One of the more interesting things Candian antenna owners can do is show off the *real* US Super Bowl in HD, with US ads, to their friends and family, who would have been living with the butchered Canadian version on cable or satellite. No, Pizza Pizza is not a prime North American sponsor of the Super Bowl, and they don't really have their name painted on the field.

Alas this year it's on CBS/WIVB, which has been my hardest channel to receive (I wish they'd also broadcast it from WNLO just for the day!).

Aren't you guys tired already of the IMHO extreme bombarding of Ads throught the year or should I say throught your lifetime? I can understand the reasons why they exist I just can not comprehend that (as per polls anyways) most people seem to acctually prefer to watch the sport event just for the Ads rather than the game itself? (Although in my opinion this is just a marketing plot that the media explodes to manipulate viewers into thinking that the Ads are acctually "cool" so they can sell their time slots for more money)

Anyways I have a PVR and in the rare cases that I watch something live I always change to a recorded show during the Ads, Timeshifting is a way "cooler thing" than the any other Ads (although there are some that are acctually very good but you will see them throughout the year anyways , so why bother).

Well , let me start scanning the skies with the "Big" 6 foot C Band dish looking for the CBS Full HD Master Feed coming from the Dolphin Stadium with no Ads at all but at the highest possible resolution and bandwith. These Master feeds blow out of the water even the 19.2 Mb/s signal from WIVS which is one of the best OTA signals in out region. They are usually carried on a dedicated single transponder that has at least 36 Mhz bandwith, usually at around 30 000 SR or even higher (FTA PVR's sttuter playing those) but nowadays they use newer modulation schemes like 8PSK and DVB-S2 digital format with higher FEC (5/6 or above) therefore they are very difficult to lock to with a "small" 6 or 8 footer Dishes. Let's see if I am lucky today. If not , well there is always WIVB.

What's going on? It's like WIVB isn't even there today. No signal strength.

Well , I think I am screw on this one. Will have to settle with a backup feed then. Main feed is going via fiber optics from stadium to new york as reported on the internet and the Satellite backhaul not only has 9/10 FEC but is also 4:2:2 video (CBC also uses this for their HNIC feeds BTW) and the audio is the new Dolby E format. I definetely do not have equipment capable of processing such audio and video. There is always a back up feed in some other Sats and even a World feed or TV stations from other countrys like TV Azteca that also carry the signal , but they do not have the video quality of even the Sat Master feed. The only True Uncompressed HD feed is going by fiber at a whopping 1.5 Gb/s !!!.

The parameters for CBS Backup feed are: Normal DVB 4:2:0 video that any FTA receiver can properly display. But even with my 6 footer signal levels are quite low now. Who knows maybe later at show time they increase power , it is too early yet.

Galaxy 19 at 97W
Frec: 4141H
SR 32361
FEC 3/4

In any case this parameters indicate that even this HD backup is at least at a net data bitstream rate of 44.7 Mbit/s (the brutto or real is acctually 48.5 but I have deducted the Reed-Solomon Error Correction info). Compare that to the 19.4 Mbit/s OTA signal which is already very good (and the normal naked eye at normal viewing distances will not discern a difference) and you will "see" the difference then.

No matter which signal you watch I wish you enjoy the game and remember Drive safe.

Holy smokes!!!, Now I need a 12 feet Dish (9/10 FEC requieres very good S/N levels) and a receiver capable of 4:2:2 video to watch the 80 Mbit/s DVB-S2 8PSK Backhaul signal !!!. This one at only 45 Mb/s bitrate looks so awesome and the game has not even started yet. Imagine the fiber optics link peopel!!!

It is a 1080i signal since it is CBS and because it is a backup feed (for all the BDU's and the TV stations in case the main DVB-S2 Backhaul fails) it also has the US National commercials.I will end up watching the game at some friend's house , being a Cuban, I will end up prefering watching it a lower resolution but with friends that at a higher one but alone.

This feed has 3 audio tracks (only the first 1 has audio), all labeled and marked as DD , but my Onkyo shows it as 2 channel PCM 48 khz, I wonder why they did not send them as DD 5.1. Good thing they are not using Dolby E (Evolve) for the backups otherwise no audio for me. Dolby E allows a broadcaster to send only 2 digital audio tracks but on the other end recreate the original 5.1 audio tracks.

Oh! , good news, they just bump the power up on this backup feed. It went from just 4 to 10 on my CS 8100 Quality meter. So anyone with a regular HD FTA receiver and just a 6 foot Dish this is the signal to aim for. Stunning picture!.

I'm surprised, WIVB has been holding up pretty good for me. I got through the entire superbowl afternoon/evening with no breakups, and it was fine tonight for CSI: Sunglasses In Space.

It was fine for me too. Last night WNED was burping and buzzing though on my Sony. The signal was good but I noticed the "errors" counting up corresponded to the annoyance. Maybe localized interference?

Better late than never.....

I'm glad they didn't or I would have missed my ep of SG:Atlantis...which I never get first hand because of my dependence on OTA.

;)