Simulcast - Simulcasting To Provide Stereo Sound For TV Broadcasts

Simulcasting To Provide Stereo Sound For TV Broadcasts

Before stereo TV sound transmmission was possible, simulcasting on TV and Radio was a method of effectively transmitting "stereo" sound to music TV broadcasts. In the 1970s WPXI in Pittsburgh broadcast a live Bos Scaggz performance which had the audio simultaneously broadcast on two FM radio stations to create a quadrophonic sound, the first of its kind. The first such transmission was in 1975, when the BBC broadcast a recording of Van Morrison's London Rainbow Concert simultaneously on BBC2 TV and Radio 2 (see It's Too Late to Stop Now).

Similarly, in the 1980s, before Multichannel Television Sound, or home theater was commonplace in American households, broadcasters would air a high fidelity version of a television program's audio portion over FM stereo simultaneous with the television broadcast. PBS stations were the most likely, especially when airing a live concert. It was also a way of allowing MTV and similar music channels to run stereo sound through the cable-TV network. This method required a stereo FM transmitter modulating MTV's stereo soundtrack through the cable-TV network and customers connecting their FM receiver's antenna input to the cable-TV outlet. Then they would tune the FM receiver to the specified frequency that would be published in documentation supplied by the cable-TV provider.

The first ever concert "simulcast" was Frank Zappa's Halloween shows (October 31, 1981), live from NYC's Palladium and shown on MTV with the audio-only portion simulcast over the FM "Starfleet Radio" network. A later, notable application for simulcasting in this context was the Live Aid telethon concert that was broadcast around the world on July 13, 1985. Most destinations where this concert was broadcast had the concert simulcast by at least one TV network and at least one of the local FM stations.

Most stereo-capable video recorders made through the 1980s and early 1990s had a "simulcast" recording mode where they recorded video signals from the built-in TV tuner and audio signals from the VCR's audio line-in connectors. This was to allow one to connect a stereo FM tuner that is tuned to the simulcast frequency to the VCR's audio input in order to record the stereo sound of a TV program that would otherwise be recorded in mono. The function was primarily necessary with stereo VCRs that didn't have a stereo TV tuner or were operated in areas where stereo TV broadcasting wasn't in place. This was typically selected through the user setting the input selector to "Simulcast" or "Radio" mode or, in the case of some JVC units, the user setting another "audio input" switch from "TV" or "Tuner" to "Line".

In the mid to late 1990s, video game developer Nintendo utilized simulcasting to provide enhanced orchestral scoring and voice-acting for the first ever "integrated radio-games" – its Satellaview video games. Whereas digital game data was broadcast to the Satellaview unit to provide the basic game and game sounds, Nintendo's partner, satellite radio company St.GIGA, simultaneously broadcast the musical and vocal portion of the game via radio. These two streams were combined at the Satellaview to provide a unified audiotrack analogous to stereo.