Australian GP SPEED Broadcast

**** yeah. Mike, who do you have for champ this year? Come on, tell me what I want to hear.

 

Does anyone have a way they can save and upload the race? I have to travel all day sunday for business and I don't want to miss the opener! =(

 

Speed is currently broadcasting in HD! DIRECT TV is one of first to carry SPEED in HD! A few cable systems are also. DISH TV has NOT !

 

AUSTRALIAN GP is listed as being on SPEED in HD!!

 

Don't know if this helps, but other than the rebroadcast on Sunay 1PM EST, there is another listed on Wednesday March 19th at the same time. Also, have you thought about a Slingbox (http://www.slingmedia.com/)?

 

I hope it is, but I wouldn't count on it. Channels aren't held to what they list things as. Even though I don't have Dish or SpeedHD, Cable show have it eventually at which point F1 in HD would be awesome.

Look at TBS HD. I don't think I have ever watched anything in HD on that channel. They list everything they show as HD then show SD versions stretched. Even the Office which originally airs in HD. They show the letterboxed sd version stretched! What is the point of the extra bandwidth if it is gonna be wasted!!

 

Are you sure? It's on Speed HD, but in HD? I tried to find out on their swamp of a web site, but couldn't find any confirmation that the race would be in HD.

Jack.

 

They may shoot HD but I seriously doubt it.

The reason being that HD is very much a USA phenomenon. Most of the rest of the world doesn't have HD, doesn't care about HD (compared to us) and aren't really set up for it. Since Bernie's production company are the ones who shoot the races, I very much doubt if they would pay the significant expensive of shooting in HD since it would only matter to a fractionally small number of their audience.

I really hope they will get the races in HD very soon! (720p thankyouverymuch!) but I tend to doubt it, which is a shame

 

Well my crystal ball has been wrong before (usually is!) but I am going to say realistically I think Kimi will be WDC this year, Hamilton in 2nd, Kovalainen in 3rd, maybe Alonso in 4th, Massa maybe 5th.

This is going to be Kimis year, but Hamilton is going to be on a charge, so I predict a season full of great racing. Honestly, I care more about good racing than I care about any particular driver winning. Although I would very much like Kimi to get that 2nd star on his hat

 

Let me rephrase. I know they have HD equipment (a Panasonic deal I think). I don't know if they shoot in HD or if they do, how far along the broadcast chain that HD data makes it before it is downscaled.

 

I checked into this a bit more.

The good news is that they ARE using HD cameras and shooting the races at 1080p@50Hz which is nice.

The bad news is that isn't transmitted to any of our TV's nor to speed. It is converted to PAL which is then converted to NTSC which Speed then upscales to "HD" and broadcasts. So the race isn't going to be in HD, just upscaled NTSC. It will probably look better, but not great.

The worst news is that Bernie has recently gone on record to say he doesn't care about HD, has no plans to implement HD, doesn't see the value in HD, and doesn't feel there is any market for it. So I doubt we will be getting the races in HD anytime soon. What happens in the USA as far as HD will not matter much, because our market penetration of HD is about a bazillion times more than Europe, where probably 0.0001% have HD, so Bernie just isn't going to do the feed in HD, I don't think.

It's probably not as simple as just siphoning off a feed to SpeedTV either, because the way it's smooshed into PAL then beamed over and turned into NTSC (at 480 lines) is not something that's probably that easy to change.

Never say never though....

 

Is PAL higher res than NTSC? It looks like it, judging from the PQ of Top Gear.

Jack.

 

PAL does have more horizontal lines than NTSC, but NTSC is 60hz interlaced (30 frames/sec) while PAL is 50hz interlaced (25 frames/sec).

Id say the difference is negligible. Especially when compared to HD resolution at 60 frames per second.

 

Can some other counrty take over this crappolla race,many Melbourne people want it go and never be heard of agian,its a Aus 40 million $ loss every year,plus all the money the government tips in.Send it to India.

 

I think the person that did SPEED's program listing for the race had one too many quarts of high octane fuel, but I am going to be glued to my TV at 11:00 PM Central tomorrow evening for the first real indication of what's going on this season.

 

Keep us updated!