Bob Hannent

I don't want to raise a conspiracy or start a panic but... Can we talk about the year 2038?

You may know that many computers that use 32-bit Unixtime as their standard date format will rollover at 1st January 2038.

You may also know GPS has a weekday counter rollover in November 2038 (for reasons unrelated to Unixtime).

But... I'd bet you didn't know that in April 2038 there is another rollover of the 16-bit MJD date system which counts the days since Nov 1858. That date system is used by many broadcast systems around the world (DVB).

Is there something we should be worried about happening in 2038? Time is running out...

Nov 19 at 1:52pmWeb
Show threadJdeBPNov 19

@bobdvb

They changed it in DVB-T2, of course. DVB-T2 timestamps roll over some time in the 37th millennium.

For DVB-T, I predict that values from 0 to 50449 (or some such point in 1997) will have a shift applied.

#astronomy #chronometry #DVB

Show threadBob HannentNov 19
@JdeBP the BBC ran some tests on representative receivers and found all of them failed at the rollover.
Show threadJdeBPNov 19

@bobdvb

Heh! Testing over a decade ahead of time. Optimists! (-:

People won't put the bodge in place until the last minute, if it's anything like how the similar windowing bodges for the Century Bug series 1 (Only another 75 years to go until series 2!) were deployed.

That said, manufacturers could be banking on DVB-T2 being the norm by then.

#CenturyBug #DVB

Show threadMartin HamiltonNov 19
@bobdvb NTP getting ahead of the game with v3 rollover on February 7, 2036 
Show threadPaul McO'Smith IIINov 19
@bobdvb just like y2k, we'll do an all-nighter and fix it no problem.