Susan Bickelhaupt on WBCN - today's Boston Globe

[Varulven]

Susan Bickelhaupt did a great radio column for THE BOSTON GLOBE back in the 80's early 90s.
She's in the GLOBE Sports department now and has a story on the delay on WBCN

http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/articles/2006/12/08/wbcn_trying_to_play_catch_up/
WBCN trying to play catch-up

Patriot broadcasts a step behind TV
By Susan Bickelhaupt, Globe Staff | December 8, 2006

Picture this: You're watching the Patriots on TV. Your wife is upstairs, listening on the radio. Suddenly, she hears you scream, "Oh my god!" and rushes downstairs to see what happened. It turns out you were screaming because Tom Brady had just thrown an interception and you saw it before she heard it.

That's because WBCN (104.1), which carries the Patriots' games, has a four-second delay in its transmission. So the TV and radio broadcasts are not in synch.
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Not only the Radio vs. TV - how about Satellite TV with the signal being way out of synch - and if you
have Comcast with a box and then just the basic in another room without the box, there's a 1 second or 2 second delay. (Comcast will install the cable in a room without the box if you choose, you just can't get the premium movies the boxes allow).


Very strange in a world of high technology. WBCN should synch up.


Nice to see Susan's byline doing radio again.

 

[Neggy]

The peice is about the different amounts of signal delay either intentionally added (think Janet Jackson) or the result of signal processing and transmission.

It is nice to see her byline again would be an understatement.. ANYONE BUT CLEA SIMON!

Ahh for the good old days of turning the TV volume down and the radio volume up and having in synch audio and video to watch a game.

Even with WLYN and WAZN broadcasting the same program from the same source, there is a bit of a delay on the WAZN side. Just the amount of time it takes to get signal to different transmitter sites.

 

[Laurence Glavin]

Isn't the speed of light just a bit less than A BILLION FEET A SECOND? (186,000 x 5,280)

 

[Neggy]

186,000 miles a second thru the atmosphere. It is slower thru other conductors.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Doesn't WBCN also broadcast in HD Digital? I believe that causes about an eight-second delay on stations that do, even on their analog signal.

 

[johnster]

We have been over this and over this so many times before. WBCN cannot be in sync with television in this day and age. They can't even be close. CBS Radio is a member of the HD Alliance. They must stay in HD without violating that contract (which would result in a loss of huge money if they did). Besides that they would let down everyone who was listening to them in HD now. And though you may be anti-HD here there are more of those listeners everyday and it is the future.

Now on top of that there is nothing to sync too. They finally learned this before they where in HD. They used to try very hard to sync to television actually delaying there analog broadcasts to try and sync up.

The TV broadcast is delayed (many times usually) as well. First there is the analog to digital conversion. Up-converting, HDTV, digital processing etc. Now this is a small may even be under a second. Next you have the back-haul delay. Remember all Football games are road games in that they are all network broadcasts and the origination goes back to the Network control center first. Now today this hop may be done by fiber or satellite. As we know anything that goes to a satellite has at least a 270 millisecond delay. The time it takes to get to the satellite and return to earth about 35,786 km at the speed of light 300,000 km per second. Now most satellite transmission today is digital not analog so depending on compression schemes your typically looking at a delay of 320 milliseconds. Now if they go fiber then you have the conversion and the distant of the path so the delay would be far less. So now the signal is in NY or wherever the Network control point is.
Now we add in whatever delay they add in the production probably just a few more milliseconds. It is now sent back up to the sky for network distribution. Another 320 milliseconds. Your local network affiliate now down-links the signal adds they're local commercials and puts it on the air. If they have a digital processing, HDTV or a digital signal path in the studio they add a few more milliseconds of delay. Now I'm not sure where where at with delay but I think a couple of seconds.

Now the radio stations today have some delay issues with back-haul as well. Typically today they all use ISDN as the most cost effective means of getting high quality digital audio back from the stadiums. Home and away usually so again no real difference between home and road games. This by the way was not the same story even 25 years ago in radio but where not going there. Most football games on radio today are done in stereo to an FM flagship (a trend started right here by the Patriots and CBS). With the stereo quality transmission over ISDN they are looking at 1/2 a second. Even with your digital processing your still probably well under a second. So if it was like the old days or we where a analog radio station and had the broadcast rights today we could sync up to this by delaying our audio to match the TV. And this is exactly what WBCN used to try and do.

