Small things to make the world better

[Rick Nebiolo]

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PS Does anyone know why signals can get this far off? Seems to me that even if one signal is a direct broadcast and one comes off the Direct TV satellite this would account for only a fraction of a second or so delay. My guess is digital TV signals that heavily buffered (at some place in the chain).

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Rick,

I'm pretty sure the signal that is ahead would be the digital cable one. I have digital cable and my dad has Direct TV and when we are discussing the Husker games during the game my signal is approximately 4 to 5 seconds ahead of his. He always complains that I ruin the play for him by cheering or complaining. I think it's just the delay of the signal being broadcast down to the earth from the satellite, just guessing though.


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The more I think about it somewhere (or in many places) the digital TV signal has to be buffered and sometimes the amount of buffering is significant.

Geosynchronous /stationary satellites are about 25,000 miles in space above the equator. The speed of light is about 186,000 miles per second. The round trip from North America only accounts for about a third of a second. If DirectTV is that far behind then they have to be holding onto bits somewhere.

~ Rick