Syncing Radio with TV Broadcasts for Sports

[easysurfer]

I ordered this hardware gizmo today:

hart-hometeamradio-final_H264_640x480.mp4 - YouTube

Now I can clearly listen to local radio play-by-play alongside to watching the TV for sports.

I couldn't find any reviews of this gadget pro or con.

Currently, I own a SportSync Radio (original version)

SportSync | The AM/FM Radio with Sports Audio Delay

But the radio reception is pretty crappy .

 

[Free To Canoe]

I ordered this hardware gizmo today:

hart-hometeamradio-final_H264_640x480.mp4 - YouTube

Now I can clearly listen to local radio play-by-play alongside to watching the TV for sports.

I couldn't find any reviews of this gadget pro or con.

Currently, I own a SportSync Radio (original version)

SportSync | The AM/FM Radio with Sports Audio Delay

But the radio reception is pretty crappy .

Thanks for the info! I have been waiting for someone to invent this. No more Dierdorf! It is worth whatever I have to pay (if it works well). I do have crummy radio reception.

 

[Mulligan]

Do they account for transmission delay? The reason why I ask is this weekend, a friend of mine and I were talking on phone and he congratulated me on winning the bet I had on the football game with a game ending OT field goal. I said they haven't even kicked it yet. He said he was listening on the radio. Must have been at least 7 seconds delay between what he was listening to and what I was watching on tv.

 

[Mulligan]

Duh, my bad, I just looked at the first title, not the second one . That is interesting.

 

[easysurfer]

In the good old days, just turning on the radio and watching the TV pretty much had the sound in sync plus or minus a second or so. Now, with cable, satellite and such the delay can vary greatly. With the sports sync radio I have now, which only delays up to 8 seconds, sometimes for baseball the delay is still too short in length. The gizmo I ordered can put a delay up to 60 seconds . Plus, I like using my regular radio as I mentioned, the delay radio I have now has crappy reception and is top heavy so slips and falls on it's side.

So for me, if the setup all works out, I'll be using the gizmo, plus a
Grundig radio:

Amazon.com: Grundig FR200 Emergency Radio: Electronics

and a portable speaker:

Amazon.com: GOgroove AudioMORPH Portable Articulating Tablet Speaker for Google Nexus 7 / Nook HD / Samsung ATIV Smart PC , Galaxy Note 10.1 , Galaxy Tab 2 / Apple iPad & More - Incl. Cleaning Kit: Computers & Accessories

 

[easysurfer]

Do they account for transmission delay? The reason why I ask is this weekend, a friend of mine and I were talking on phone and he congratulated me on winning the bet I had on the football game with a game ending OT field goal. I said they haven't even kicked it yet. He said he was listening on the radio. Must have been at least 7 seconds delay between what he was listening to and what I was watching on tv.

I bet it was a lot easier to get the news early in that your team won instead of on the losing end .

 

[Animorph]

I haven't had a problem with TV and radio, though I don't do it often. I have had some problems with unsynced audio between two nearby TV's (main in Family Room on Tivo over-the-air and small one in the kitchen on cable), and two nearby radios (over the air and internet). Never a problem with analog equipment.

I listen to radio all the time when I'm at the live football game. A couple of times they have left the 6 second delay in the radio broadcast for the first half or so. That was pretty annoying. Wonder if they make delay glasses?

 

[RunningBum]

DVR/PVR/Tivo -like receivers often have a pause button that delays up to 60 minutes of video. You can use this to pause the video to sync with the radio. Sometimes I'll listen to a radio broadcast on the internet to the game I'm watching, and I have to do this. Too often my internet is too choppy and it re-buffers the radio so I have to adjust too often, and I give up and just listen to the TV announcers.

 

[easysurfer]

DVR/PVR/Tivo -like receivers often have a pause button that delays up to 60 minutes of video. You can use this to pause the video to sync with the radio. Sometimes I'll listen to a radio broadcast on the internet to the game I'm watching, and I have to do this. Too often my internet is too choppy and it re-buffers the radio so I have to adjust too often, and I give up and just listen to the TV announcers.

