Quote:
Originally Posted by Penguin
Due to various technical reasons live is never really live. The delay untill the broadcast reaches the tv audience takes roughly 2-several seconds, depending on the transmission, production environment, yada,yada,yada. Live broadcasts in the US have some seconds extra delay to beep out bad language - thanks to the FCC. Countries with more censorship put in some more extra delay. The GDR had for example 2 minutes delay when they transmitted Gorbatchevs visit to west germany.
40 ms is exactly one frame when we talk about 25fps. It can't become any faster, as you at least need one source image first which you want to manipulate. However be assured, broadcast priofessionals can see when a frame is skipped. 
While the news is exiting for me as a video nerd, (nearly) live manipulation is possible since several decades. Just think about an overlay which you blend into the picture, the station logo being the most obvious one. If you give me some seconds and a static camera I can put in a dinosaur next to Angela Merkel that looks real - a fake looking one just takes one click 
When the americans would have been prepared at the superbowl broadcast some years ago, they could easily put in a blur to prevent the nipplegate-scandal which turned several people blind  |
The trick, and danger, is to manipulate the media stream without the audience knowing it, being aware of it, or being able to prove that manipulation takes place.
To compoare what they do now with that dinosaur is like comparing Ray Harryhousen's wax-monsters and stop-motion technique with Lucasfilm's fully digital production of the last Star Wars movie.