What indoor antennas do FReepers recommend for digital TV receptions (for Super Bowl)

KRISTV.com ^ | 1-28-2011 | Paleo Conservative

[Paleo Conservative]

Due to an ongoing dispute between Time-Warner and my local NBC affiliate KRIS, NBC is not currently carried on my cable system. It's pretty likely this dispute won't be resolved before the Super Bowl next weekend, so I want to find out what model of antennas, I should buy in order to watch the Super Bowl next week. I bought a Terk amplified antenna prior to the Houston Texan's game in the first round, and it didn't work at all. The clerk at the return desk at Best Buy said that lots of people were returning that model.

[Vinnie]

Here's a picture of my Gray-Hoverman antenna I built:

Ew ew, I like. Plans?

[Vinnie]

Got it, Thanks

[Tijeras_Slim]

Nice splice, is it Mil-Spec?

[ZX12R]

I made that same antenna from some plans I found on the internet. It worked much better than I had hoped. I got ten channels of HD. Great little antenna for medium and high frequencies.

[Monitor]

Starting at post 596 in the following thread, I have some more pictures of the antenna, I describe how I built it, and I get some important feedback from some more experienced builders:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=121956&page=40

[Theo]

I bought the same one. It works great!

[Excellence]

We used a VGA connection, which means the t.v. must have a VGA-in jack. But we will be using my son’s way-better-computer for this year’s game.

[sjm_888]

for future reference

[Paleo Conservative]

I’m going to feed the internet stream from my son’s new whiz-bang gaming computer to the 55” Samsung his dad bought on Super Bowl day last year; then as now we have no cable.

I'm streaming the Pro Bowl right now, and it' low resolution and very highly compressed. I tried watch it using my BluRay player's internet connection, but that seems to lack a decoder for the video system used by NBC. On my laptop I get messages about Silverlight. I doubt the BluRay manufacturer supports Silverlight.

[Excellence]

Can you select your video quality? There might be a choice. Hulu offers 288, 360, and 480p. The more bandwidth you have, the higher the p setting you can choose. But most of it depends on your processor speed and video card. I have a pretty good video card, but my son’s computer has a 5 (yes, 5) core processor, and a truly screaming video card. Also we have FiOS. You may end up going to your neighborhood pub.

[Paleo Conservative]

Can you select your video quality? There might be a choice. Hulu offers 288, 360, and 480p. The more bandwidth you have, the higher the p setting you can choose. But most of it depends on your processor speed and video card. I have a pretty good video card, but my son’s computer has a 5 (yes, 5) core processor, and a truly screaming video card. Also we have FiOS. You may end up going to your neighborhood pub.

I was using my 64-bit laptop with 4 GB RAM and Core i5 CPU. NBC gave some ability to ajust quality, but I suspect they're trying to protect their local affiliates. I couldn't find info about what resolution was displayed. It seem to look best when it was played in a window but not maximized to the whole screen.

[Excellence]

I went to the NCIS (NBC) site, and their video player is choosing the lowest settings for me and for my son’s 64bit, i5 computer. So I have no good answer. I usually stay with their window because I’m sitting inches away.

[Las Vegas Dave]

Any update on an antenna selection, or are you still planning on streaming?

[Paleo Conservative]

Any update on an antenna selection, or are you still planning on streaming?

I got an antenna from Radio Shack today, and it works for the station I'm trying to receive. It was only $16.99 after an $8.00 discount compared to the Terk antenna that I previously bought and returned that was $90.99.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3643548

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Terk+-+Omnidirectional+Amplified+Indoor+Digital+HDTV+Antenna/9415171.p?id=1218101177326&skuId=9415171&st=terk&cp=1&lp=2