{"text":[[{"start":7.4,"text":"The BBC and ITV are exploring technological advances to dramatically cut down the lags that have caused frustration for millions of football fans who can hear a goal scored from neighbouring homes before it is shown on their own TV screens."}],[{"start":21.700000000000003,"text":"Fans listening to Saturday’s clash between England and Norway on the radio will be the first to hear if Harry Kane scores the opener, with the oldest broadcast technology ironically being the fastest to reach the home within a couple of seconds. "}],[{"start":35.6,"text":"Terrestrial broadcasting to the aerial is normally only a few extra seconds behind the filming of an event, and similar times for TV via satellite. But the slowest ways of watching TV — and the most likely to see a match-winning goal last — are over the more digitally advanced broadband streaming services such as ITVX or iPlayer."}],[{"start":55.25,"text":"The average “latency” on streaming is about 30 seconds compared with Freeview or Sky satellite where it is in the region of five to 10 seconds, according to TV executives, with the BBC iPlayer having narrowed the time gap to about 21 seconds."}],[{"start":71.8,"text":"The BBC has worked on reducing the latency on the iPlayer, and hopes for even better with a trial that is already showing Wimbledon games with much reduced delays to some homes in England and Scotland."}],[{"start":84,"text":"Richard Cooper, BBC director of digital distribution, said: “We’ve reduced the gap by 48 seconds since the last World Cup and by 13 seconds since this time last year. This shows the fantastic progress our teams are making to the live sport experience online.”"}],[{"start":101.1,"text":"ITV said it had been monitoring the latency lag for some time and had been actively working on reducing the delay."}],[{"start":107.89999999999999,"text":"Paul Kane, director of technology, content supply and distribution, said that the problem was now becoming obvious as more users download apps or when “the neighbours are cheering if they’re watching on [terrestrial broadcasting] or satellite, and you’re watching on [streaming]”."}],[{"start":124.5,"text":"He added: “As more people are shifting over to [streaming], this is going to become more prevalent, but it’s only really around these big specific events, like live football events, where everyone’s watching together, that everyone becomes more aware of it.”"}],[{"start":139.05,"text":"Streaming services such as BBC iPlayer and ITVX need to buffer, encode and distribute video, while packets of video content are cached for several seconds to avoid the dreaded “spinning wheel” delays. Data needs to be packaged differently for the screens on phones, TVs, browsers and apps."}],[{"start":159.45000000000002,"text":"Streaming is cut up into short segments that are collected before broadcast to stop buffering — meaning a slight delay rather than a drop in service during a crucial penalty — while lower-latency services have been more unreliable in the past."}],[{"start":174.10000000000002,"text":"ITV’s Kane said it “will always take a certain amount of time to be captured by a camera, encoded, and then delivered”."}],[{"start":182.25000000000003,"text":"ITV has also worked with Sky on its “Real Time” feature on its streaming service, which reduces latency between the live action and what viewers see on screen by more than 20 seconds. The service is available for the World Cup on BBC and ITV via Sky’s service."}],[{"start":198.75000000000003,"text":"“We’re monitoring [delays] and we’re looking at it in terms of how we can improve the overall viewer experience,” said Kane, who said much of the newest technology was still in its testing stages and not being adopted by ITV yet."}],[{"start":212.35000000000002,"text":"But he thinks that one day this will be able to get delays down to less than five seconds and comparable to terrestrial TV broadcasts."}],[{"start":221.00000000000003,"text":"The BBC’s low-latency trials have been aimed at reducing the delay for live sport and have been extended to selected days of Wimbledon. The tennis was seen as better for the trial because of the significant amount of live coverage on BBC Two, where a single stream serves audiences in the whole of England and Scotland. "}],[{"start":238.85000000000002,"text":"BBC Two viewers who have set their location to England or Scotland may be among those randomly assigned a low-latency stream."}],[{"start":251.85000000000002,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1783706456_1893.mp3"}