But they soon discovered the problem... No one watches TV directly off the air anymore. They watch cable or Dish Network, or DSS. They have devices in their homes like DVR's or Tivos which all add delay.
The satellite viewers often have two more hops of satellite delay. And not only is digital cable delayed over analog but different types of set-top boxes add various amounts of delay with different compression schemes. Oh and I forgot to mention that you have a network of radio affiliates who you are reaching by satellite so no matter what you do they are further behind.

In other words it's impossible. You can get it right at the PD's house and it will be wrong almost everywhere else. So they gave up long ago.

Now you add on the HD delay which you have too if you want to compete in the HD world and your about 8 seconds behind where you where. But what does it really matter?? Yes the analog world of broadcasting was more fun with sports but that world is long gone. Get over it....
The only folks that could fix this would be the Cable TV folks at a local level but you can bet that the TV stations and Networks would scream! However you can fix it with a Tivo or DVR right in your own home. Just delay your TV.

 

[Neggy]

Thanks Johnny. A well written explanation. I just wish I had written it!

 

[SonicOverload]

can I ask another technical question, more about TV--I notice when I watch a show off the digital box in my living room, the TV in the kitchen with the analog hookup is about 5 seconds ahead. I assume the reason is the conversion?

 

[Varulven]

I think it depends on where the cable company's "Head end" is. I think that the closer your house is to the "head end" the less delay - but I'm not sure.

Analog TV gets the signal from the antenna.

Cable flows through the fiber optics or whatever; there's the "head end" issue.

DirectTV/Satellite is another thing.

Then there's the cable box and the cable that goes directly from the wall to the tv without a box.
There's a few seconds delay even when it's the same house - one a direct from the wall, the other from a box.

very confusing!

 

[johnster]

If you have 4 Cable TV's in the house all of them could have varying amounts of delay. I have Comcast and I notice a difference in delay between my regular Digital Box and my HDTV box. Now in this scenario all I can figure is the two boxes have a slight difference (while watching non HD channels) in how the digital compression is being decoded back to the analog signal. If I still had an analog box I'm sure that would be infront of both of them since there would be no digital compression. If you have a DVR Box or a Tivo you'll notice your even further behind. They are always recording to the hard drive and your never really watching in total realtime. It's kind of like the old three head tape decks.
So the point is there really is nothing to sync too anymore cause we are all in slightly different digital worlds. Now would someone please explain this to these reporters cause I'm done!

 

[johnster]

Well today I cracked open my dad's Christmas present an Accurian HD Radio from Radio Shack. Just testing it you understand.... Set it on BCN then delayed my HDTV perfectly with the old HDTivo. And I had the perfect HD Pats football experience. The video and audio perfectly in sync with great HD quality. Well now I have to pack it all back up for my dad but the game in HD really sounds good! No one tell my dad what he's getting now.... Hmm maybe I should keep it out for Oedipus's Christmas Eve show??

 

[TowerBuzz]

What an f'ing slow news day it must have been if she could find a way to scrape en entire column out of this boring, over thought, over discussed, non issue.

 

[Oldbones]

Susan Bickelhaupt did a great radio column for THE BOSTON GLOBE back in the 80's early 90s.

Nice to see Susan's byline doing radio again.

What have you been smoking? Susan's old radio column was filled with erroneous reporting. How soon we forget.

 

[TowerBuzz]

Susan Bickelhaupt did a great radio column for THE BOSTON GLOBE back in the 80's early 90s.

Nice to see Susan's byline doing radio again.

What have you been smoking? Susan's old radio column was filled with erroneous reporting. How soon we forget.

It was never worse than Clea Simon who made regular erros with things like call letters and dial positions.

 

[Varulven]

Hi Old Bones,

Unfortunately the Boston Globe is rife with erroneous reporting; Susan just has a better spirit for the radio column than Clea.

I like both Susan and Clea. Clea Simon seems to just re-type the press releases she gets; Susan Bickelhaupt actually followed up and went after the story. Did she misfire sometimes? - yes, but for the most part she did a good job. It's hard to critique Clea - she's a great gal - but she seems to be preoccupied with other things than writing a radio column. Dean Johnson might be available...

Think it was Neggy who said "anyone but Clea"... all one has to do is read Boston Radio Watch and this board - we're usually way ahead of the curve. Why doesn't the Globe hire Mark Schneyder...???