A phone-sync (also known as a tape-sync, a simul-rec, or a double-ender) was a technique used to conduct televised interviews over long distances in the 1980s before

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location.ITU Radio Regulations, Section IV. Radio Stations and Systems ...

became commonplace, in order to provide video to what would otherwise be an audio-only interview. It was commonplace in such news programs as '' The Journal'' on

CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV, or simply CBC) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcasting, p ...

. A standard Tape sync works as follows: an interviewer, usually in a television studio, is videotaped conducting an interview via a long-distance phone call to the interviewee in another part of the world. This interviewee, often in a studio in front of a background representing the city in which he or she is located, is videotaped as he or she participates in the interview. The two videotapes are then sent to the interviewer's production team to be synchronized through

video editing Video editing is the post-production and arrangement of video shots. To showcase excellent video editing to the public, video editors must be reasonable and ensure they have a thorough understanding of film, television, and other sorts of videog ...

. Cuts between shots of the interviewer and interviewee are made accordingly, and the higher-quality sound of the videotapes are used instead of the telephone audio. For effect, the interviewer may be taped looking into a bluescreen or

greenscreen Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two or more images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fie ...

, into which the video of the interviewee would at this point be resized if necessary and inserted using

chroma key Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a Visual effects, visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two or more images or video streams together based on colour hues (colorfulness, chroma range). The techniq ...

. The double-ender technique has become much less commonplace with the proliferation of live

feeds and video over Internet (Skype, etc.), but is still used today when such technology is not available. The double-ender technique can also be done with audio-only mediums, such as radio or podcasting. Syndicated radio show interviews are often done as a double-ender, with the host in their studio, and the guests recording in their own city, in the studio of their local affiliate. Double-ender audio interviews have become more common with the rise in popularity of

podcasting A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an episodic series of digital audio files that users can download to a personal device or stream to listen to at a time of their ...

. The result is a cast that sounds like the hosts and guests are in the same room, when they're actually in different cities.

References

Further reading