Something is wrong with the time tagging in the video/audio media streams. Unfortunately faults like this are not uncommon. My brother in law knows what the cause is and how to fix it using some quirky Apple Mac tool or other with an odd name that escapes me for the moment.
It is generally a result of editors not doing the right thing to sync the streams at cut points but that might be over simplifying it a bit.
The problem is a distinction between broadcast streams and media streams and some editors not putting the right info in place when moving between the two or editing content.
DAB radio is even worse - every chipset has a different random delay between 1 and 3s which makes the hourly time pips hilarious.
There is nothing wrong with the sound the TV *receives*. There is everything wrong with the pathetic tinny speakers they have hidden behind some narrow slit. Feed the sound to a hifi system and it is better than DAB but you will need an optical DAC to RCA converter.
But then anything apart from AM and LW is better than DAB.
Still not enough, compare an iPlayer "HD" stream with the same programme on DSAT. DSAT HD streams run around 10 Mbps, some (non-UK channels) rather more.
Provided you aren't in the "last 10%". Not sure how that is going to be delivered and BT are playing their cards very tightly to their chest in regards the general BDUK funded FTTC roll out. It's very difficult to find out if FTTC is going to happen and if so what is the likely coverage.
Indeed. Our local "Fastershire" broadband improvement project is promising us two meg (happy?) by the end of 2016... How exciting!
"The rollout of fibre broadband in this area as part of the Fastershire project is due to start on 31st March 2015.
We expect the majority of work to finish by 31st March 2016. Further work to ensure all premises have faster broadband with a minimum of 2Mbps is expected to be completed by December 2016."
You need about 3.5Mbps for a BBC iPlayer HD channel. Satellite feed has a greater fidelity and a lot more bandwidth to play with.
Actually superfast North Yorkshire have done a reasonable job of publicising where the rollout will be and who will be the haves and have nots. I am in the "last 10%" and will get it sometime never.
My exchange has been upgraded but my nearest cabinet is further away from me than the exchange and both are well beyond the 1200m limit.
You can predict where BDUK subsidised BT rollout will occur. If there is a local DIY microwave or alternative supplier they will move heaven and earth to enable that cabinet to wipe them out. OTOH if you are unlucky enough to have a cabinet not near any mains you have no chance.
A quick local survey will give you a good idea.
One which, CRT or LCD?
Not knowingly seen either with "colour difference drive" wossat? I'm sound but know a good picture when I see one.
In some respects they start out of sync, sound is about 1.1 mS late for every foot the camera is from the subject.
Very much so and sometimes variable dependant on content. I think some of the problem is down to poor location practice when using seperate sound(*) and similarly at injest before editing, combined with Sods Law: Random errors add up unidirectionally for maximum impact.
Different sources may have different delays due to the path through the system they have taken. A common problem is (was, they seemed to have learnt now) trying to use a radio camera and cabled camera for an interview, the radio camera will be several frames late compared to the cabled one, which do you sync to?
With sound and vision taking different digital paths with delays sync can be a real issue. "Sync Checks" are becoming routine on OB's, set up the "standard path" and have sound person bashing the mic or two bits of wood together or talking to camera for 5 minutes (I'm getting quite good at Peter Piper ...), The truck makes sure it's in sync going into the embeder and back out of their de-embeder, studio/TX makes sure it's in sync after their de-embeder.
The data of the various streams inside an embeded signal (or file) has markers to say which bit from which stream belong together. As others have said that relationship can get messed up as well.
If you know how much, possibly variable over time, delay to put in, and you have to make sure that there is minimal delay in the monitoring system. Plasma/LCD screens can have considerable delay.
(*) Just sharing Time Code between the two devices. There should also be reference that the TC is derived from so that two devices clocks are synchronised. Without the reference (genlock) they *will* drift apart and at some point a frame, relative to the actual picture frames and TC numbers, will be dropped or skipped. "Time" is a variable unless you make sure all your clocks are ticking at exactly the same rate.
That's what I thought - AFAICS the mechanisms are there in the hardware/software but the people processing the data don't use them properly. Shame on them.
That's a different problem, that can only be solved by the industry agreeing a fixed delay time and the pips being broadcast that much earlier. Pigs, flying, etc.
