From Newsgroup: uk.tech.broadcast

Just watching BBC News talking to someone in Alaska about the Tsunami
and there was no noticeable satellite delay?



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From Newsgroup: uk.tech.broadcast

JMB99 <mb@nospam.net> wrote:

Just watching BBC News talking to someone in Alaska about the Tsunami
and there was no noticeable satellite delay?

Fibre connection or Starlink?

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From Newsgroup: uk.tech.broadcast

On 30/07/2025 14:24, Tweed wrote:

JMB99 <mb@nospam.net> wrote:

Just watching BBC News talking to someone in Alaska about the Tsunami
and there was no noticeable satellite delay?

Fibre connection or Starlink?

Yes. Satellites are rarely used these days for News Gathering it's all mostly IP via fibres and 5G. If it was someone in their home or office
via Teams, Zoom etc, then obviously no satellite uplink is involved.

(That's not to say you don't get latency, you can and do of course).
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From Newsgroup: uk.tech.broadcast

On 30/07/2025 17:37, Mark Carver wrote:

On 30/07/2025 14:24, Tweed wrote:

JMB99 <mb@nospam.net> wrote:

Just watching BBC News talking to someone in Alaska about the Tsunami
and there was no noticeable satellite delay?

Fibre connection or Starlink?

Yes. Satellites are rarely used these days for News Gathering it's all mostly IP via fibres and 5G. If it was someone in their home or office
via Teams, Zoom etc, then obviously no satellite uplink is involved.

(That's not to say you don't get latency, you can and do of course).

What you don'tt get so ften now is the delay from groundd level to a geostaionary orbit and back. Sometimes twice, if the satellites are in
the wrong place.
--
Tciao for Now!

John.
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From Newsgroup: uk.tech.broadcast

On 30/07/2025 18:14, John Williamson wrote:

On 30/07/2025 17:37, Mark Carver wrote:

On 30/07/2025 14:24, Tweed wrote:

JMB99 <mb@nospam.net> wrote:

Just watching BBC News talking to someone in Alaska about the Tsunami
and there was no noticeable satellite delay?

Fibre connection or Starlink?

-aYes. Satellites are rarely used these days for News Gathering it's all
mostly IP via fibres and 5G. If it was someone in their home or office
via Teams, Zoom etc, then obviously no satellite uplink is involved.

(That's not to say you don't get-a latency, you can and do of course).

What you don'tt get so ften now is the delay from groundd level to a geostaionary orbit and back. Sometimes twice, if the satellites are in
the wrong place.

That delay is only about half a second for a single Geostationary
up/down, that's nothing compared with some latencies that can be seconds
with some codecs.

BBC 1 HD on Freeview is about 8-9 seconds behind 'live'. No satellites involved anywhere in the chain (and part of that delay is within your
telly)
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From Newsgroup: uk.tech.broadcast

On 30/07/2025 18:31, Mark Carver wrote:

BBC 1 HD on Freeview is about 8-9 seconds behind 'live'. No satellites involved anywhere in the chain (and part of that delay is within your
telly)

I'm always surprised at how incredibly long the latency is on digital
TV, whether terrestrial or satellite. I used to think the latency of
satellite was due to the large uplink/downlink distance, until I did the calculation and found it was only 1/4 second second each way.

Presumably latency is controllable at the encoding end. Does longer
latency give greater resilience to brief periods of data loss? Is that
why it is do long?

Is there a way of reducing latency for satellite inserts ("over to our reporter live at the scene") in news bulletins? Even if it is only the newsreader's voice that the remote reporter uses for cueing when he
should start speaking. It looks a bit unprofessional for a newsreader to
hand over to the reporter and see him stand there like a wally for
several seconds until he gets his cue to start speaking. Or is *all* the latency that we see due to the delay between reporter and studio, with
the newsreader's cue to the reporter being very much shorter?

Do satellite links of this sort tend to have a special cueing version of
the newsreader's voice, or do they just the use off-air version from the
local terrestrial transmitter (or the off-air satellite)?
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From Newsgroup: uk.tech.broadcast

On 30/07/2025 17:37, Mark Carver wrote:

-aYes. Satellites are rarely used these days for News Gathering it's all mostly IP via fibres and 5G. If it was someone in their home or office
via Teams, Zoom etc, then obviously no satellite uplink is involved.

(That's not to say you don't get-a latency, you can and do of course).

