F1 TV coverage threadFormula 1 

Pretty underwhelmed by Sky's F1 coverage so far. The race commentary and Brundle's grid walk aside, the rest of it was meh. I know the rest of the footage is bound to be littered with advert breaks, but everything else was very disjointed, flitting back and forth between 30 second snipits of irrelevant historical F1 clips or the Davidson/Thompson 'Sky Pad' segments, it was all a bit of a mess.

I was also surprised at the actual quality of Sky's picture. It was very contrasty. Having mounted my TV on a wall bracket and tidied up all the cabling the day before, i thought i must have somehow messed up the settings or was just down to a poor quality feed from FOM, but when i caught 10 minutes of the BBC footage latter in the day, it looked perfect. :odd:

Anyone else notice this?
 
I was also surprised at the actual quality of Sky's picture. It was very contrasty. Having mounted my TV on a wall bracket and tidied up all the cabling the day before, i thought i must have somehow messed up the settings or was just down to a poor quality feed from FOM, but when i caught 10 minutes of the BBC footage latter in the day, it looked perfect. :odd:

Anyone else notice this?

Funny, I thought completely the opposite. The BBC HD feed seemed to be more compressed, with noticable loss in quality and artifacts around borders (ie, borders around name boxes, timing boxes etc.. Immediately it was noticable that something was different, but I did have to look closer to find out exactly what) Perhaps this is to do with the BBC channel having less bandwidth?
 
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Funny, I thought completely the opposite. The BBC HD feed seemed to be more compressed, with noticable loss in quality and artifacts around borders (ie, borders around name boxes, timing boxes etc.. Immediately it was noticable that something was different, but I did have to look closer to find out exactly what) Perhaps this is to do with the BBC channel having less bandwidth?

Found this which seems to show the Sky one is slightly better:

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/113357

If those screenshots were taken from a SKY HD box does anyone know if they allow slightly better bit rates on their own channels to make them look better?
 
Pretty underwhelmed by Sky's F1 coverage so far. The race commentary and Brundle's grid walk aside, the rest of it was meh. I know the rest of the footage is bound to be littered with advert breaks, but everything else was very disjointed, flitting back and forth between 30 second snipits of irrelevant historical F1 clips or the Davidson/Thompson 'Sky Pad' segments, it was all a bit of a mess.

I was also surprised at the actual quality of Sky's picture. It was very contrasty. Having mounted my TV on a wall bracket and tidied up all the cabling the day before, i thought i must have somehow messed up the settings or was just down to a poor quality feed from FOM, but when i caught 10 minutes of the BBC footage latter in the day, it looked perfect. :odd:

Anyone else notice this?

Absolutely fine (very good picture in fact), you watching it in HD?
 
Funny, I thought completely the opposite. The BBC HD feed seemed to be more compressed, with noticable loss in quality and artifacts around borders (ie, borders around name boxes, timing boxes etc.. Immediately it was noticable that something was different, but I did have to look closer to find out exactly what) Perhaps this is to do with the BBC channel having less bandwidth?

I too would have imagined that Sky would have given it's own channel a better bandwidth then the beeb's. Especially when they are in competition (for viewers) with the BBC.

I'd watched some of the practice sessions on Saturday, and i thought the picture was looking great. But when i watched the actual race, the levels of contrast were noticeably poor. Like i said, i only watched the BBC for a brief time, and even then i was only half watching it. Not enough to notice any compression issues, but enough to tell that the colour balance/contrast was much more what i'm used to with Sky HD broadcasts. :odd:
 
What was Ben Edwards like on commentary? I really did like BBC coverage and I'm almost certainly consigned to watching their coverage when I fly home in May, but I've never liked his commentary.

Rather annoying I though. Got ridiculously excited at the slightest little thing. Reminded me a little bit of Legard in that he would shout over DC to point out something not really significant. And I do mean shout :P

Then again, he'll probably just take a little getting used to for me, I had really enjoyed the Brundle/Coulthard pairing.

Does he do the BTTC? I've never really watched it, maybe the odd once or twice (8 hours is too long >__>), and I found the commentators really enthusiastic and shouty. The Ginetta support races are always funny though.
 
It didn't gel yet on Sky, as others have stated they should be allowed more time. Do hate the random 30 second snippets though, I get it already, 6 champions on the grid, very good. Now go finish eating crayons in the corner....

I missed the Sky show, is Georgie Thompson more involved? Only her role within the Sky pad was to stand by the screen and watch someone else talk through the technical detail. No more than disctracting bit of eye candy!

Also as much as I couldn't stand EJ, he did get drivers and managers to talk live. Both qualifying and race lacked driver opinion as they watched drivers go by and respected their distance. Cobblers! Get in their faces, ask the questions! There was a shot of Grosjean I think it was and the first person with a microphone in his face was Lee McKenzie and I realised then that she is who Sky need asap.
 
I missed the Sky show, is Georgie Thompson more involved? Only her role within the Sky pad was to stand by the screen and watch someone else talk through the technical detail. No more than disctracting bit of eye candy!

Not from what I saw, seems like her purpose is to fire the other guy (Anthony Davidson? (Don't be hating, I only really watch the BBC Quali/Race coverage >_>)) a question or two, and then say "back to you".

Also, completely agree Mazda.
 
Why can't I demand both? ;)

For their technical insight...


Ok, for Lee's technical insight.

I'd love to analyse Lee MacKenzie's bodywork.

Oh wait, I just typed that didn't I?

At least Lee MacKenzie has a use, whereas Georgie Thompson sort of... doesn't.
 
I'd love to analyse Lee MacKenzie's bodywork.

Oh wait, I just typed that didn't I?

At least Lee MacKenzie has a use, whereas Georgie Thompson sort of... doesn't.

