, only 30% of them record shows using the timer.

It’s taken the industry six years to fix the current system, in part because few consumers know the feature exists on their VCRs. Of those who do, few bother to complain when things don’t work properly.

“You just don’t trust things to work right anymore,” said Ron Hare, a retired electrical engineer who lives in Sunnyvale, Calif. He has two VCRs, one of which stubbornly insists on displaying the incorrect time because of a faulty time signal. “My dad gives up on stuff like this right away. He just thinks it’s him, that he’s doing something wrong.”

The Public Broadcasting Service has been trying to get new time stamp technology into its 347 member stations for years but hasn’t had money for the improvements until the CEA grant, which is expected to be approved soon.

Once the new system is installed, any VCR equipped with the auto clock set feature will grab the local PBS time stamp and set the clock correctly. PBS signals reach more than 80% of U.S. households.

But experts say upgrading the time stamp system won’t fix the real problem--people don’t know how things work anymore.

“We’ve come to treat our devices like they’re magic because what’s going on inside them is completely hidden to us,” said Jakob Nielsen, a principal at Nielsen Norman Group who helps companies design products that are easier to use. “As a result, we don’t know how to react when things don’t work properly. The time signal is an excellent example, where we built this big, complicated system and said to consumers, ‘Don’t worry about the clock, we’ll set it.’ So when it’s set wrong, all the average user understands is, ‘Hey, it didn’t record what I wanted it to record. I’m dumb.’ ”

The vast majority of the 23 million VCRs sold in this country last year came equipped with auto clock set. Panasonic sells only VCRs with auto clock set.

Sony Electronics, the first company to introduce the feature in its VCRs, paid for the initial clock set system with a grant to the PBS system. Today, two out of three VCRs Sony sells have auto clock set.

Manually setting the time on VCRs equipped with auto clock set is an option on most machines, though a few manufacturers have sold VCRs with clocks that can be set only using the time stamp. Owners of those machines are helpless when an incorrect signal is sent.

PBS engineers found the auto clock system was an endless source of headaches. “You’d think something as simple as keeping the time would be easy, but it took a lot of staff hours to keep this thing up and running,” said Bill Burroughs, director of engineering for KCET-TV Channel 28 in Los Angeles.

Stations have a black box about the size of a stereo receiver in the TV studio or attached to the transmitter. The box does not actually display the time. In fact, the only way engineers know what time the box is transmitting is to keep a VCR nearby and check its clock.

To reset the time, engineers have to connect a computer to the box and run through a set of routines. That procedure takes only a few minutes, but sometimes new engineers were unaware of the time stamp box. Even when the device was serviced properly, it often sent out the wrong time.

“There were frequent breakdowns,” Burroughs said. “It was just a very kludgey, fragile system. And it was very labor intensive for a system that should have been relatively self-contained.”

Burroughs’ station had enough cash during a recent upgrade to replace the system with an automated box that pulls in a signal off orbiting Global Positioning System satellites. “Not only is it more reliable, it’s more accurate,” he said.

Most of his PBS colleagues aren’t that lucky. “It’s always a money issue,” he said.

Despite the CEA grant, skeptics such as Nielsen said attempts to make things easier to use often make systems more complex behind the scenes--and therefore more prone to failure.

Peter Neumann, principal scientist for SRI International and noted for his studies of why things don’t work properly, agreed: “Considering all the past we’ve had with this, the chances of us getting it right this time are minuscule.”