# Satellite TV  question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/satellite-tv-question/524121>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [January 8, 2010, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/satellite-tv-question/524121 "2010-01-08T02:37:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/satellite-tv-question/524121/1 "2010-01-08T02:37:19Z")

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The lag between my beloved C Band and Dish Network for the Sci Fi channel is about three seconds. It is longer than the distance between earth stations and the speed of light, but I guess something goes on at Dish.

The lag between the broadcast antenna and Dish Network is some two minutes.

What’s up?

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**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/satellite-tv-question/524121/2 "2010-01-08T02:47:37Z")

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Dish is getting the same C or Ku feed you’re seeing in with their big dishes. They then MPEG encode it, process it, introduce deliberate delays in both audio and video to make sure they are in sync at the monitoring stations etc, blah, blah, blah. Then it goes **back** up to their transponders, then back down to you.

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**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/satellite-tv-question/524121/3 "2010-01-08T03:03:51Z")

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> [@gaffa](#):
>
> Dish is getting the same C or Ku feed you’re seeing in with their big dishes.

Of course

> [@gaffa](#):
>
> introduce deliberate delays in both audio and video to make sure they are in sync at the monitoring stations

For two minutes?

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**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/satellite-tv-question/524121/4 "2010-01-08T04:04:20Z")

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> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> For two minutes?

No, but the additional trip to and from the Clarke belt might account for it.

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**Author:** ![bubba\_jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@bubba\_jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bubba_jr)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/satellite-tv-question/524121/5 "2010-01-10T04:48:31Z")

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I have no idea, but that delay is quite handy. I usually talk to my old man during a ball game or a race. He sees it first on cable and tells me what to look for, that works for a race when he didn’t see exactly what happened, but when he’s hoot’n and holler’n over a home run and the ball hasn’t even been thrown yet it sucks.

DirecTV, 10-45 second delay from cable, and it really does vary, maybe its global warming or the Japanese whalers :eek:.

Either way, it doesn’t match up with the short trip(relatively) to satellite and back.

Maybe Dish is running Vista :smack: and it takes that long to process a simple in and out.