Post here all non technical related topics about Formula One. This includes race results, discussions, testing analysis etc. TV coverage and other personal questions should be in Off topic chat.
As someone working in the entertainment industry, I am constantly appalled at the poor level of showmanship F1's TV production crew gives us. Audio is distant and has no impact, seems like 'director' is reading a magazine while randomly switching between cameras without looking or caring, on screen info/graphics suck and leave out important things.
I work in audio, and I have been to an F1 race in person, and frankly the audio on F1 TV coverage is just extremely poor. I know it can be waaaayyy better with a few cost-free tweaks and replacing the current sucky audio guy with a good one.
A good example of proper motorsport TV coverage is the NHRA on ESPN. Audio is full and powerful, cameras are working the beauty shots, director is on top of the relevant storyline.
I hope that with the advent of interactive TV coverage, either by pay-per-view or a subscribed (and properly working) website, we can get the coverage we need along with improvements in fidelity.
NASCAR sounds and looks better, and they can tell where to action is, and focus on it. Not to mention remote controlled revolving cameras in the cars. HD goodness. In NASCAR the mics are also right at trackside. In F1 they appear to be where the camera is.
One problem with the sound in F1, for the in car cameras, is where the mic is. We are hearing what the drivers hear, the intake noise. They barely hear what comes out the back. In Nascar, the engine being in front gives a more visceral experience.
I have an mp3 of a v10 Renault starting and passing the mic, giving a real sense of what it really sounds like
I actually have a two disk album of f1 sounds from all kinds of vantage points.
Before I do anything I ask myself “Would an idiot do that?” And if the answer is yes, I do not do that thing. - Dwight Schrute
The sound is too far away.
The video follows the main players for too long. Doesn't follow the action (i.e. mid-rear of the pack)
I'm under the impression that each countries broadcaster does the broadcasting for that event, is this true?
Either way, whenever we're at a country where there's a driver who's famous (Alonso for Spain, Lewis and JB for Britain, Vettel and Schumi for Germany etc etc) the coverage revolves, or seems to revolve, ever more around them instead of any of the other drivers.
Have to say Giblet, I'm not a fan of the revolving cameras. From the ones I've seen (IRL) they're clunky and slow. Although you see more of the car, I find it rather disorientating. But that's just me
"It could be done manually. It would take quite a while, but it could be done. There is however a much more efficient and accurate way of getting the data. Men with lasers." Wing Commander Andy Green
Each nation provides their own TV coverage, and feed it to the FIA for their world-wide coverage. That's why, for example, at the event provided by the German feed, we see tons of slow-motion video of cars bouncing over curbs, and so on.
Racing should be decided on the track, not the court room.
F1 could learn a few things about TV coverage. NASCAR and the NHRA are two perfect places to get pointers. Don't let the host country provide the feed. FOM needs to cart every single piece of gear to each race or require that the host country has that gear (HD definitely) and include that in the contract to host a race. Their TV coverage is a joke. I get FIM Speedway flat track motorcycle racing in HD for cripes sake and that's in the Netherlands!
The quality of the broadcast is usually pretty bad. But somehow the FOM managed to beat their own record and go to the deepest abyssal chasm during qualifying. No live positions in a session in which cars tend to be as far as possible from each other, and where spatial order lacks any importance? What the hell!
First of all, we need better overlay graphs, better audio (although I bet it's not possible to get anything near to live experience: the V10's were as noisy as jets taking off), better positioned cameras and HD. I think that, although lack of HD signals stagnation, it's not our biggest priority, but we'll get this less late than anything else because the sponsors should pressure Emperor Bernie.
I am not amazed by F1 cars in Monaco. I want to see them driving in the A8 highway: Variable radius corners, negative banking, and extreme narrowings that Tilke has never dreamed off. Oh, yes, and "beautiful" weather tops it all.
"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." Niels Bohr
Will there be any requirement somewhere for the cameras to spend X amount of time looking at the leader and/or the front runners? I wouldn't imagine Ferrari would be happy if their cars got no TV-coverage because they were being boring 10 miles in front of everyone else?
DaveKillens wrote:Each nation provides their own TV coverage, and feed it to the FIA
I thought it was the FIA that brought along a television production crew all over the place. I can see though how relying on the expertise of a Bahrainian production crew to deliver a captivating and entertaining television experience can fall quite short. Undeniably, the best people in the world for producing live TV are from the US, the capital of entertainment, and the FIA should contract a team from the US that knows what they are doing.
