D-Day commemoration — a strange anomaly

I’m listening to BBC Radio coverage of the anniversary celebrations, and also watching it on BBC TV. Interesting fact: the TV coverage is lagged by about a second. This is probably because the authorities want to be able to pull the TV plug instantly if there’s a terrorist attack. Now that’s what I call planning.

Update: Message from a technologically informed reader (Dave Hill) says “Methinks you’re working overtime on this one, John. It’s more likely simply that the delay is caused by the fact that the TV is carried on a DVB (Digital Video) link and there is an inherent coding delay of about 16 frames (at 25 frames/sec). Even if the radio commentary is also on a digital link, the coding delay is much less. It’s made even worse if you’re then watching on Sky Digital (because of an extra encode/decode *and* the uplink/downlink path of 44,000 km) and on Freeview Terrestrial (because of the extra encode/decode).”

Rats! The slaughter of a beautiful conspiracy theory by an ugly fact (to paraphrase TH Huxley). Sigh.