I've been using the approach you described when the TV broadcast happens before the radio. I pause the TV for a bit, then do the fine tune syncing with the radio delay. I haven't tried while listening to broadcasts from the internet.

 

[Texas Proud]

Do they account for transmission delay? The reason why I ask is this weekend, a friend of mine and I were talking on phone and he congratulated me on winning the bet I had on the football game with a game ending OT field goal. I said they haven't even kicked it yet. He said he was listening on the radio. Must have been at least 7 seconds delay between what he was listening to and what I was watching on tv.

Heck, it is not just radio and TV, but OTA TV and cable TV...

When I talk to my friend who has OTA TV, I will have to tell him 'don't tell me what happened' all the time... Now usually he just says 'pay attention'....


I have started to DVR the games and come in later and watch... saves me time as I can get past the official reviews, the timeouts, the commercials and halftime... If I really want to go fast, just push the 30 second button and most of the time it goes from snap to snap... I can watch a football game in one hour...

 

[easysurfer]

Well, I got my gizmo in the mail today and thought you might like my impression of the radio broadcast delay gadget.

Overall, it does work, but the sound quality isn't as great as I had expected. The intructions do mention that how well the device works depends on having a clear signal. I'm guessing that with the buffering that goes on might be the reason why. Also, the device came with a 6 ft audio cable (way too long for my needs) and I found that when I folded the cable together to make it shorter, the sound seemed clearer. So, I ordered a 1 ft audio cable from Amazon and when I get that, maybe I'll have better luck with that cable.

I tested with the radio station that broadcasts the football game and with that, my old sport sync radio even sounds better. So for football, I'll just stick with my old sport sync radio. For the baseball station, the sound actually wasn't that bad, so I'll keep the device for baseball season as on some baseball broadcasts (such as on Fox) me there's about a 30 second or more difference between Fox's broadcast and the local radio broadcast. This device works to up to 60 seconds so I think it'll work.

Overall, not as nice as I had hoped, but still useable (especially in baseball season). Is it worth the price I paid? That all depends on how well the baseball team does next year .

 

[Free To Canoe]

I ordered this hardware gizmo today:

hart-hometeamradio-final_H264_640x480.mp4 - YouTube

Now I can clearly listen to local radio play-by-play alongside to watching the TV for sports.

I couldn't find any reviews of this gadget pro or con.

Currently, I own a SportSync Radio (original version)

SportSync | The AM/FM Radio with Sports Audio Delay

But the radio reception is pretty crappy .

What I would like is what is in the demo, a device that hooks up to your existing radio. What you get best as I can tell from the web site is a cheap radio with the other electronics incorporated within.

 

[easysurfer]

The gizmo that I ordered is just that. The little black box that does the delay that sits between your own radio and speakers. Unfortunately, still usuable but the sound quality coming out isn't as good as just the radio alone.

My hunch is that the effort to delay the broadcast somehow lessens the sound quality?

Yes, the drawback of the sports sync radio is I wish the radio wasn't so cheaply made. Even the newer model is poorly ranked at Amazon:

Amazon.com: SR-202 SportSync Digital AM/FM Radio with 16 Seconds of Audio Delay: Electronics

 

[easysurfer]

Ah Ha!

I received my 1ft audio cable today and gave that a try. I decided to plug the cable into the headset out instead of the line out and the bad sound quality that I had before is practically gone .

Picture of my setup... (notice the short 1ft cable and battery operated speaker)

 

[easysurfer]

Baseball opening day is almost here.

Yesterday during a pre-season game, I tested my Home Team Radio gizmo by syncing the TV and radio broadcasts (radio was about 15 seconds ahead of TV) and the gizmo worked perfectly. Reception was loud and clear.

Let's play ball!

 

[Free To Canoe]

Baseball opening day is almost here.

Yesterday during a pre-season game, I tested my Home Team Radio gizmo by syncing the TV and radio broadcasts (radio was about 15 seconds ahead of TV) and the gizmo worked perfectly. Reception was loud and clear.

Let's play ball!

Thanks for the update. Glad it is working out. Got to remember this for football season.