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BIG GAME, BIG SCREENS: THE 2005 SUPER BOWL HDTV PARTY |
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It had plenty of hype. It showcased two storied teams, including a two-time NFL champion. It had hordes of die-hard Eagles fans, dressed in green. It was delivered in a 100% high-definition broadcast from Fox with surround sound and featured a halftime show by the one and only Sir Paul McCartney. “It” was Super Bowl XXXIX (39, for those who still can’t count in Roman numerals). Accordingly, L guests (that’s 50) came from miles around for Super Bowl HDTV Party VI and found enough food for twice that many (C, or 100), including, for Patriots fans, a feast of New England Clam Chowder and cornbread, a boiled corned beef stew, and Boston Cream Pie, and for Eagles fans, a cornucopia of hoagies, soft pretzels, lasagna, ziti, and Tastycakes. The first HDTV Party, back in MM – sorry, I meant 2000 -- featured two HD screens to watch ABC’s 720p coverage of the St. Louis Rams and Tennessee Titans. In contrast, there were eleven HD and ED images being displayed in and outside of my house this year, using plasma, LCD, and CRT technologies. After last year’s event, which featured ten screens and drew 65 guests, it was getting harder to find any other rooms into which I could stuff a TV or projector. The answer was to go outside and use six inches of snow from a recent blizzard as a projection screen surface! In addition to the snow ‘screen’, guests could also view the game on a pair of 50-inch plasma TVs, a 42-inch plasma monitor, and three different LCD TVs, or root for their favorite team in one of my two basement theaters equipped with front projection systems. (If none of that appealed to anyone, they could just stand in the kitchen and watch the game on a 66-inch rear projection screen.)
Figure 1. Pioneer’s PDP-5045HD
plasma TV and
THE LINE UP Theater 1 featured my time-tested Sony VPHD50HTU front CRT projector delivering images to a Stewart 82-inch 16:9 front screen, being driven by a Samsung SIR-T165 set-top receiver. A Sony STR-DE625 receiver fed the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix to five Snell MK.2 speakers and a Polk 200 watt powered subwoofer. Theater 2, which was built into my workshop, used a Sanyo PLV-Z3 front HD LCD projector (1280x720) and a Vutec 80-inch SilverStar front projection screen. Signals were delivered from an LG LST-3100 set-top receiver. At the foot of the basement stairs, I positioned a Samsung SPL-4225 42-inch EDTV plasma monitor with a Samsung SIR-T351 receiver.
Figure 2. This setup (top) on the rear deck provided HD rear-projected images of the game using (middle left) Panasonic’s PT-AE700U LCD projector, (middle right) LG’s LST-3100 set-top receiver, and (bottom) Vutec’s PrismaTec 66-inch rear screen.
Upstairs, the living room was a ‘preferred seat’ with Pioneer’s PDP-5045HD 50-inch HD plasma TV and outboard ATSC receiver. But the crowd also found Mitsubishi’s PD-5050 HD plasma monitor much to its liking; I spotted this big screen in my dining room and used an LG LST-4200 to pull in the UHF ATSC signal from WTXF-DT. The front hall was graced with LG’s 30-inch DU-30LZ30, an integrated digital HD LCD TV that had its own unique following. Around the corner in the kitchen, Dell’s W1900 19-inch HD LCD TV held sway, fed signals from another LST-3100A set-top. And no one needed to worry about missing a single play of the game, as the bathroom featured LG’s KY-17WDVD 17-inch HD LCD TV, connected to Vizio’s extremely compact Bravo HD-1 set-top receiver.
Figure 3. Hitachi’s CP-RS55 Performa and Silicon Optix’ Image AnyPlace (top, left) projected images of the game onto the front lawn ‘screen’ made of snow. It had to be replenished (top, right) a few times, due to higher than expected temperatures. Of course, this particular screen was 100% biodegradable!
Figure 4. Dell’s W1900 LCD
TV showed some beautiful
The family room focused on Toshiba’s 34HF81 34-inch HD CRT TV, showing 720p signals from a Zenith HDR230 set-top receiver with hard drive recorder. Just over the partition in the kitchen, you could clearly see the game rear-projected from a Panasonic PT-AE700U front HD LCD projector (1280x720) onto a 66-inch Vutec PrismaTec rear projection screen. An LG LST-3100A tuner connected to a UHF yagi that was mounted atop an old camera tripod served up the HD signals. The 11th and final screen consisted of a Hitachi CP-RS55 Performa ED front LCD projector, mounted on a shelf in my bedroom and projecting down onto the snow at about a 60-degree angle. To correct as much of the resulting image distortion as possible, I installed Silicon Optix’ Image AnyPlace between the projector and my signal source, a Samsung SIR-T451 set-top receiver.
Figure 5. LG’s KY-17WDVD LCD TV and Vizio’s Bravo HD-1 ‘micro mini’ HD tuner supplied HD coverage of the game inside the bathroom, while Samsung’s SPL-4225 plasma and SIR-T351 receiver greeted guests at the entrance to the two basement theaters.
Figure 6. Mitsubishi’s PD-5050
plasma monitor was fed HD signals from an
In every case except for the snow projector, the RF feeds were taken off-air from WTXF (UHF channel 42), using rooftop, attic, and even floor-mounted antennas. I had planned to use one or two digital cable feeds from Comcast, but discovered during my setup a few days earlier that there was a 1.5 – 2 second latency between the off-air and cable feeds. This latency is caused in demodulation of Fox’s digital 720p signal and remodulation into the digital cable QAM format. Since it wouldn’t do at all to have TVs in adjacent viewing areas be out of sync, I went with the off-air signals everywhere I could (the snow-projected image, being outside and without audio, wouldn’t conflict with any of the indoor screens).
