I was wondering this as I watched yet another news program where in the background the scene is monitors and other technical whatnot.
What makes me curious about these shots, when one of the monitors in the background is showing what I’m watching, is the delay I can see between what the talent is saying and the delay seen on the monitor behind them.
Why?
It’s usually a couple seconds old, and looks as if it’s coming from a built in delay from the transmission going to the satellite and then back down. OK, I can understand there’s a little delay in that. But I don’t understand why what I’m seeing looks in real time to what the person is saying compared to the monitor in the background.
Make any sense?
Hmm.
Alright, how about this- I assume what is on the monitor is raw and takes the same amount of time to get to me then it does that monitor thingy in the background, so why the delay?
Furthermore, since I usually see this phenomena in a studio setting, where it’s being tapped and everything, shouldn’t the monitor in the background be ahead of what I’m seeing? Why’s it behind?
The image on the monitor is delayed in comparison to the live actor because of broadcasting lag. Let’s say that broadcast takes one second to go from the camera, bouncing all over the world, and to your TV. What you see the actor doing, they did one second ago. The monitor however already has a one second lag, and so now it’s two seconds behind the ‘live’ action. It doesn’t matter how they taped it or how long the images takes to get to you, when the camera picks up the image of the actor and the image on the monitor, those two are now synched to the same frame, capturing with it the delay from the boradcasting on the monitor. If you were able to see the tiny image of the monitor within the image of the monitor, it would have a three second delay and so on. It’s kinda like when you point a live camcorder at a TV and move it around. You see a whole series of TVs, and the image of the further back ones lags in response time behind the others.
Most TV and radio stations in my part of the world use a seven second delay system, to ensure that anything really rude or gross can be blipped out before it hits the transmitter.
I wonder if the monitor you were referring to was part part of a similar loop.
The monitors behind the talent are real TVs tuned to actual channels, not closed circuit monitors. So what’s happening is this:
Talent says “Welcome to Channel 2 news”.
After n seconds (7?) Channel 2 broadcasts “Welcome” to everyone - including to the monitor behind the talent and to you.
You see talent saying “Welcome”. In the meantime, talent is reading headlines while “Welcome” is playing on background monitors.
After the standard delay, the headlines have reached you and you see “Welcome” in the background since that what was behind the talent when the headlines were read. Incidentally, this should be a good way to measure exactly what the broadcast delay is.
This really isn’t any different than what the others have said. Is this what you are describing?
Monitors in the background may or may not be closed-circuit monitors. It all depends on what’s required, and what wacky engineer set the screens up.
I’ve never heard of a TV station using a 7 second delay. That works well in radio (esp. for call-in shows) but you don’t really need it for TV news. Any delays you see come entirely from processing.
Cnote, you’ve got it precisely backwards.
Try thinking about it as a series of still images.
image 1----> moniter in background displays image 0
image 2—> monitor now showing image 1
image 3—> monitor now showing image 2
But it doesn’t matter when you get the stuff at home. You’ll always see whatever the camera took a picture of.
Barbarian, you and me gonna splice and dice some coax? C’mere !! (( wrasslin’ his union card out of his hand )).
I have to disagree with you. While a Google search for the quote on this left me emptyhanded, I have read more than once that in at least the first season of Saturday Night Live, a 7-second delay was in place. The night that Richard Pryor was on and did is famous Word Association skit with Chevy Chase, the networks were ready with finger on the delay switch, because nobody was sure just how far the two of them were going to take it.
Aside from that kind of a thing? Yeah, I agree I’ve never been on a live show that used a delay circuit. What I see is what they get…
I work in transmission for a TV company and there be no seven second delay. In fact we transmit quite a few channels and none of 'em do that, although radio stations do when they are taking telephone calls from listeners.
The delay from transmission to the signal returning via satellite is just under 2 seconds. The monitor in the background was just tuned into the broadcast the same as any other TV around the country.
Actually, now I’m curious about the seven-second delay thing.
