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How To Delay the Radio To Sync With Television Using a MacIntosh Computer

Updated 2012.10.18

Synchronizing Radio and TV

Problem:

Joe Buck. Tim McCarver. Do I have to spell it out for you? They are annoying and ill-informed.

You've followed your team all season long with Your Guys who know the team up close and personal; guys who describe the game accurately while providing useful insight; guys like Hall-of-Famer Jon Miller, Duane Kuiper, Mike Krukow, David B. Flemming and so on. But the sound from the local radio play-by-play is not synchronized with the video flashing across your television screen. You either hear an exciting play unfold only to witness the visual evidence 10 seconds later, or else you see it happen before the excited announcer describes it on the radio. Bummer.

Solution:

Mute your TV. Get your radio sound and your television picture in sync, and you won't even need J.C. Chasez to do it.

There is no way that I can tell you how much delay there will be between radio and television, nor which will be ahead of the other. It depends on where the game is relative to the transmission path, how many satellite links are involved, processing equipment latency, and a thousand other dependencies.

Knowing this, you will need to tune your delay for each game, and sometimes tweak it during the game as well. Sometimes the radio will be ahead of the TV, other times the TV will be ahead of the radio.

If the TV is ahead of the radio and you have a DVR this is good news! You can simply pause your DVR momentarily until you get it synchronized with the radio play-by-play.

If the radio is ahead of the TV video, then you have to delay it to match up with the images on your screen. The latter problem is what this page hopes to help you solve.

What You Need

Note: I do not own a Mac nor an iPhone nor an iPad, iAm merely passing along this info provided by others in the interest of helping baseball fans get a better “user experience” out of baseball games on TV.

Griffin iMic

I'm only a very satisfied customer and own a bunch of these neat little USB dongles that add a sound card to your computer. Just plug in an iMic and in seconds you have another sound card. Plug a physical cable into the output of the iMic and then into the input of your built-in sound card and you can use RadioDelay. The iMic is also a great replacement for sound cards that have crapped out in laptops.

Order your iMic direct from Amazon at the link in the pane to the right.

Garageband

Garageband is a software application that allows users to create music or podcasts. It is developed by Apple Inc. as part of the iLife software package. General information is available from this wiki article.

MLB Gameday Audio app for iPhone — iPersonally find iTunes inscrutable, but I'm a crusty old curmudgeon. I wanted to provide a link directly to the MLB app here, but Mr. Jobs won't allow it. Go to the iTunes app store and search for "MLB". You will see several choices; pick the one appropriate to your needs. My untrained eye thinks the FREE app does the job, but I'm cheap, too.

— OR —

Audio Hijack Pro

Brett sez:

I purchased a program called Audio Hijack Pro http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/ a few years back which allows users to record the output coming from programs digitally as opposed to recording off of the soundcard analog input. Audio Hijack Pro also has the ability to apply audio filters in series (the same filters as used in Garage Band) but apply it to live audio. When you use this technique, I found you can bypass using another computer or an additional soundcard all together.

For my setup, I "hijacked" the live audio from Firefox. This allowed me to setup 5 - 2 second delays on the live audio as you described in your article and everything synced up perfectly. Attached is a screenshot of the end result.

Unfortunately Audio Hijack Pro isn't a free solution, but is a bit simpler way if you already have the program. Users can at least give it a shot for 10 minutes in the trial version.

Audio Hijack Pro with 5 delays sitting in a row. It looks purty, too.

SoundFlower

Michael K. sez: Soundflower is a freeware program, like HiJack, that allows you to take audio from any source and redirect it. You can use Soundflower with Garage Band for streaming audio by setting Soundflower as the default output, setting up the Garage band capture device as "Soundflower", and then setting the Garage Band output to the speakers ("Built In Output"). Make sure not to enable Soundflower's output to the speakers or you will get a nice echo from the dry (original) source audio mixing with the delayed audio.

Making It Work

by Chris G. C. (not me)

For Mac users, you can delay a radio signal in order to sync with the MLB Gameday, or any other, broadcast with GarageBand and delay effects that are included in the software.

Run a male-to-male 3.5 mm cable from the headphone or line out from your iPhone or radio to the audio input of your Mac (usually located next to the headphone out on a Mac). Turn the audio on and set volume to about 1/3.

Mac Audio Line-In

1. Open the 'System Preferences' application in your dock, and click the 'Sound Preferences' (speaker icon). Select the 'input' tab and 'line in' as the sound input source. You should see the 'input level' meter light up, indicating that the computer is seeing your source audio. Adjust the level with the slider so that the signal is not clipping (not too loud, not red-lining).

"System Preferences: sound" window.

2. Open GarageBand and create a new project.

NOTE: In GarageBand 08 the default is to open with a "Software Instrument" track. You have to delete this track (in the Track manu) and then create a "Real Instrument" track. You can then add delays under the "Details" section of the "Track Info" box.

3. In the lower right corner of the GarageBand window, be sure 'input source' is set to: 'built-in input.' In the setting below this, set 'monitor' to 'on'.

GarageBand input and monitor settings

4. Enable 'record' on the track that appears in the window (click the red button). Adjust the slider below the audio meters so that audio is not clipping.

GarageBand track

5. To add delay: Click the 'edit' tab to the right of your GarageBand window. In the effects column, mouse over the bar that says 'click here to add an effect' and do that. Under "AU Audio Effects" select AUDelay.

GarageBand track edit tab and effects chain

Mouse over the icon for the effect you've just added and you will see three sliding bars, click that. Change settings to:

AUDelay settings

Repeat step 5, adding additional delays onto the signal until you get the delay you want. You can adjust the delay length on the final effect plug-in to achieve the desired result. Note: the track allows for 4 delay effects to be added, which gives you a maximum delay of 4 x 2 or more, depending on the version you are using of GarageBand and AUDelay you have available.

If you need more delay, you can click the 'Master Track' tab above the track 'edit' tab and, using the same procedure outlined in step 5 above, you add another delay unit to your chain and achieve a full 8-second delay.

GarageBand track edit tab with several delays in place

If AUDelay does not give you enough of a delay, there are many free plugins that are compatible with GarageBand and have longer delay times. Voxengo is one of many software developers that offer a free sound delay plug-in (in Mac and Windows compatible versions) and their plug-in offers a 3 second delay.

Installation is drag and drop, just check the website and follow the directions.

Finally, as this effects chain can add unwanted noise to your signal, use the visual EQ to adjust to your taste and system. Be careful setting the volume levels as these can make or break this setup.

Enjoy Kruk and Kuip and Go Giants!

Chris

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