Quote:
Originally posted by heathkit tv
Funny thing I've been noticing lately is that one of the local PBS stations (KCSM College of San Mateo CA) has been airing shows late at night that have the sound OUT OF SYNCH!
How the hell can this be? It's not like as in an old movie projector if you had a loop in the film around the optical sound pickup (off by a couple of sprockets/frames). I thought the sound was synched IN the tape's signal somehow. It's the strangest and most annoying thing.
The soundtrack almost sounds like it's been dubbed as that's how the ear perceives it, but I've watched it carefully and it's just plain out of synch. Go figger.
Anthony
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This is the first time I've ever heard of TV audio being out of sync with the video. Ordinarily, this doesn't happen (I have never heard of it happening on live shows such as news, etc.), or at least it didn't years ago when the station engineers paid a lot more attention to details than some do today.
You are correct about sound on filmed programming sometimes getting out of sync with the picture (I was on the AV crew in high school over 30 years ago; we would have this happen with film every now and then, but never with video tape). I would think a professional broadcast television station, especially one affiliated with a national network such as PBS, however, would watch these things a lot more carefully and correct them before the film ever got on the air. However, in today's have-to-have-it-done-yesterday world, details are often forgotten or overlooked, leading to such mistakes as you describe. I remember a couple of instances back in the '60s and '70s in which engineers at two of the local network TV stations in Cleveland misjudged the timing of a network feed by a few seconds and inadvertently showed the local ID for the networks' flagship stations in New York (WNBC-TV for NBC and WCBS-TV for CBS). One morning, before the station signed on, I was amazed to see the local NBC affiliate in Cleveland, WKYC-TV, showing a picture of something (I don't remember what it was anymore--this was over thirty years ago) spinning on the screen, with a "boing" sound from my TV's loudspeaker. To this day I don't know what that was; an equipment test, perhaps? Then there are the times behind-the-scenes studio and film or tape cues are inadvertently shown before the commercial or program itself begins. Again, this is likely due to engineers being in too much of a hurry to put these things on the air, without checking to see that the film or tape is at the starting point of the program or commercial (the part the viewing public is supposed to see).