Figure 7. This workshop theater
featured (left) an 80-inch Vutec SilverStar front screen,
For those of you who wonder how difficult it is to pick up digital TV indoors, I used a pair of Radio Shack 15-1880 amplified VHF/UHF antennas ($49.95) to deliver the signal from WTXF to the DU-30LZ30 LCD TV and a LST-4200 set-top receiver, feeding the PD-5050 plasma monitor. I simply peaked each antenna for the best picture quality from WTXF’s analog signal on channel 29, and then scanned to capture the digital version. Only one brief ‘hit’ was observed during the game on the LST-4200. The setup made the local news, as a crew from Fox29 drove up the Saturday before the game to do a segment for an hour-long special, called “Road To The Super Bowl”. Video clips of the different HD screens were sandwiched around a sequence of me explaining exactly why I thought it important to have an HDTV screen in the bathroom, to which Fox29 co-anchor Dawn Stensland quipped, “I think Pete’s spending too much time in there!” FUN AND GAMES Projecting images onto snow isn’t difficult, but when the weather doesn’t cooperate it can be downright exasperating. The week prior to the game featured a series of beautiful cloudless days with daytime temperatures slowly climbing higher and higher, reaching the mid 50’s the day of the game. Needless to say, there wasn’t a whole lot of snow left by Sunday. And my beautifully smooth bank of snow was further defaced by the local newspaper carrier, who decided the previous Friday morning to forsake the clear, clean driveway and front walk and instead tromp across the snow to make his delivery. So, my son and I spent early Sunday afternoon shoveling snow from several nearby piles back onto the lawn, much to the astonishment of neighbors. It took quite several minutes of shoveling just to cover the bare spots, and of course the resulting ‘screen’ had a very unique texture to it. But it still worked before continued melting and an impromptu post-game football scrum destroyed what was left.
Figure 8. Don’t have any chairs? No problem, we’ll just sit on the floor…
For the first time this year, not a single set-top receiver or HD screen developed problems during the game. The closest we came to any major technical problems came with the Pioneer plasma, which started skipping frames of video right after the halftime show. The resulting presentation (probably caused by a buffer overrun) looked like puppets playing football, and a quick power-down and power-on sequence fixed the problem. Many guests preferred to stake out their favorite screen or theater and stay put, coming up or out briefly for food, beverage, and bathroom breaks. The rear-projection screen in the kitchen proved to be so popular that several guests never left the area. (This led me to wonder if I should have installed bar stools and a rail for the game!)
Figure 9. Hey, where are the bar stools?
Figure 10. The workshop theater was a big hit with Eagles fans.
Given all of the screens, it was impossible to miss a single play unless you had your eyes closed. I had to walk out onto my back deck and guide in a late-arriving guest over the phone while watching a Patriots drive backwards through the rear-projection PrismaTec screen (the captions looked like Cyrillic letters). At four separate locations in the house, a viewer could without much effort, watch the game on at least three screens simultaneously. With all of the audio, it didn’t much matter where you stood – you could even hear the game out in the garage. Only the few smokers who stepped onto my front porch for a cig were out of earshot, but they could still watch the 20-foot wide snow screen.
Figure 11. These guests just couldn’t take their eyes off the Pioneer plasma.
Fox’s coverage of the game employed an HD version of CableCam, a unique fly-over camera that provides a quarterback’s eye view of plays as they develop, or a cornerback’s view from the defensive side. You also get a sense of just how far a kicker must drive the ball to make a field goal. Near the end of the game, the camera actually turned upside down for an end-zone view above the 20-yard line, something quite disorienting that I wish we could have seen in 3D. The halftime show featured McCartney, who was at his best (no wardrobe malfunctions here) in a short, 12-minute set with some of his former Wings band mates that featured four songs and plenty of pyrotechnics. It looked wonderful in HD and sounded spectacular in surround sound, as did the sights and sounds of Alltel Stadium and the overwhelmingly green-clad crowds.
Figure 12. Trading football cards was great fun for younger fans.
THE PASSION AND THE FURY Unlike the first five parties, this Super Bowl featured the local Philadelphia Eagles, whose fans are known to be a bit over the top when it comes to rooting. Numerous guests showed up in Eagles green and black (our penguin statue in the front hall was adorned with an Eagles cap) and more than a few invited guests wondered if their support for the Patriots would be a problem (it wasn’t). With plenty of big screens and beaucoup audio, it didn’t take long for some fans to start jumping up and down, yelling at the screen, cheering with each Eagles touchdown and moaning with each Patriots score. One fan who staked out Theater 2 and who is a psychologist by trade, yelled to me after the Eagles tied the game at 14, “This is worse than manic depression!” As the game wore on and the Patriots established their dominance, the faithful Eagles fans held out hope for a miracle. Every disputed call by the officials was reviewed carefully in HD on all of the screens by all of my guests (even NFL officials don’t have HD replay), and those that turned in favor of the Eagles were met with even louder cheers.
Figure 13. Instant replay in high definition is the only way to go!
Figure 14. Guests could load up
their plates at the serving table
Alas, a victory for the Eagles was not in the cards and the Patriots held on for a well-deserved 24-21 victory (oddly enough, all of their Super Bowl wins have been by three points). The Eagles faithful were understandably downcast, but all were excited to have been part of a most unusual Super Bowl party – one where every guest had the ‘best seat in the house’. |
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