How do FM radio and old analog TV broadcasts operate without lag and how do so many radios/TVs tune in to a broadcast without causing issues?

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There’s only static when the signal is bad and some delay due to the travel time of signals, but analog broadcast never lags or stutters like TV and radio broadcasted over the internet.

Also, what makes it possible for thousands/millions of analog TV’s and FM radios to view and listen to broadcasts without causing issues when TV and radio broadcasted over the internet requires packet scheduling and lots of servers to serve the same number of viewers and listeners?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Analog signals take essentially zero time to decode. When a signal gets to your eyes, it’s always analog, so the process of receiving, decoding, and processing a digital signal to what your eyes actually see adds delay. Even if the signal is bad, the badness is passed along in the form of static or lines, and the TV just moves on without trying to fix it.

Millions of receivers can tune into any signal, *but* if the signal is *two-way*, then they start competing for the transmitter’s attention. Analog signals can’t really be two-way, but digital signals can. One-way digital signals can also exist, they just usually aren’t used because two-way allows for error correction and such.

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