Fans bet on TV antenna and wire to escape World Cup delay

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Hearing the neighborhood celebrate before being able to see the goal on their television is a common situation at the home of Lorena Gouveia, 24, on match days for Fluminense, the team she supports. At the World Cup, she decided to solve this problem.

“I knew about this delay because of other games I watch, but it was not so important. The Cup is already an extra emotion”, says she, who bought a TV antenna this Wednesday (23) in the neighborhood where she lives , in Rio de Janeiro.

This edition of the tournament is being broadcast, free of charge, over the internet. But the digital signal has delays. In a survey carried out this Thursday (24) by the Sheetthe delay of the exhibition via internet reached 28 seconds in relation to digital TV, which captures the signal over the air.

A year ago, Lorena left the subscription television service due to lack of use, and only consumes streaming services, such as Netflix and Globoplay. The situation is the most common among customers of Paulo Henrique Souza, manager of an electronics store in Santa Ifigênia, in downtown São Paulo.

He says that sales of digital antennas have increased by 70% in two months, and much of the demand is to watch the World Cup games without delays. “Today people have cable TV, but there is a delay of 2, 3 seconds”, he says. A digital TV antenna costs around R$20 to R$30.

Ricardo Oliveira, a partner at Casa das Antenas, a store in the south of São Paulo, also says that sales of antennas have increased by around 20% in recent days. “We have noticed an increase [na procura] because of the delay and because people use streaming a lot these days. Transmission via the internet is slower”, he says.

Oliveira assesses that the antenna market was down, but it grew because of the World Cup, broadcast by TV Globo. “People are putting television to work,” he says.

In addition to fans wanting to escape the transmission delay, the retailer has noticed another customer profile looking for TV antennas: companies. In most cases, he says, these are companies that haven’t given employees time off and want to allow them to watch the games in their offices.

A similar movement was noticed by Pedro Antônio, supervisor of the Digital Antenas store, in the central region of São Paulo. “Bars and restaurants are also buying more at the moment. Since Globo is transmitting, sometimes the company doesn’t want to invest in pay-TV”, he says.

According to him, the demand for TV antennas is increasing, as it usually happens during the World Cup, but nothing that stands out in relation to other editions.

Search also soared in online retail. According to a survey carried out by Mercado Livre at the request of Sheet, searches for digital antenna made on the site doubled over the last week. Between the 17th and 23rd of November, the demand for the product grew by 102% compared to the same period of the previous week.

Delay in the Cup reaches almost 30 seconds

The report of Sheet made a comparison of the time of broadcast on TV Globo by four different means. The difference between open TV and internet transmission was 28 seconds.

On open TV, with a signal captured by antenna, the kick-off of the Portugal x Ghana game was shown at 13:00:18. On Claro Box TV, by subscription, the ball rolled at 13:00:31, with a delay of 13 seconds. Both on the GE website and on the Globoplay app, the same moment was only shown at 13:00:46.

At the same time, streamer Casimiro’s Twitch channel showed live commentary on the game. The video timestamp was 10 seconds behind that of free-to-air TV.

The equipment used in the tests was connected to a wireless broadband internet speed of 500 mbps.

The TV also has the advantage of showing the game as soon as it is turned on, without having to watch commercials beforehand, as is the case with apps and the internet.

The difference in time between the different modes is because the signal can travel longer to reach the viewer’s screen.

In broadcasting via open TV, the signal goes straight from the station to the viewer’s home, in waves that navigate through the air and encounter few barriers. That way, they can get there quickly.

Broadcast antennas are usually placed in high places. Thus, TV broadcasters in São Paulo are concentrated in the region of Avenida Paulista and Pico do Jaraguá. Places further away from the transmitting antennas may have more difficulty receiving the signal.

In cable TV, the signal is sent from the station to the operator’s center, which places it on its network and sends it to the subscribers’ homes, via cable or satellite. Since the path has more steps, it takes a few seconds longer.

On the internet, the broadcaster’s signal passes through several servers and routes until it reaches the fan’s device, and may suffer even more delays if there is a lot of network traffic at that time.

How to use open TV

The digital antennas give access to the free and digital open TV signal, available throughout Brazil. To access it, just buy an antenna and connect it to a TV that has an integrated digital converter. The models cost around R$ 20 to R$ 30 and practically all manufactured in the last ten years bring the technology.

If your TV is older and does not have the function, you can buy a separate converter and connect it via video cable. The device costs from R$ 80 and works even on tube televisions. In both cases, there are no monthly fees or extra charges.

Many apartments have collective antennas, which can be used free of charge. Ask the superintendent or caretaker about connecting with them.

To install, simply connect the antenna to the TV, screwing its cable into the corresponding input. Leaving the antenna in a free place, with no objects in front of it, improves performance.

Next, you need to search for channels through the device’s menu. The procedure takes a few minutes. After that, to watch a certain channel, you need to enter its number on the remote control.

On older TVs, you need to connect the antenna to the converter and the converter to the TV, and search for channels using the converter’s remote control.

Gambiarra for TV antenna works, but has risk

Some fans have resorted to alternatives “à la MacGyver” to escape the delay. One of the options is to use a wire, one of those used to close bread bags and food packaging.

The workaround —which was tested and confirmed by the report— consists of stripping the wire and inserting it into the television’s external antenna input. For the open channels signal to arrive, it may be necessary to rotate the wire and synchronize the television.

That’s what Erick Leal, 28, did to avoid delaying goals in games. He lost the habit of watching open channels 10 years ago, and saw the idea of ​​bread wire on a Twitter account.

“In the game it makes a lot of difference, we hear everyone screaming before we see what happened”, says the systems analyst. Although he almost never follows football, he likes to watch the World Cup games for the party atmosphere. This Thursday, he called friends to his house to see the debut of Brazil with the improvised antenna.

According to Eduardo Pouzada, an electronic engineer at IMT (Instituto Mauá de Tecnologia), this works because the open signal is very strong and some simple metallic materials, such as wires and paper clips, are able to transmit information to the electronics of the TV receiver.

“In practice it ends up working, but, obviously, there’s nothing professional about it,” he says. “If the signal was weak, this type of expedient would not work. It would have to be a professional antenna.”

However, Pouzada points out that the gambiarra can pose the risk of an accident, since there is a metallic piece “giving soup” where it shouldn’t. “If any bare wire happens to touch that antenna, this will pass a very large amount of energy to the receiver’s input electronics circuit, certainly damaging the receiver, not to mention completely damaging the television”, he says.

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