How come the 1969 moon landing could be broadcast live without delay?

Answer

Hi Eveline,

I think it’s still fine. If you compare the quality of the images and the sound of the moon landing with what we are used to now, you will notice that it is very bad.

At the moment a lot of broadcasts are happening from location. Some of these broadcasts can be prepared in advance, but many of them -news- are not decided until the last minute.

In the past, this required a lot of expensive and large specialized equipment. Now it is already possible to do live TV broadcasts via the GSM network with much more compact material, which is more complicated. Also, there are now many more live broadcasts, which increases the chance of an error.

So there are a lot of reasons why you can have the feeling that things went better then than now. The requirements we now place on an image are much stricter than in the past, so that we are more likely to experience something as bad. The demands placed on transmission equipment today are different than in the past: small, compact, quickly deployable, cheaper, and can be operated by anyone, and not just by specialized technicians, which means that a device can give bad results faster.

The requirements we now place on broadcasting are also more complex than in the past: several people must be able to chat with each other and see each other from different places, which means that people have more work in directing, and therefore have a greater chance of a cosmetic flaw. .

You also say ‘without delay’ in your question. This is not right. Image and sound then, and now, about 1.3 sec. about to get from the moon to here. The delay on the images has increased over the years. Because one wants a better quality (digital, HD), one has to apply more processing to the image that takes longer.

If we were to do a live broadcast of the moon landing again today, I’m sure it would be easier than in 1969 and with a much better image quality.

Kind regards,
Luc.