Radio and TV transmissions

[pirwany]

There is a few seconds delay in hearing someone live on radio and television. Why does this happen?

[Richard1966]

ive always assumed it was to do with the way the signal is processed both prior to and post transmission, especially with all this digital computerized malarky, bound to run a bit slower

[ChuckFickens]

Richard1966 has hit in on the head, it's signal processing mainly (the satellite transmission delay is surprising low!)

almost everyone has digital TV now (sky, virgin cable, freeview.. what ever)

even with a lot of computing power it takes time to encode these signals to a digital format and transmit them

it can be upto about a 5 second delay on receiving a HD signal and re-processing into digital and sending it on again.

[chakka35]

Until a few years ago I used to watch the Last Night of the Proms on television and listen to the sound on radio 3 on my hi-fi.
You can't do that any more because the TV picture and the radio sound-track are no longer in sync. This is because one travels by land-line and the other by satellite.

A prime case of technological progress producing deterioration of service to the customer.