F1 won't be in HD on BBC

[jlwah]

Sadly the good ole Beeb won't be showing this years F1 races in HD:

No HD for F1 - whathifi.com

I was hoping to see Lewis and Maclaren breaking the rules in 1080i but will have to settle for 576i instead :(

[ric04vrs]

that is pretty p1ss poor for the BBC :(

you'd have thought they would have pushed the boat out now they have F1 back

[spinndrift]

Watching paint dry is a waste of HD technology

[gadgetman]

Blame Bernie, as they get the footage from his broadcasting arm.

[cheezemonkhai]

Filming anything in HD.....

Raw uncompressed 1080p HD is IIRC 1.5Gbit/s so that means if you want HD in car you need a super fast link to send it back to the base. That would then require 1.5Gbits/s for every image coming in from every camera just to get it to the base point then a suitable link (probably many 10Gbit/s links to send it to whoever is choosing which shots to show).

That then has to be streamed in real time around the world for broadcast.

Then add to that fact that a 2 hour HD grand prix at 1080p would require 10800Gbits or 10.8 Tbits or about one and a half terabytes to store for the single 2 hour edited version never mind all the other camera angles etc.

It's not cheap for a reason.

So if you want all this stuff in HD, maybe you would be happy with increasing the BBC licence fee so that they can fun all the expensive new tech.

The BBC gets £140 a year for any person that has a licence, so about £11.66 a month.

IIRC Sky charge people £10 a month for just the HD content and then you have to pay your £16 minimum charge.

Joining for sky movies or sports including HD is £45 a month or £55 for sport and movies

with HD.

Then add to that the large number of adverts Sky seems to show on many of it's channels and you can suddenly see how they can afford to pay for the expensive tech up front.

Edited 7 January, 2009 by cheezemonkhai

[jlwah]

Filming anything in HD.....

Raw uncompressed 1080p HD is IIRC 1.5Gbit/s so that means if you want HD in car you need a super fast link to send it back to the base. That would then require 1.5Gbits/s for every image coming in from every camera just to get it to the base point then a suitable link (probably many 10Gbit/s links to send it to whoever is choosing which shots to show).

Not sure that in-car HD footage would be that critical, after all it's always been of a lower quality that the rest of the coverage.

Also, as they have been showing the "super slow-mo" replays previously, aren't all the GP's recorded in HD already?

My guess is that the BBC didn't want to pay for broadcasting on the HD channel outside their currently scheduled hours (5.00 p.m. to 12.00 p.m or thereabouts).

I still think it's a missed opportunity for the BBC.

[cheezemonkhai]

The problem though even if you ignore the in car is there just isn't enough bandwidth available to plumb the images around the world in HD at the moment.

This how many places the HD images have to go in real time, then think about how much satellite bandwidth is actually available for transmission of images.

[snownrock]

Don't the Beeb show football in HD when they broadcast it?

[cheezemonkhai]

No idea, but football stadiums could be wired with expensive links to an on site editing studio and then recorded if not live or streamed over a high speed wire link direct if needed.

[jlwah]

Don't the Beeb show football in HD when they broadcast it?

ITV do for some matches.

[ric04vrs]

BBC get the football off Sky anyway , and Sky always records it in HD

ITV have FA cup coverage in HD and England home games in HD, only via the red button