The News Scroll Blurb / Commercial Break Synchronizer is a device, or perhaps a software module, that selects the sequence of blurbs that appear on the bottom of the screen on a cable news channel based on an input sequence, such that:

a) the last blurb to appear before the cutover to commercial break is displayed completely.

b) the order of the input sequence is modified as little as possible.

I think that the first criteria could probably be achieved by changing the speed of the scroll very slightly, as a one percent change in speed over an eight minute segment is almost five seconds. The synchronizer could also change the sequence of blurbs, for example, it could delay a long blurb in favor of a shorter one, the long blurb would be moved to after the break, and the shorter one would be moved from after the break to before it.
-- JakePatterson, Jun 06 2006

Can you build in something that makes sure that the crawl across the bottom starts up at the same place it left off when the commercial came on?
-- Noexit, Jun 06 2006



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