Are we going in the right direction?

[Hoss]

It seems there has been a pass for TV News and lip sync, now the but. I watched a NBC entertainment program this month and the lip sync was off by several frames continually. This drives me to distraction, and is a situation any caring and competent broadcaster should want to avoid. It’s an audience retaining concept which feeds your audience building efforts. In other words you place a lot of time and effort into getting the audience to tune in so don’t lose them by doing something that is preventable. Poor lip sync is abhorrent as having cameras that do not color match. Actually the question is what has happened to good production and engineering values? Has it come down to acceptable levels of tolerances that we accept and even allow? How far or long will the aberrations continue until they become the accepted standard? Has the sheer quantity of programming necessitated a lowering of standards? Why has technology not been more aggressive in fixing the lip sync problem? As I pointed out cameras stay color matched and go through a separate but equal number of codec’s, conversions and switchers. I would like to hear a discussion and opinions whether it’s the lip sync problem or of much more interest to me the broader question of the slipping and diminishing production and engineering standards. Just to be clear for myself, this does not reflect on the worker bees at the station level. I continue to have a great deal of respect for the engineers and production folk at the day to day operation level.

[genlock]

It might not be the network or the tv station.
Something at the cable company or even in your tv set might cause this.
A station, for example, might have a router setup where audio and video take different paths.
Sometimes, not always, this can cause a problem.
A station with a hybrid plant (analog and digital living together) has a high probability of this.
In the era of automation, the master control operator is expected to do a lot of things.
Quality control is near the bottom of the list.

What was the setup for the lip-sync problem?
Station? off-air or cable? Which provider? TV set type?
I have seen cable network lip-sync catch up by a second or so after an internal (network) break.
That would indicate to me that it was some sort of auto sync setup.
At times, I have switched channels (cable) and the audio took time to sync.
I attribute that to whatever is in the cable box.

[Hoss]

Station? WSAZ. off-air or cable? Cable. Which provider? Suddenlink. TV set type? Samsung 1080. Watched on my digital tier but it was also apparent on my basic channel as well. As you point out there is much wiggle room for stations or anyone in the chain of delivery. As a manager having my career ended for carrying the torch of accountability and quality I understand the problem of trying to point out and come up with plans to correct problems. Especially bad for folks working for mega owners, Sinclair, Gray or even just a local multiple operators like Bray Cary. We all need a job and standing up to fix operating problems cost money and sometimes go against the corporate plan, ie when the equipment from corporate does not meld well with your existing, say a analog digital mixed facility. What are the options? And I don't blame it on operators that to my experience do the best they can with what is provided and many truly professional and caring try to make a difference.