Blogtrek

Blogtrek

2004/04/05

SAP causes problems

I have heard of SAP, the arrangement on TVs and cable companies by which a TV show in English can be shown with a Spanish track. Today I found out about a misuse of this feature by a PBS station, WXXI in Rochester, New York, Channel 21, or 11 on a local cable system (might as well call it WXI). We tried to tune into the MacNeil-Lehrer report tonight, 2004 April 5 1900, but could not get it properly. The picture of MacNeil-Lehrer came out OK, but the sound was that of NPR, National Public Radio, instead! They did not even go well with each other. One was about Iraq, the other about biological viruses. This caused us to go to all sorts of measures to try to correct the problem. I called the station only to find out it was closed, but they give an option 6001, in which a recorded voice on the phone told how to correct the problem. Do this, and then do that, and then do this other rigmarole, and so forth. It was so voluminous and fast that it was useless; I could not digest it fast enough. So I went to their Web site and found a comment at the bottom of one page that said that if this happens, you may have SAP or MTS set. Actually they said that to get the NPR AM station, 1370 KHz, on the TV, set SAP or MTS. So I went to the TV and banged around. I found that pressing “settings” gives a menu item that said "disable SAP". So I did that. That corrected the problem.

The problem arose initially because on 2004 April 3 we could find absolutely no way of setting the VCR and TV clock to daylight saving time. Timer and date showed up in the menus, but no clock. In banging around for how to set the time, I must have accidentally set SAP.

So I found not one but two user-unfriendly features of both the cable system and PBS. PBS should have simply said, "turn off SAP". Not disable SAP. When I leave a room, do I disable the light, huhh? I could have found that. Further, these systems should allow the user to set DST. This is what users expect. If the system does it all for us (I call this McDonald’s Syndrome), then we will be searching endlessly for how to do it for ourselves, a waste of time. These systems need to be clearer about these items. They should allow you to set the time to what you want, and SAP should be restricted to its original purpose. Use it for Spanish, not for AM radio.

No comments: