I compiled ntpclient for us on the empeg. This is a tiny little program that can synch time with an NTP server. Usage is like this:
ntpclient -h <NTP IP Address> -s
and your empeg's clock will be set to the correct time. Note, though that for some reason the time will not be updated immediately when the player is displaying it as a visual or as a timecode. The best way to get it to update is to run ntpclient over a serial bash connection when the player's not running.

Also it won't work as a hijack @AC command I noticed because the network is not started yet how sad o-well.

ntpdate is part of Roger's Base.tar.gz file.

Also see this for a way to work around the network problem when run by Hijack.

oops sorry to re-invent the wheel then. I guess I should've searched first.