1080!? orgasm

I didnt think that bernie would do HD yet? only upscale? He doesnt have any hd cameras untill next year is was I was lead to believe. I hope im wrong!!!! hehe

If there's one sport crying out to be delivered in Hi-Def it's Formula One. I'm pretty sure Bernie isn't going to be able to prevent it happening for too long.

Do try to keep up with events.

Fuji TV broadcast the Japanese GP, not the FOM.

That is what I'd expected to see and then some! - As mentioned, you can clearly see marbles, different textures to the track (rubbering in effect is possible to see) can also see the information from the steering wheel, even the reflection of the driver’s helmet..... Oops getting a bit carried away!

there's been plenty of discussion already on this board as to why FOM do not already provide Formula 1 in HD, but seriously Bernie looking more like Bernie Lomax with every week that passes, I doubt he would recognise 720p/1080p if it jumped out of his plasma screen and bit him on his wallet.

The latest we'll know about Abu Dhabi in HD will be Friday night.

Someone that has commented on the BBC HD blog has put in a FOI (Freedom of Information) request to the BBC, requesting whether Abu Dhabi will be in HD - I couldn't believe it myself until I re-read it twice! Are BBC obliged to answer FOI requests of this nature?

Besides, if we get nothing from BBC Press Office tomorrow in their weekly update of the schedules, we hopefully will find out on Friday which should put an end to this.

BBC Press Office has updated, no sign of Abu Dhabi in HD. And according to ariusuk on Digital Spy Forums, "they [FOM] aren't expecting to be doing HD next season either, at least not normally."

indeed

Man, I'd be pissed to be HD user right now. Thankfully I have better things to spend my money on

Both Sky Italia and ORF in Austria show GP's on their HD channels, will be interesting to see if they are allowed to carry the HD signal from Abu Dhabi...

Its pathetic that F1 isnt in HD already

It isn't pathetic really. They are in the business to make money, and I'm sure they've done the cost-benefit analysis.

Other sports like NASCAR broadcast in HD since 5 years. When will Formula 1 "the pinnacle of motorsport" catch up with the technology of other motorsport series?

In the business to TAKE money, you mean.

FujiTV does its own feed and it is HD (1080i), apart from on board cameras and various overlays from the official feed which are SD and upscaled.

If you have any doubts, both the source (1080i) and the reencoded 720p version of the 2009 Japanese GP can be found on your favorite HD torrent tracker (of course I vehemently condemn such illegal practices )

NASCAR has a mainly US audience, about 70 million people (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/03/09/CM162371.DTL). At the beginning of 2007, 30% of Americans owned an HDTV (http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/04/13/28-percent-of-americans-now-own-an-hdtv/). If we assume NASCAR fans are pretty average (!), that gives 21 million people to whom higher margin HD TV packages can be sold. The numbers add up and justify a big investment in HD technology.

I won't hazard a guess as to F1's viewing figures, and how many of those viewers possess the technology to view it in HD, but it obviously isn't enough yet. FOM and their investors are in the business to make money, as soon as it will make them the maximum return, they will do it.

F1 will be available in HD as soon as there are enough companies willing to pay more to show F1 in HD. I think that right now the companies want it for free because there aren't the viewers, and FOM won't give a value-add away for free, so everyone is left waiting for demand to build up.

That makes it sound like they have 70 million watching per race, which they don't. 70 million across the whole season in total.

So 70 / 38 = approx 1.8m per race. So per race, only about 540,000 would be watching the HD feed. For the UK, I think HD numbers are a lot less than 30%.

CORR was in HD, a small but awsome series of offroad racing that went tits up recently..

i think in the UK theres more HDTV's than there are people who can recive HDTV signals

The problem is right now in the uk you have to pay for HD. Forget how many HD TVs the UK has as that is irrelevant. Sky is by far the biggest provider and you need the Sky HD box just to watch BBC HD and you can't just go out and buy these boxes off the shelf without a subscription. And then why should anyone pay for sky equipment to watch BBC in HD when already paying the BBC licence fee? Yes there is cable with HD but many do not receive that and forgive me if I'm wrong, Freeview hasn't yet rolled out HD to justify people buying new boxes.

Plus Freesat

http://www.freesat.co.uk/

The trouble is, as the post above demonstrates, not many people know they can get Free HD TV in the UK.

ah forgot about freesat but even with that you need a dish. nothing yet can touch sky which is a huge problem. Freesat and freeview will have so few channels it's hardly worth bothering with and sky is just to expensive for many people and don't like much other sport.
I can't help think that HD TV has failed somehow. There are plenty of affordable HD tvs but so little actual HD sources and suppliers with each one having major flaws.

When DVD,mp3 etc all broke through they were almost an overnight success as the sorce and supplier were both in plentiful supplies.

Yup, and they've just rearranged the FreeView channels to make room for HD. Not sure about the tiomescale though.

Freesat is very easy to add to a sky installation - swap the lnb for a multi-way one, connect to freesat box, switch on . Just wish Eurosport UK would go on Freesat and I'd dump Sky completely.