Really have to agree here with toto. I'm working as a sound engineer myself and knowing how a F1 car sounds for real always makes me wonder how they manage to make them sound that crap on TV.
Also, from the visual POV, it's far from inovative - seeme like someone's done this job for ages and refuses to get away from how he's done that ever since. Really amazing (in a not so positive way [-X )
Well, my opinion is split into 2 sections, BBC and FOM coverage;
BBC - Pre and Post coverage is pretty damned good, quality is good, banter is good, presenters and pundits are knolegeable. EJ and DC have the insight from both the drivers and team owners perspective, Jake Humphreys is ballanced, fresh and willing to give anything a try if it can imnprove the way the show is put over. And in Ted Kravits and Lee Mckenzie they have evertyhing covered down in the pits, Ted doing his pit garrage runs for info, and Lee with the drivers opinions and views from after they retire from the race, or when the race is over.
However, Jonathan Leggard needs to go, if BBC wish to change something, get James Allen back, even tho he is up Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton and Ferarris back side, he is at least someone whao knows his stuff and lets fans know something new every or every other race that isnt "pushing on" and "lets see what he can do". Ideally id have 5LiveF1 as my comentry model, but ITV has it right on the commentry side with James Allen and Martin Brundle for the fans and the occasional race watcher.
Pre and post race, BBC have the ballance just about right, just the comentry team that needs athe overhauling. No adverts is always a big bonus.
FOM Race Coverage - GIVE HD Now. When other series have been in HD for give or take 6-8 years now and have it down to a art form. All FOM need to do is change the cameras over to HD cameras, and change all the production equiptment, and just work with the technical side, at current im willing to give a little if theres a few technical hitches. Other than that, they need to try and offer more interactive coverage, when tennins can offer the choice of up to 8 different courts, golf can offer up to 8 holes to watch. Why can we have 4 different on board cameras, a couple of battles on track and say if all you want to do is sit and watch the cars coming down to turn 1 all race, offer it to the fans.
FOM after Bahrain, need to get the graphics clearer, Why-o-why dod they change them from 2009??? New decade, new facade??? Nope, id rather have an expanded "What aint broke" in terms of the graphics, they layout was about right, but what we have now is like what we had in the early 2000s, almnost child like craphics. I like nice, clear and precice grahics, like what we has from 2006-2009, but with some little refinements, like the new lap counter is like. Also at the start, a small start light graphic comes down as at some races its a little difficult to see the lights. Also, when the yellow flag comes out, please count them, even if they are all localised yellows, count them like NASCAR.
Sound, needs an overhaul, with sound specialists like Shure and Sennhiser, im sure thery xoiuld work on a microphone or two to get the engine sounding right on onboard shots, and not sounding like compressed bees in a childs rattle. Choice of shots is pretty good, better than some, but with room for improvement. Id like to see more use of a IRL style rotating camera for the T-Cam, lets see a roll hoops eye view of the overtake. Also more use of the Line Comparison and 1500FPS super slow mo we saw at the German GP last year would be really nice for the casual viewer and to us the geek.
I have quite a few demands in there, but otherwise the longest review so far.
DaveKillens wrote:Each nation provides their own TV coverage, and feed it to the FIA
I thought it was the FIA that brought along a television production crew all over the place.
They do. My colleague's husband is one of the cameramen. It certainly made the coverage more consistent when FOM took it over, but I suspect that Bernie thought he was going to make a pile of cash out of subscription TV. Remember those years when we hardly got any in-car footage because he was saving it all for his paying punters? Only there weren't many so he had to give it up in the end.
As apparently the third sound engineer to post on this thread I agree that the audio is terrible. I can see what they're trying to do, which is to match the sound to the picture by keeping the mics and cameras together but it doesn't work they way they're doing it. Having worked in outside broadcasts I know that there's a tension between sticking to stuff you know works and trying out new things to improve it. Most guys (and girls) in that field that I know tend to stick to a formula mostly, but trying new things is the fun of the job.
I suspect that there's probably little incentive to innovate though. Judging by the conditions my workmate's husband apparently has to endure, it doesn't sound like Bernie puts much cash into the operation. Why would he? He's got a monopoly and a captive market and he could probably let things go quite a long way down hill before it seriously affected audiences.
Regarding the sound I always wondered why they put the commentator boxes so close to the track? Every time a car runs by their location I hear it on TV. After a couple of laps the field has spread over the whole track so this background noise is permanently there and dominates the TV coverage.
Anybody else noticed this before?
