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

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

[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