Syncline Beacon

Syncline Beacon is the phone half of Syncline, a lip-sync measurement tool for live broadcast. It is not useful on its own - it does its work with the Syncline desktop application, which is where the measurement is read. Every path through a facility takes time, and the picture's path is almost never the same length as the sound's. Syncline measures that difference. This app is what gives it something to measure: held in front of a camera, the phone flashes a coded pattern and plays a short sound at the very same instant. The desktop watches for the flash down the video path, listens for the sound down the audio path, and the difference between when they arrive is the fault. HOW IT IS USED Open Syncline on the gallery Mac or PC and read the four-character code it shows. Type that code into this app and press Connect. When the operator is ready, the phone counts you down, then holds the pattern up while the measurement runs. There is a button to say you are not ready yet. The reading appears on the desktop, and on this phone when it finishes. The operator can send you a message or simply talk to you while you are standing there, which matters when the camera is somewhere the gallery is not. WHAT IT NEEDS A phone with a screen and a speaker. The microphone is optional: it is used once, to measure the delay this particular handset adds, and refusing it costs only that. There is no account and no sign-in. Pairing is a four-character code that lives as long as the measurement does.