question re: tv signal v radio signal ?

[the 12 th man]

can anyone explain this:
i was on holiday in france during the last world cup and i turned on the tv to watch us v the cameroon.my french is appaling so i turned on the radio so i could listen to it in english with the tv turned down.
i think i got bbc talk sport or five live (couldnt get rte radio).but the radio commentary was about 2 seconds ahead of the pictures .as in the ball was breaking to matt holland on the tv but the radio had the ball in the back of the net (great strike.did well to keep it down).

this continued for the week or so i was there.other than a time delay on the pictures in case of need for tv censorship
i cant think of why the difference ?

[brendy_éire]

Noticed before once that Eurosport was about 2 seconds behind RTÉ when showing something, think it was showjumping from the RDS. (not that I watch that type of thing).
My guess is that RTÉ's signal never left Ireland, whereas Eurosport's when from Ireland to a satellite, to Eurosport's headquarters, then back to Ireland via satellite. I think there's normally a 0.5 second delay for internal live programmes getting to your TV anyway.

Maybe your radio was ahead of the TV because it takes longer to send pictures than sound? Not too mention the extra needed to change TV signals from electrical to picture and sound? Just a guess.

[noby]

It's the journey to the satellite and back that delays it. Also, with live matches, there's a slight delay in the picture and not the sound, so the commentators 'keep up' with the play.

[Peadar]

Sound travels slower than light but you're right the delay is usually the other way. If you watch the Euro2004 games on RTÉ and then flick to the BBC you'll notice that their picture is a fraction of a second slower than RTÉ.
I imagine it has something to do with the fact that the picture is being captured by satellite and sent down the pipe.

[max power]

are the fact that the rte transmitter is closer to us than the bbc one.....