How long is "live" ?

[Borg]

I have noticed for some time that the three major news channels that we get on DStv all have a different understanding of the term "live".

Watching Obama's inauguration yesterday, I again saw that the CNN broadcast was about 20s faster than the BBC News channel, and about 40s faster than Sky News. All was labeled as being "live".

Just how long can this term be extended before it should rather be labeled as "delayed"?

 

[10i]

A very interesting point!

 

[cipha]

I think the term delayed is used, when an event is recorded and then played on air

Whats 20s in a broadcast anyway?

 

[milomak]

it's got to do with how the information travels and is relayed. i remember once watching a champions league match on dstv and the guys in another flat must have been watching on etv as they celebrated goals some seconds before they happened. needless to say i switched to watching on etv.

 

[Ecco]

Sometime the delay is attributed to how the event is broadcast.

Eg. For dstv CNN, They beam the image from the event to a satellite, which then transmits it to CNN's headquaters where all the graphics, text etc are added, then this gets beamed to a satellite which transmits the signal to DSTV's headquaters, where it is again beam to their own satellite which transmit down to your dish.

Quite a few jumps up and down till it gets to you, now some networks may have additional jumps inbetween before it gets to you and that adds a few more seconds each time.

ETV (in the case of the Champions league) is quicker then DSTV because they dont have to do the same last jump that dstv needs before it gets to you.

 

[eltherza]

Live - quickest they can broadcast it to you from the event - think 'streaming', but added things [such as the mnet logo] to the transmission. No intentional delays in broadcast, delays are made via transmission/processing delays

Delayed live - This is when they put in an intentional delay to the broadcast to censor the event, or because of timing. I usually believe delayed live are shows that start while the live performance is still on. ( eg. you cant read about the results on news24 before the broadcast starts)

Recorded - Start broadcasting of an event or show after the show has completed. eg F1 broadcast on SABC at sunday 11pm when the race ended at 4pm.

Well, that's how I see it.