Broadcaster's Original Stream Shift

As soon as Palabra Broadcaster receives your stream, it starts the translation pipeline and immediately begins re‑streaming your original stream.

Real‑time speech translation adds processing time, so the translated audio track is typically delayed by about 3–7 seconds (the time needed for the translation pipeline).

Default Broadcaster behavior

Output:
- Original video and audio start playing as soon as they arrive.
- Translated audio starts playing about 3–7 seconds later.

If you want, you can shift the original stream closer to the translated audio. In this mode, Broadcaster sends the original stream to the outputs with a delay that you configure instead of immediately on arrival.

  curl -X POST 'https://api.palabra.ai/broadcasts' \
  -H "ClientID: $API_CLIENT_ID" \
  -H "ClientSecret: $API_CLIENT_SECRET" \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-raw '{
    "title": "My Stream",
    // ...
    "original_delay_seconds": 3,
  }'

Behavior with original_delay_seconds: 3

Output:
- Original video and audio are delayed by 3 seconds before playback.
- Translated audio now plays roughly 0–4 seconds after the original instead of 3–7 seconds behind it.

This reduces the perceived gap between the original and the translation and can improve the listening experience.

However, note that the original video is now delayed by the same amount (3 seconds in this example). For most online viewers watching via a player, this extra delay is usually acceptable and often not noticeable.

For offline events, where some viewers see the stage in real time (in the room) and listen to audio from Broadcaster, this shift can be confusing because they will hear the original audio with a delay compared to what they see.

Guidelines

For online events where all viewers watch through a stream, you can safely use original_delay_seconds (we recommend values between 3 and 6 seconds).
For offline events where some viewers see the original event in person, set original_delay_seconds to 0 so they hear the original without extra delay.

Note: Palabra Broadcaster starts re‑streaming your original stream as soon as it receives it, but end‑to‑end delay also depends on the input/output protocols. For offline events, using WebRTC for both input and output is recommended to keep protocol‑related latency as close to zero as possible.

Guidelines​

Guidelines