Super Bowl uplink sheds light on SD, HD differences
Jan 16, 2007 8:00 AM
Sports programming has long been recognized as a major driver in motivating some consumers to buy HDTVs, and there's none bigger than the Super Bowl.
In fact, many in the consumer electronics industry see the Super Bowl as the culmination of their annual sales effort to spread the adoption of HDTV sets, before starting the yearlong sales cycle again.
So when a press release from Satellite Technology Systems (STS) of Crystal Lake, IL, crossed the desk saying NFL Films had awarded the company the contract to uplink both HD and SD world feeds of Super Bowl XLI next month from Miami, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to learn a little more about what it takes to uplink such a high-profile sporting event.
HD Technology Update caught up with STS president and owner Charles Spoto as he was preparing for the event.
HD Technology Update: How do you prepare to provide such a widely viewed event like the Super Bowl? In other words, do you take any special precautions to protect against interruptions, glitches, etc. that you might not otherwise take?
Charles Spoto: We will do some pre-testing before the truck leaves Chicago. And then of course we'll be doing some testing starting January 31, which is five days before the Super Bowl, on site in Miami.
We have to test both bands, but there is comfort in knowing that the whole other separate band is available. We can go in either direction with a failure — either for C to Ku or Ku to C. So, we could run a dual path situation for both the Ku- and C-band world feeds on either band if we had to. There's a lot of comfort in knowing we have both bands to work with.
HDTU: According to the press release, you'll be transmitting both SD and HD productions of the game. Why is that the approach being taken rather than transmitting two HDs for redundancy and downconverting to SD for those who need it on the receive side?
CS: There will be a lot of different entities pulling down the signal. Remember, it's the world feed, so you are going to have U.S. network affiliates, national entities and international as well, and there are a lot of different methods of receiving signals. So basically, they put up every possible scenario that they can. Plus, there's going to be international turnarounds, and everybody has a little different capability at the teleports. So by transmitting every possible scenario, everything is covered.
HDTU: The STS truck you'll be using carries both a 4.6m C-band antenna and 1.8m Ku-band antenna. How will each be used?
CS: The C-band antenna part of the truck will be used for HD, and the Ku portion of the truck will be used for the SD world feed.
HDTU: What sort of bit rate will be assigned to both the SD and the HD streams and why?
CS: I don't have the spec sheet in front of me, but the SD stream will be roughly 18Mb/s, and the HD stream on the C-band will be roughly 30Mb/s.
HDTU: Tell me about the truck's split power system.
CS: The truck has a split power system that allows us to run both bands independently on power. That way we won't lose the security of having a redundant transmission system in case of a failure to one side of the split power system.
We have shore power and can provide the same voltages off our Kohler onboard diesel generator.
HDTU: Your press release says the truck that will be used can provide up to 20 digital satellite paths at once. Will these be used and if so, how?
CS: We will not be using that many paths for this show. That's just the capability of the truck because of the larger antenna.
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