And yes, I think some broadcasters have or do use it. In fact, I’ve noticed some lengthy delays lately in terms of the crisis coverage, and no, I don’t mean the delay you get when talking to people in Afghanistan.
About the seven second delay (When used)-
How does it work?
Is there a tape that just loops and it’s length is about seven seconds?
What happens when they bleep or edit stuff out ‘on the fly’? That is, my local radio station periodically refer to the delay when they get a caller saying things they don’t want aired, i.e. ‘Hey, did you catch that in time?’ ‘Yep, I think it got nixed’ or some such thing.
But once, about a month ago, they were talking about the eleventh incidents and everything, they nixed a guy who apparently talked disparagingly of Arabs.
None of it made it out, all I could here was the guy getting cut off.
As the radio guys were talking, one said that since they nixed the guy, they needed to wait for the delay to “build up” (I put that in quotes because those were his exact words).
There is a button that the radio DJ can press that will cut off the caller. A hard drive is probably used to delay the audio, and the button would cut out that loop as well as the caller, so effectively when the button is pressed, the show you are listening to jumps seven seconds into the future. (Actually it jumps seven seconds into the present. You had been listening to the show as it was seven seconds in the past. Erm, suddenly this seems very confusing - but it is in fact a pretty simple concept).
The offending comments are thus never transmitted presuming the button had been pressed within seven seconds of the offending comment.
Obviously, the build up is necessary in order to allow the hard drive to accrue the seven seconds.
Actually that does, Fiendish Astronaut, thanks for bearing with me.
However, how can they ‘build up’ time if what I’m listening to is constant? Or, if I’m sitting here listening away while they’re ‘building’ time, where are they getting the time from?
If you want to see the TV satellite delay in action here is how you can do it:
Watch your local sports team on Direct TV and turn the sound down. Listen to the local radio broadcast of the same game. The radio guy will say something like “he scores” and then 2 seconds later you see it happen on the screen. It’s sort of like having ESP!
I think the delay is longer for Direct TV than for regular cable. The reason for the delay is it takes time to bounce the signal to the satellite and back down to your TV while the radio signal does not take that long path.
The feed going out is s-l-o-w-l-y being stretched. Like, you know your old LPs? How they had 33 RPM, 45 RPM and 78 RPM?
Now switch that to a variable speed RPM. Every minute you tick it along from 33, to 34, to 35 etc… The delay is imperceptible to the human ear, and eventually you get your 7 seconds.
Oh, and Cartooniverse, I was in diapers during the first season of SNL. Forgive me for not remembering that one. From what I understand that was also the last time SNL was actually funny
You can also pry my union card out of my hand any time you find it. I work at one of the few (only?) non-union TV shops in Canada.
From what I read SNL only used a delay on the show hosted by Richard Pryor, not other hosts. He was the host of the first ever SNL show in '75. And I read the delay was more like 2 seconds.
Computer-types call this a buffer. It slowly builds by stretching the program you are actually hearing. Your computer does this when running RealPlayer and other video players. Unfortunately, the Internet is often unpredictable in speed, so the buffer runs out and has to be rebuilt from scratch.
If you have a portable CD player that is “skip” resistant or has “anti-skip technology” in it, it is really building up a delay buffer. Nothing really prevents the laser from misreading the CD – the player just has a delay circuit that gives it time to fix the error before it reaches the earphones. Your CD player probably has a little graph or indicator that shows when the buffer is full (and the CD player is ready to take a pounding). If you shake the CD player right after turning it on, however, the sound will skip because the buffer hasn’t filled yet.
Does a computer ever weed out certain words that are not acceptable during the 7 second delay or radio or TV?
If it is entirely up to the host, what if he is day dreaming or can’t for any reason get to the button in time. Is there a person whose function is to listen his or her whole shift just to eliminate offensive material during the delay?
Some guy is selling a box that he says will edit out “bad” words on the fly - he is religious and that is why he is selling it. I guess you stick it between your cable box or satellite box and TV set. I don’t know if he gives you a list of the words it blanks out.
