Delay on Digital broadcasts

[melliott1963]

I got a Toshiba 28ZT29B a couple of days ago and, on the whole, am very pleased with it.

No one really replied to my last post about the long delay I get on first turning the set on and being able to watch digital broadcasts (see my post "is this normal?").

Last night I was watching the Lottery draw, and our analogue TV was also on in the next room. I couldn't help but notice that there is a 2 second delay between the analogue TV and the digital TV i.e. I could hear what ball had been drawn on the analogue TV a clear 2 seconds before it was announced on my digital TV (I timed it!).

Again, I have to ask "is this normal?". If it wasn't for the fact that it takes a while for the digital programs to 'kick in', I'd probably not worry about it, but I'm just wondering if there's something wrong with my digital decoder.

Can anyone put my mind to rest?

Thanks.

 

[ste1010]

No the 2 second delay is completely normal.

It just takes more time for the signal to bounce off the satellite.

 

[Phil_S]

I don't think Digital Terrestrial Television goes anywhere near a satellite!

The delay is normal though. It's due to the signal being encoded before transmission and then decoded by your set before being displayed on screen. You'll notice the same effect if you switch between analogue and digital channels on the same set.

 

[Miles@9]

Don't think you can blame it on the satellite.

Digital Terrestrial, as it says on the tin, dose not use satellite.
But your right about the dealy, something to do with number crunching

It makes me wonder which "pips" are the right ones to set my clocks by?

 

[mammoth]

Have a little game wth a mate, phone a mate up who is watching digital and put your analogue set on the same station as your mate is watching and whilst talking to him finish off the dialogue for what ever he is watching it will take a few minutes for him to work that one out, trust me.

 

[alexjascott]

Its completely normal! It takes a tiny amount of time to encode the signal into a digital form, and then a tiny amount of time to decode the signal back your end.

It does get annoying watching the same thing in 2 rooms, when 1 tv is analog.

 

[MartinImber]

It does get annoying watching the same thing in 2 rooms, when 1 tv is analog.

That would be difficult - downstairs TV is digital, upstairs has a knacked tuner so uses a DTVA.

 

[melliott1963]

Thanks everyone for putting my mind to rest about the delay.

What about my other 'issue'? Does anyone else find that it takes 10 seconds or more after first turning on the TV before they're able to start watching a digital broadcast?

 

[ste1010]

Apologies, never realised the tosh was an IDTV.

All I can say is that the delay when you first power the TV on is probably normal. The decoder is in simple terms a computer. The decoding of the digital signal is done by software and not in hardware (ASIC). This software will be stored in flash and will need to be loaded into RAM before being used, (similar to a computer booting up)

My Sky box takes 30 seconds or so to initialise when powered up from cold.

 

[melliott1963]

Thanks ste1010. I was hoping that this would be the case.

I can now get down to just enjoying my TV and not worrying if anything is wrong (hopfully!).

 

[MartinImber]

My Sony takes just under 10 seconds - not long after the degauss zap