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Radio Broadcasts
Almost Always Run Ahead of TV Broadcasts
Local radio
broadcasts of sports events are just about always in "real time." So many
people bring radios to sporting events to listen to the radio play-by-play call
that the radio stations insure that their signals are going from the microphone
to the transmitter and out to your radio at the speed of light - in other words
in real time, without any delay. |
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National radio
broadcasts are sometimes delayed slightly because signals are uplinked and
downlinked through a satellite to your local radio station before being
transmitted to your radio. But in the main, you hear the radio call the moment
the action actually occurs.
TV signals a much greater amount of
processing. First, with video, there is much more bandwidth and processing
required. Second, signals from the ballpark will generally to the director's
truck and up through a satellite and back down to reach cable system
"head-ends" where the signals are then sent down the cable wires strung across
or under your city. The cable signal then must be decoded by your cable TV box,
and sometimes this signal requires further HDTV processing (and it then
sometimes again delayed by your DVR). If you have satellite TV there is another
satellite up and downlink involved before the signal reaches you. All this
processing, while happening very fast, ultimately takes a little time and thus
you end up with a delay. (Further delay may be built in to some TV broadcasts
because of the need to insure no four-letter words are heard or pictures of
wardrobe malfunctions are seen.)
Additionally, since very few people
bring mini TV's the ballgame, unlike radio there's no need to insure that the
TV signal is in real time. In the old days, before satellite and cable TV when
we received TV broadcasts "over the air" with rabbit ears or a TV antenna on
our roof, the TV signals were just about in real time. Then you could turn down
the sound on your TV and turn up your radio. Those days are long gone now and
only SportSyncRadio allows you to delay radio audio to match up the
play-by-play with the delayed TV signals. |
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