OOh, now THAT could be good! Letterman & Rahal in the booth with some proven actual race announcer and Danica Patrick in the pits! Not a bad broadcast team! (No, I never saw Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football.)
The one announcer I enjoy listening is Matt Bishop, former chief mechanic with Beneton. He always has good technical insight coupled with his commentary, which make the F1 experience doubly good to watch.
That's odd - I'm unaware of ANY HD broadcasting in the UK. BBC News says that it will be 2006 before Sky Digital even starts to offer it. You might be confusing digital TV and HDTV. The acceptance of the former is advanced, the latter is not.
Should be interesting as more news develops on the situation. But 3 races not live?! I guess I'll have to revert to watching live timing on the computer again. It appears that Speed will carry the rest of the season live though. And if it's any consolation speed will also broadcast their own versions of the 4 CBS races, tape delayed.
Hmm, interesting, I thought I saw it in London as well. Definitely in Germany and Switzerland. HDTVs all over the place.
It's possible they're starting to sell the sets, but that link says that broadcasts in Germany don;t even start until late 2005. Regardless - given the flop that was Bernievision and PPV, I wouldn't hold my breath for HD tv coverage just yet.
Is there more info on the CBS' coverager? Isn't there a mandate in the US for conversion to HDTV in a few years? The sets are certainly getting cheaper than when I purchased a few years back and looks like everyone is getting one, at least here in the States. EVen if Euro broadcasting distribute the footage at dvd quality (480 lines) it is still tons better than what we get today!
Well as I said, we had a mandate from the Clinton administration, but it came and went and nothing happened. Very annoying. I wish we had one soon. The difference in quality is like watching TV or looking out the window.
I heard in the late 90s (or maybe early 2000) that the US would switch to HD broadcasting in 2010. You can still watch programming on your regular TV, but you'd need a certain box that would change the feed to make it viewable. On the matter of non-live racing, it sounds stupid from a fans point of view, but to get new fans, I think it's a good idea (not many non-fans will watch races at 7 AM EST or 2 AM EST [east Asia]). I'll still watch all the races live on Speed TV, but I feel bad for the guys who are diehard F1 fans and don't have Speed TV. It was like that for me a few years ago so I can relate.
Unfortunately you're right about that. So for those non live races, I will have to stay off the internet for that day until they air the taped race (strongly assuming and hoping it will air the same Sunday). PS: I remember the early nineties when there was no Speed TV and no internet and I had to wait for the next day's newspaper to get the result of a GP. Now THAT was bad.
A new company has been formed to promote F1 in the U.S. They are behind the CBS broadcasts. There is also going to be two F1 lifestyle shows broadcast on CBS. More details on www.automodica.com today.