I had it in my head that BBC had dropped Lee for the post race interviews; I'm glad this isn't the case. The drivers seem to like talking to her too, which makes the interviews less cringe-worthy and awkward.

Also I learned today thats it's Lee and not Leigh. I'm all about the learning today it seems.
 
I hate Sky, and I am a huge fan of F1 (been following for as long as I can remember, I've analysed tracks and times and everything so much *nerd*). So on principle, I will NOT get Sky. Apart from that, they've done exactly what they did to every other sport: bought it.
So for this race I listened to BBC radio for every practise, and I was annoyed because it's not the same feeling. I watched the highlights as well, and still realised, the ONLY thing I watched on TV had been taken away from me, so that made me loathe sky. I don't really care if they show the best F1 in the world ever, I will not watch on it. And I hope that they do such a terrible job this year that next year BBC take it back for good so that everyone can enjoy a wonderful team with very good coverage of F1.
 
So on principle, I will NOT get Sky.

And what is that principle? You have to pay to watch F1 on BBC anyway. It's called the licence fee. Sure you pay more for Sky. A lot more, in fact. But you can't strictly call the BBC 'free' when you have to pay for all television programming at some level.

Sky did what any broadcaster would do; try and get the best shows for its own channels. Now I don't really like the arrangement neither, but don't blame Sky for it. Blame the BBC for urinating money away elsewhere and having neither the balls nor the cash to save its most popular and frankly, best programme in years.

I'm a fan of FTA television. Satellite TV is ludicrously expensive. But in this instance, I put much of the blame squarely at the BBC.
 
He is a deplorable man, but not every single thing he does is inherently evil.

Offer Bernie more money for the rights, BBC couldn't (more likely, wouldn't) fork out any more and here we are. Welcome to the West.
 
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Famine
Step 1: Rupert Murdoch
Step 2: ????
Step 3: HATE!

What he said, Murdoch has done so many wrongs... And apart from that, people like me simply can't afford it either! I'll be broke in 4 months with sky.

And just fyi, I don't blame sky fully, BBC are of course at fault here, as is Mr. Eccelstone. But still, Sky are the main culprits, while BBC are the idiots who didn't think this through properly.
 
What he said, Murdoch has done so many wrongs... And apart from that, people like me simply can't afford it either! I'll be broke in 4 months with sky.

Well fortunately the BBC still maintains some coverage then. 10 live races. And the general opinion of the users on here is that Sky's coverage is pretty naff anyway apart from the commentary whereas the BBC is still doing a good job. It's just shorter.
 
And what I said was sarcasm. Step 2 rarely seems rationally filled in.
 
MazdaPrice
Well fortunately the BBC still maintains some coverage then. 10 live races. And the general opinion of the users on here is that Sky's coverage is pretty naff anyway apart from the commentary whereas the BBC is still doing a good job. It's just shorter.

Yes, I agree. But it's kinda like reading half a book y'know? Which angers me more... I just wish this all goes pear shaped for sky and they give it back to BBC. Jordan, Coulthard, Brundle, Kravitz, McKensie etc were a lovely team and the drivers really liked them all!
 
To be fair, you pay TV License just for owning a TV (unless you can conclusively prove you dont use it for watching broadcasts), so whilst that money does go to the BBC, you need to pay it to watch anything anyway. I still consider the BBC channels free.

As an added point, it would be interesting to see by how much (if anything) the viewing figures are lower for Sky on races that the BBC are broadcasting live.
 
To be fair, you pay TV License just for owning a TV (unless you can conclusively prove you dont use it for watching broadcasts)

You pay a licence for operating broadcast decoding equipment - not for owning it - and it applies to analogue tuners, digital receivers, cable or satellite decoder boxes or computers. The onus is not on you to prove you do not operate such equipment, but for TV Licensing to prove that you do.
 
And what I said was sarcasm. Step 2 rarely seems rationally filled in.

You could hack Murdoch's answering machine to find the answer!

Damn you Sky, you're a business and you want to make more money! RAR! Least it's a choice, if I choose to go for Sky, I'm forced to pay the BBC. BBC are the ones pedalling an outdated system and continually being unable to pay for anything apart from Jonathan Ross sending abusive phone calls to daughters of famous actors.

[/offthebeatentrack]
 
You pay a licence for operating broadcast decoding equipment - not for owning it - and it applies to analogue tuners, digital receivers, cable or satellite decoder boxes or computers. The onus is not on you to prove you do not operate such equipment, but for TV Licensing to prove that you do.

Ah, I guess that makes sense. Is that why you have to have a TV license to watch "live" (i.e. at the same time as they are being broadcast) programs on iPlayer?
 
Many people might disagree with me but I watched the race on Sky and afterwards the hilights on BBC and I must say I preferred the Sky coverage. I'll be doing the same next week.
 
I was also surprised at the actual quality of Sky's picture. It was very contrasty. Having mounted my TV on a wall bracket and tidied up all the cabling the day before, i thought i must have somehow messed up the settings or was just down to a poor quality feed from FOM, but when i caught 10 minutes of the BBC footage latter in the day, it looked perfect. :odd:

Anyone else notice this?

On a side note, did anyone think that SKY HD wasn't quite as "HD" as the BBC HD channel? Maybe it's just me but I thought the picture quality was a bit dodgy.

Previous page ;)

Yes, for me the Sky picture quality seemed poor, strangely enough during the commercial breaks the quality seemed to get even worse with letters on sceen looking very blurred almost like double vision.

Strange indeed :odd:
 
I watched a bit of the race rerun on my Nan's television on Sunday in Sky HD.

The picture quality was stunning compared to standard definition on the BBC. If that quality was poor I can't imagine how good it must've been last year on BBC HD.
 
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