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I reckon they’re missing a trick by not going HD with it
Doesn’t seem to make much sense to me

There’s no reason why they can’t. Bernie has an HD feed that can be provided..

BTW, have you seen that Ferrari are to power The Team That Was Formerly Known As Honda (if a buyer is found)….

to transmit in HD, do the cameras used not need to be HD? If so, then this relies massively on the local broadcaster to record in HD… if so, then it’s more down to Bernie’s empire and local broadcasters rather than the bbc?

i don’t know much about tv cameras, so standard ones may already do HD and the signal gets down specced before ‘standard’ transmission.

cp – all of the TV production in in house these days [with the possible exception of a couple of circuits]
Bernie Ecclestone’s FOM organisation provide all the feeds which are all in HD if required

Does it really matter?

Its like watching scalectrix and I can play / enjoy that without my glasses on!!!

I ain’t got a HD telly, just a good old fashioned CRT, so it looks okay on that anyway…..

More interested in being able to see an entire race and not missing any moves during ad breaks, rather than being able to see everything in minute detail.

The problem is that fast moving frames in digital TV really do get screwed up by the compression, so HD would just about put it back in the league of analogue quality. I used to like F1 but I’m going off it more and more, in favour of WRC.

I saw last year’s Belgium GP in HD & it was stunning

I saw last year’s Belgium GP in HD & it was stunning

Until about 3 minutes after the finish…..

Oh, I don’t know – I was pretty stunned about that too…

I’m not bothered, as long as it has Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’ at the start of the program. Hearing that used to give me goosebumps, back in the Mansell/Senna/Prost/Piquet days. Pity Murray won’t be coming back.

As for the lack of ads during the race, Hallelujah. There was a race a few years back, where Alonso was trying to hold Schumacher from overtaking for the lead. A proper battle. Then, with just 3 or so laps to go, it cut to an ad break. Probably one of the worst bits of TV direction I’ve ever seen. ITV were obliged to cut to an ad break at some point, as the companies involved had contracts (worth millions), but it just highlighted how much corporate interests had swallowed up sport.

Murray is back but only for reporting segments in the run up to the race, etc. – too doddery to commentate now (arguably then too…)