Whatever happened to satellite delay?

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On transatlantic broadcasts back in the 80s I remember there was always a pause of a couple of seconds when interviewing people via satellite. And this was the reason why Mick 'n' Dave couldn't perform live together at Live Aid. But it's all but disappeared now, and hell there should never have been any delay in the first place - light is pretty fast and satellites ain't that far away. What gives?

― ledge (ledge), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:04 (nineteen years ago)

It was never the distance it was the boxes in the chain encoding and decoding and modulating and the like. Commercial sat boxes decode a lot fast than they used to (and a lot faster than consumer ones).

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:07 (nineteen years ago)

i was going to say that. honestly.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:09 (nineteen years ago)

Ah, the mundane and obvious explanation. Damn.

― ledge (ledge), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:10 (nineteen years ago)

Stationary satellites orbit at more than 20000 miles above the Earth so Mick-Dave would have been a ~50000 mile trip, which would take light just under a 1/3 of a second each way, or long enough to fuck up all the timing.

― ONIMO's fish might turn into lizards (GerryNemo), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:10 (nineteen years ago)

will cable tv volume ever be as loud as analogue sound signal?

when did they first start boosting the volume during commercial breaks?

― ;_; (blueski), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:11 (nineteen years ago)

why is BBC1 so much louder at night time than any other channel?

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:12 (nineteen years ago)

surely not when the adverts are on (other channels)?

― ;_; (blueski), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:13 (nineteen years ago)

It's an equalization/compression thing. The TV stations don't boost the volumes (apart from whoever it was that was fined for it, Ch5 maybe?) but the ads are recorded to sound louder and get your attention.

― ONIMO's fish might turn into lizards (GerryNemo), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:16 (nineteen years ago)

Its not booting the volume its increasing the amount of compression on commercial breaks (i.e. raising lower amplitude parts of the audio signal)

xpost

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:17 (nineteen years ago)

Get Southall on the case.

― ledge (ledge), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:20 (nineteen years ago)

Just checked - Ch5 didn't boost the volume but they failed to reduce the peak volume before broadcasting highly compressed ads and ofcom slapped their wrists for it.

― ONIMO's fish might turn into lizards (GerryNemo), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:21 (nineteen years ago)

sometimes there's still satellite (or chain encoding and decoding or whatever) delay.

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

depends on the euipment

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:25 (nineteen years ago)

place a cell phone call to or from hawaii, it still exists.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 19 October 2006 15:37 (nineteen years ago)

i'm sad that there aren't more xposts in this thread

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 19 October 2006 16:10 (nineteen years ago)

Ah, the mundane and obvious explanation. Damn.

Or maybe light just got faster!! I blame Bush.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 19 October 2006 16:16 (nineteen years ago)

finded it!

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 19 October 2006 16:34 (nineteen years ago)

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