Why is the delay (ping) on professional TV video calls absurdly high?

Question

So many times I see a guy video calling another crew across the country and it can take a solid 5-10 seconds before we hear them reply. I’ve seen kids in siberia with better ping.

In: 492

Answer 1

I’ll just add, as a former broadcast tech, they’re not doing a call at all like you would FaceTime somebody. The signal going to the studio, and the return from the studio typically take separate paths with all sorts of latency introduced from various broadcast equipment. Satellite, MPEG encoders/decoders, etc.