I hadn't realised that news gathering rarely uses satellites these days.
I would have thought that satellite allows much more flexibility over
where the van is sited, because it doesn't have to be near a fibre point
or in an area that actually has 5G coverage (the latter seems to be only cities, and not smaller towns or village-every-few-miles rural
locations, if the 4G/5G indicator on a mobile phone is anything to go
by). (*)

How stable does a dish have to be to get a strong signal to a satellite?
Are there ever cases of someone getting in/out of the van and moving the
dish (as the van shifts on its suspension) enough to affect the signal strength?


(*) Mind you, Starlink satellite internet can be used on ships which
pitch and roll in the sea, and yet the dish manages to track the
satellite very accurately. Does that use geostationary satellites or
those in a lower orbit like GPS satellites? The power of the motors
which shifts the dish must be immense to allow very rapid acceleration
to compensate for ship movement: it's no good if the dish always points
at where the ship was facing a couple of seconds earlier ;-)
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From Newsgroup: uk.tech.broadcast

NY <me@privacy.net> wrote:

On 30/07/2025 17:37, Mark Carver wrote:

-aYes. Satellites are rarely used these days for News Gathering it's all
mostly IP via fibres and 5G. If it was someone in their home or office
via Teams, Zoom etc, then obviously no satellite uplink is involved.

(That's not to say you don't get-a latency, you can and do of course).

I hadn't realised that news gathering rarely uses satellites these days.
I would have thought that satellite allows much more flexibility over
where the van is sited, because it doesn't have to be near a fibre point
or in an area that actually has 5G coverage (the latter seems to be only cities, and not smaller towns or village-every-few-miles rural
locations, if the 4G/5G indicator on a mobile phone is anything to go
by). (*)

How stable does a dish have to be to get a strong signal to a satellite?
Are there ever cases of someone getting in/out of the van and moving the dish (as the van shifts on its suspension) enough to affect the signal strength?

(*) Mind you, Starlink satellite internet can be used on ships which
pitch and roll in the sea, and yet the dish manages to track the
satellite very accurately. Does that use geostationary satellites or
those in a lower orbit like GPS satellites? The power of the motors
which shifts the dish must be immense to allow very rapid acceleration
to compensate for ship movement: it's no good if the dish always points
at where the ship was facing a couple of seconds earlier ;-)

Electronic phased array antennas are your friend here. No moving parts.

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From Newsgroup: uk.tech.broadcast

On 2025/7/30 18:31:57, Mark Carver wrote:

On 30/07/2025 18:14, John Williamson wrote:

On 30/07/2025 17:37, Mark Carver wrote:

On 30/07/2025 14:24, Tweed wrote:

JMB99 <mb@nospam.net> wrote:

Just watching BBC News talking to someone in Alaska about the Tsunami >>>>> and there was no noticeable satellite delay?

Fibre connection or Starlink?

-aYes. Satellites are rarely used these days for News Gathering it's all >>> mostly IP via fibres and 5G. If it was someone in their home or office
via Teams, Zoom etc, then obviously no satellite uplink is involved.

(That's not to say you don't get-a latency, you can and do of course).

What you don'tt get so ften now is the delay from groundd level to a
geostaionary orbit and back. Sometimes twice, if the satellites are in
the wrong place.

That delay is only about half a second for a single Geostationary
up/down, that's nothing compared with some latencies that can be seconds with some codecs.

BBC 1 HD on Freeview is about 8-9 seconds behind 'live'. No satellites > involved anywhere in the chain (and part of that delay is within your
telly)

I presume JMB99 (OP) was talking about the delay (or lack of it) in the conversation between studio and person in Alaska, rather than overall delay. I've noticed BBC1 HD is usually noticeably behind SD (channel 101 vs.
channel 1), which puzzles me as I'd have assumed if there was going to
be any difference, it'd be the other way round. Could that it takes _my_
kit longer to decode HD, of course.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
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From Newsgroup: uk.tech.broadcast

On 2025/7/30 18:53:53, NY wrote:

[]

Is there a way of reducing latency for satellite inserts ("over to our reporter live at the scene") in news bulletins? Even if it is only the newsreader's voice that the remote reporter uses for cueing when he
should start speaking. It looks a bit unprofessional for a newsreader to hand over to the reporter and see him stand there like a wally for
several seconds until he gets his cue to start speaking. Or is *all* the

I see that often enough. Not infrequently when there's no great distance involved, such as within Britain. (Especially when an unexpected event
such as a disaster, though there maybe it _is_ satellite, set up in a
hurry.)

[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

When we shake the ketchup bottle
At first none comes and then a lot'll.
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