What is "live" TV.
NadCixelsyd
both analog and digital OTA television. I had a bunch of guys over to
watch a football game. Some were in the living room watching
digital. Some were in the kitchen watching analog. Being in the
living room, I hear the kitchen break into a cheer. Those of us in
the LR didn't know what was happening since we were all watching the
same game. Then, three (?) seconds later, our home team intercepted a
pass and we knew what all the commotion was about. Assuming the
analog TV was less than 0.1 seconds delayed, it appears that the
digital signal takes time to digitize, compress, transmit, decompress,
assemble with other frames, and display. But how long is nominal?
Three weeks ago, my son had two digital football channels going at the
same time. One OTA, the other on digital cable. The digital cable
station was hopping between games to every 2 minutes. When the
digital cable station was displaying the same game as the OTA channel,
the cable station seemed to have an 8-10 second delay.
So what is "live"? Is a 10-second delay (to avoid another Janet
Jackson wardrobe malfunction) considered "live"? Is a 30 second delay?
robinlos
I cannot define "live". But it might be defined as not delayed for
editing. In the 60's I noticed the same thing with TV and radio. I was
listening to a live newscast on radio, and, it same was being
broadcast on TV. A Television was on near enough for me to hear it.
The TV was noticeably in front of the radio. I'm sure at the time the
radio network was still "hardwired" and the voice was taking a much
longer trip than the TV, which I believe was by then mostly microwave
relayed. Some television programs have longer trips to take to get to
the local transmitter, or through cable than others. Today, I would
not know how many buffers a digital signal has to go through before
you can get a picture and sound from . a network, but I'm sure its
plenty, and varies.
Guru
"robinlos" <robi...@icdus.com> wrote in message
news:5438de46-7f57-40d0...@g1g2000pra.googlegroups.com...
It's "live" if the event is occurring as you watch it, with the only latency
being the transmission system and any "delay" devices (such as HDD) used to
"bleep" audio and video problems (vulgarity, nudity, etc.)
Andy from Dover
"NadCixelsyd" <nadci...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:4d1ba95d-f2ea-4756...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
I believe the 'delay' is due to the time it takes the digital channel to
encode then decode. HD radio has this problem when it comes to airing live
sporting events. It takes the system time to encode and/or compress the
signal then for your receiver to decompress and/or decode the signal.
Robinlos also has it right in the signal path can add time. If your local
station is running a piece CNN is picking up on your OTA will be in the lead
while CNN's signal has to hit the bird and come back down.
I'm sure 'Live' means not purposely delayed via tape, film or delay.
As always IMHO, YMMV. ;-)
TJ
Sure does. Even with analog. I remember when we were analog-only and the
President (Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, didn't matter) would address the
nation and all the networks transmitted the same feed that if you
happened to have two different channels playing in neighboring rooms
what you heard was often two or three words apart. Once in a while, it
was as much as a full sentence apart from one network to the other.
TJ
--
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
J.R.R.Tolkien
Gordon Burditt
>Jackson wardrobe malfunction) considered "live"? Is a 30 second delay?
As far as I know, there is no legal definition of "live", so if
you're trying to argue with your cable company advertising "X live
channels", you're out of luck.
IMHO, if the feed is delayed only for technical reasons, like delays
introduced by frame buffers and transmission delays, it's live.
That means there's a possibility of some space aliens are watching
a live feed of a JFK presidential speech, assuming one was transmitted,
if they're about 45 light years away. It also means that if for
some technical reason a network bounces the feed off of Uranus, a
"live" football game might be 5 hours delayed, but it's still "live".
On the other hand, if the feed is *deliberately* delayed for, say,
censorship purposes, to avoid full nudal frontity, intentional or
due to, um, "accidental" "wardrobe malfunctions" when one actor
rips a dress off of another one, then it's *NOT* live, even if the
delay is only 10 seconds.
Sal M. Onella
I encounter a similar situation watching a televised Chargers football
game
while listening to the hometown announcers on the radio. The radio
usually
precedes the TV by a second or two, but sometimes more.
Most of the time, the delays in a TV broadcast are accounted for by
the time
it takes to encode a digital stream (at the station) and to decode it
at the set.
(You can see an example of the delay if you watch several TVs at the
store;
they're not in sync, owing to the differing decode circuitry in each
chassis.)
There's a joker in the deck. There are devices that enable a
variable-
speed playback of shows. If portions of a show are delayed (a la
TiVo), extra
commercials can be inserted and the delayed portion(s) can be shown at
slightly
increased speed and still finish on time. Recall, if you will, that
the TiVo and
similar devices permit pausing live TV while you take a break and then
let you
resume playing the show to its conclusion. This capability requires a
device
that will simultaneously store the show -- RECORD -- and recall it --
PLAY --
without the viewer doing anything special.
So, if there's a really big delay, you may be seeing extra
commercials.
(I can't say whether your experience is a result of this.)
Electronic storage makes possible some benefits and at least a few
sins ;-)
Sal