HD Racing / nascar / F1 04??

[Paul Clancy]

Wondering who knows the status of what will be available this year. I'm about ready to jump into hd and motor racing is the killer app for me. I'm likely to go EV so I hope that the fox/nbc nascar sched will be hd (or fox ed even) but am less hopeful for F1....tsn hd maybe? Also hoping for a 6000 price drop prior to Daytona. Heck...I can hope..gg.

Cheers and Thanks,
Paul

[Nels Stewart]

but am less hopeful for F1....tsn hd maybe?

Don't hold your breath. As far as I know, since Bernie Ecclestone pulled the plug on his "Bernievision" digital broadcasts last year, F1 coverage is controlled by the host broadcasters; since most of them are European, and HD is only just getting started there, I wouldn't expect F1 in HD for a few years yet.

As for Nascar, FOX did do most of their races in Widescreen ED, and they looked pretty good. NBC didn't do any in HD. But, with FOX going to full 720P HD beginning in the Fall, I suspect we might see some Nascar racing in HD in the 2005 season. Of all the racing series, it would probably be the most likely candidate for a serious HD effort because:

• it's wildly popular
• plenty of big-money American sponsors who would value the enhanced visibility of their decals and logos
• oval tracks are a lot like huge football stadiums and coverage of racing action can be accomplished with relatively few cameras; in-car cameras are another story, though, and I suspect those would stay SD for a few years yet

HDNet has done some CART races in the past couple of years, including stepping in to do the on-again-off-again-on-again race at Road America last August, when CBS/Speed bailed. They did the whole schmeer, practise sessions, qualifying, support races, something like 19 hours over three days, and it was spectacular. BEV picked up the whole weekend as a free PPV. One thing that facilitated the coverage was recent renovations to the track that included HD cabling to all the camera positions, so a broadcaster just has to plug in their HD cameras. Of course, who knows if any CART races will actually get off the ground this year :cry:

[57]

The F1 SD quality we've been getting this past year was a bit hit & miss too. Perhaps they didn't give it the appropriate bandwidth on the satellite. Since Europe is on PAL/Secam, the picture quality should be about 20% better than what we're seeing and if properly upconverted would supply a good picture on HD, unfortunately the audience for F1 in North America is pretty small so not much effort is put into this.

Japan has HD, so if we could somehow pick up their feed instead.... Their coverage of the eclipse from Antactica was pretty good on Discovery HD, but that was a lot more exciting than the average F1 race :wink:

[birdman]

Paul Clancy, seeing as you are a racing fan have you seen the DVD called "Speed Tribe"? Le Mans in the rain, '99 or '00 i think, with a techno music sound track and multiple camera angles. Two 25 min versions and a music cd xtra. Cool dvd.

[Paul Clancy]

No ...sounds cool ...I'll watch for it.

[Nels Stewart]

Well, it's happening sooner, rather than later! Just pulled this from AVS:

The 46th annual Daytona 500 will be the first NASCAR race to be covered in HDTV. Details are still slim at this time, but HD coverage was confirmed directly to AVS, by NBC earlier today.

Last years Daytona 500 drew its highest ratings ever for start-to-finish coverage and was the most-watched auto race since 1984. NBC's telecast, its first airing of the race under a six-year deal with NASCAR, drew a 10.9 rating Sunday with a 26 share, a jump of 9 percent from the 10.0 rating for the 2002 Daytona 500 broadcast on Fox.

HD coverage will begin 12pm ET, Sunday February 15, 2004.

I suspect this will be a mixed HD/SD production, heavy on the SD for in-car cameras and probably the roving pit cams as well. But it's a great start!

[Paul Clancy]

That is GREAT news...thanks.