So we can see a car park in HD. Oh joy of joys. Maybe we'll be able to see the painted lines that mark the track from the asphalt runoff.

Hopefully this means it will be running for the races you'd actually want to see in HD next year though. I imagine it would look spectacular in the wet.

There are many ways in which to get HD TV in the UK, some free of subscription, some will cost you money.

1. Sky HD (pay)
2. Freesat (free...)
3. VirginMedia (pay)
4. FTA (free-to-air) receiver (free, BBCHD/ITVHD)
5. Multisat FTA receiver (free, about 22 channels in Europe)
6. Multisat receiver plus foreign subscription card (pay, depends on service selected)

Note: Terrestrial HD broadcasts will start soon via Freeview, new STB will be required

(Other ways exist, but they are illegal)

I think the numbers per week are more like 20 million, I remembering seeing a new record in (I think) 2003 of 25 million for a race. Yes 70 million are the estimated separate individuals viewing over the course of a season. But that number is valid in this context because those people might still pay more for an HD package, even to only view a couple of Nascar races, some MLB etc.

All the arguments against an HD broadcast are irrelevant.

Formula One is supposed to be the pinacle of motorsport, the pioneer of technology. Why cant something be done sooner. I have watched WTCC in HD and it looks simply stunning, as does the MOTO GP when they occasionally show it on Eurosport HD.

Come on Bernard!!

I thought I was getting F1 in HD, then I saw the

IRL race at Mid Ohio, in HD, with high def sound---STUNNING.



Saw the Isle of man TT series (shown on a discovery channel of all things in the USA)---STUNNING

And then on discovery they showed parts of Goodwood in HD< again, stunning.

F1 looks good sometimes and sometimes it does not, but it ain't HD from camaera to your home, for sure, somewhere it is being upscaled, maybe using a 420p to 720p, but it is not HD>

The motogp races look even worse, from Seca, the AMA races were being shown in HD, STUNNING< then the last two years, one gets the "world feed" and it is like watchin an old SD videptape by comparison

Just look at NSCAR, at Speed TV, at IRL races on the various channels......

And at Seca, the very same HD cameras that were being used to show [b]supporting events [/b] in HD (and Speed does not always have the best HD feeds/cameras) were the same cameras feeding the "world feed" so the images were being taken from HD and then DOWNSCALED into SD for braodcast for the last two years of Motogps there

Even funnier, is during this year's race, Speed was adding in some extra stuff from the pits and interviews, that were clearly outside the world feed that they were being required to show as to the race, and these little extras just for the home market, were in HD; then they would switch back for the on track action in SD

And the "man in the street" probably only knows about Sky and Virgin - IF he's got a vaugue idea what HD is.
The rest of them think they get HD because they bought an "HD Ready" set and the man at Currys said it gives them HD...

If I can watch a bunch of anorexic marathon runners pottering around in their high definition underpants why the hell can't I see the best technology motorsport has to offer?

Then the UK broadcasters are to blame. In Australia all the regular free to air stations have an HD equivalent or two that work by pressing the up and down channel button on your remote.

BT Vision also have HD content. Theres just too many sources each with varying channels which confuses people - at least average Joe.

720p, 1080i and 1080p are high definition resolutions. 1080p is not a 'DVD format'. DVD's are usually 576 or 480 horizontal lines.

1080p HD broadcasts are however rare and generally not availible. But ATSC standards support 1080p24, 1080p25, 1080p30 and with H.264 1080p50 and 1080p60. DVB support 1080p25 and now also ATSC frame rates.

I would expect that 1080p50 or 1080p60 is the next step for HDTV and will be taken when enough consumer equipment can decode such signals and when enough bandwidth is availible.

Sony BluRay disc support 1080p24.

Sky in the UK broadcast 1080i
I guess Virgin and the others in the long list of services that provide HD in the UK (but hardly anyone knows about!) also broadcast 1080i

Pac TSN will only get the super signal which is 704x384. They would then upscale that to 1280x720.

I don't think the FOM track cameras are filming in HD like people are saying. The new HD T-cams are, but they get downscaled to the super signal. You can notice a sharper picture because the HD cameras allow a higher nyquist frequency which produces less aliasing or 'jaggies'.




Since it was LG doing it they would have been using regular HD cameras to make their demos as it's much cheaper to just write to a HDD than have a whole broadcast setup. Probably one of the models you can buy off the shelf even.

Yes I saw that too on Discovery HD Theater. It was jaw dropping.

Of all the sports i'd have thought F1 would have been one of the first to take up HD. Not so much so the tv viewer can enjoy it but because the adverts on the cars livery pay the bills, and with HD you can see them clearer. It doesn't take a genius to realise that many new circuits and corners are designed with the positioning of tv cameras in mind. The new part of Hockenheim strikes me as one such circuit that has a number of corners where tv cameras can provide great pictures... with a great view of sponsors logos

HD Onboard cam? (already tested in Grosjean's car during Singapore Gp Fp)

Exactly. But it looks like F1 will be one of the last sports to take up HD

Still not HD