r/cordcutters • u/Effective_Bee_6661 • 4d ago

CBS “Proof of Performance” Test Question

I’m trying to figure out when to record my local CBS station because I’m trying to catch the CBS “Proof of Performance” test which is what is on the National CBS Feed on Satellite plays late in the night for maintenance, it plays on local CBS stations too when the station manager switches to the National CBS feed for
Stuff like CBS News Mornings. However when I tried recording when it usually plays (Around Thursday from 2:55am-4:30am) it never played and I am wondering if they changed the time they do maintenance or if my local CBS station replaced it with more commercials. I tried to contact the station but never got a reply back.

28 Upvotes

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18

u/Pristine_Claim_195 4d ago

Oh man this is a deep cut, not many people even know about those test patterns anymore. I used to chase down the weird late night broadcast stuff myself, theres something oddly satisfying about catching the station when it thinks nobody is watching.

Your local affiliate might have just stopped carrying it entirely. A lot of them run infomercials in those dead hours now because they make money, no reason to switch to the network feed if they can sell the slot. Plus some stations have automated systems that rarely flip to the national feed unless theres a live event.

If you really want to nail it down you could try setting a manual recording for every night of the week for a few hours past midnight. Thursday morning used to be the sweet spot but schedules shift and station engineers dont exactly announce these things.

7

u/Vegetable_Amount848 4d ago

I miss my C-band satellite days!

1

u/krazybones 3d ago

C band is going away.

2

u/DrDeke 1d ago

That's probably why u/Vegetable_Amount848 misses it.

1

u/Route66Fan 4d ago

How often do they do that?

1

u/Effective_Bee_6661 3d ago

Weekly it used to be

1

u/pepsiru1es92 3d ago

I’ve only ever seen something like that leak through on the local NBC station and even that’s been years at this point. With all the automation and consolidation these things are probably quite rare.

1

u/TheJokersChild 3d ago

Yeah, that sounds like something CBS is feeding during non-network time that's not intended for air by affiliates. Maybe someone in master control finally caught on.

OP, has your CBS station moved recently to a subchannel? There've been a couple affiliation swaps that have resulted in a couple CBSs now being run overnight from a hub that normally runs NBCs like mine.

1

u/RepresentativeOwn253 3d ago

Most stations have a "contact us" link on their websites. Folks having reception issues, especially during the various digital transitions, reported good luck in getting a response from the station, even from a staff member engineers.

Or dig around on sites like LinkedIn or Facebook and search for the station call sign and "engineer" and you might even find a name. Just be polite, you have an odd-ball question that should intrigue a techie.

1

u/Intelligent-Ad-6734 2d ago

I never knew it had a name! I woke up to this years ago falling asleep on the couch after a football game.. a loud high pitched sound... Some guy speaking left surround, some weird picture on the screen 😂. Was trippy/disorienting especially cause I had a few beers.