This coming Sunday, Fox will cap off its first season of broadcasting the NFL in HDTV with the Super Bowl. This is the most watched annual television event in the United States and Fox will broadcast it in 720p HD with 5.1 channel sound. Two of the three networks that carry NFL games now broadcast them in 720p, which is the best available scanning formats for fast-action sports, with its 60 full frames per second, rather than the 60 half-frames per second of interlaced HD.
2005 also marks the first year that the Super Bowl will be available in HD in Canada (we know that no one in Canada receives any of the U.S. television signals across the border, don't we?).
We don't really know how many HDTV sets get sold specifically in anticipation of the Super Bowl broadcast, but judging from the advertising blitzes, it would seem that the expectations of retailers along these lines are high.
The game is always accompanied by an all-out effort to create memorable commercials, and we can expect to see some memorable HD commercials no doubt. Although some have not forgotten last year's Super Bowl commercials, advertisers have been quick to proclaim that this year's crop of Super Bowl ads will be on a significantly higher plane than many of 2004's. We haven't heard much about the 2005 half-time show...