Although I like the pips I think their usefulness is pretty low nowadays, with so many other sources of accurate timing available to us, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them dropped before too long (cue media campaigns, petitions, rallies outside Broadcasting House, etc, SAVE OUR PIPS).
Hmm. Since we're talking TV sound here it would be fair to say much of that refers to speech.
In general, R4 via DAB will sound a great deal better than 99% of speech on TV which is almost always originated on personal mics which are quite simply in the wrong place to get decent vocal quality.
So your reference to DAB is very much a red herring. ;-)
My very first colour TV - got when BBC1 and ITV went colour - was a Philips G6 with colour difference drive. And an EHT unit which could kill an entire village. ;-)
They have come down quite a bit in recent years. I have an old 37" LCD that was cast off from a friend - that takes about 270W IIRC.
(the 22" CRT TV I just binned was 160W)
iPlayer works here on less than 1.5Mbps. Its not spectacular, but just about usable. (like YouTube it auto adjusts the video quality to match the available bandwidth)
Youtube works at upto 360 line resolution at the moment. In the past I have managed to just get 480 out of it - but the broadband was doing over 2Mbits then.
Not a lot around about this now as very few sets had it the Philips K7 chassis did that that produced excellent pix. It AFAIK was only used in CRT sets..
And very little on Goggle..
Alternatively, matrixing may be carried out by the tube itself, a technique known as colour difference drive. Colour difference drive involves feeding the colour difference signals to the control grids of the c.r.t. while applying a negative luminance ...
Well you cannot do good sound with what today's market wants and thats thinner less boxy TV's. People are more used to thin PC monitors and want the same for the TV in the lounge..
You don't always need a DAC, our Sony has analogue and digital outs and when they get it right at that end .. its very good this end;)..
AM sounds less fatiguing than low bit rate drabble...
Not so much pigs flying as not easy to impliment. Yes you could run the network say 5 seconds early then have differeing delays depending on delivery method. Radio four is available on AM, FM, DAB, DTTV, DSAT, 'net ... Some terestial transmitters use DSAT either for the primary feed or back up. It also has "interesting" implications on remote cueing, you can't use off air.
I think the BBC did have a play with running a network early but it opens so many cans of worms they abandoned the idea, taking the approach it arrives, when it arrives. Even if you have a fairly simple overall system adding delays has to be carefully thought through.
Take the radio cam mentioned earlier, if it's just a simple PTC on the clock or timed duration a single stick mic plugged into the radio cam so it all gets delayed together can work. But throw in an 1+n interview in a noisy place so people are on IEMs to hear each other. You can't delay the individual mics or the people on IEMs get a delay which makes most people s s st stu stutter. You have to put the delay in after the IEM feed has been derived. And of course you still have to be flexible, just in case the radio cam goes phut and a cabled cam takes over (sans delay)...
Never had two DAB sets on at the same time? Or two FreeView? The delay is different between two identical models.
And don't get me started on digital radio mics. ;-)
However, the need for an accurate time signal via radio or TV has all but disappeared these days.
Well, flying pigs *are* hard to implement. :-)
I'm sure what you say is true, but from a purely personal point of view, I have little interest in outside broadcasts.
I don't have two identical models but I do have several DAB radios and if anything the more recent cheaper ones are getting worse! The original more or less works provided it doesn't rain hard with leaves on the trees when it breaks up into unintelligible gibberish even with a bespoke aerial optimised for the right band. VHF FM is top notch.
The flanging effect when you have two DAB radios on in different rooms is hilarious as you move form one sound field to the other. Not quite as disturbing as the antiphonal responses when one is DAB and one FM.
My most recent DAB radio streams internet radio and I have given up on DAB radio tuners in favour of a Pioneer streaming internet device. R3 on the internet can be had at 320k and AAC encoded. R4 at 128k AAC.
True enough. You could make a strong case for *NOT* transmitting the pips at all on the DAB sevice since they are fundamentally broken.
DAB was a sucky idea that sucked even more in reality.
I had a DAB radio once - ate D cells like a bastard. And was touchy about its aerial being "right".
For "radio" I use Internet radio - thousands of stations from all over the world and some of them even don't have the monkey-arsed crap that passes as modern pop.
For everything else, AM (works everywhere adequately) and FM (super sound) were the right solutions IMHO.
They are on FreeView too. It's a fundamold of digital.
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