2012 F1 season Blu-Ray “Victorious Vettel” reviewed

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Despite lasting over five hours long the 2012 F1 season DVD, reviewed here last week, suffered some glaring omissions.

The double-disc Blu-Ray version of the review adds up to seven hours. It’s spread across two discs, the first of which is filled by highlights of the 20 races. Aside from the enhanced picture quality they do not differ from those on the DVD version (see earlier review for more on that).

The second discs includes all the other features also from the DVD release, plus a single extra billed as The Story of the 2012 Season. Narrated by Will Buxton, the one-and-three-quarter-hour feature covers much of the material that is missed in the main review.

Indeed, it looks rather like this footage was supposed to appear in the review, introducing each race and covering the top stories in more detail. Perhaps it was cut due to a lack of space.

Previous DVDs have included this sort of material in the main review and were better for it. There’s a little interesting new footage, however, and a smattering of extra team radio. Such as Guillaume Rocquelin repeatedly urging Sebastian Vettel to stop his car in Malaysia, and Michael Schumacher ranting about Lewis Hamilton following their run-in in Spain.

More importantly, it gives the context of the season as it progresses and shows the developing championship battle at the front of the field.

It is not as thorough as it could be. Although it is to be expected that the officially-endorsed video is not going to be a ‘warts and all’ feature, some significant stories of 2012 are overlooked that should not have been.

The Williams garage fire in Spain is missed, Maria de Villota’s crash is not mentioned and, predictably, there is no reference to the controversy surrounding the Bahrain race – even Force India’s absence from one of the practice sessions is left out.

Taken as a whole package the combination of race highlights on one disc and season commentary on the other is disjointed and repetitive. And there are far too many quotes from the tedious press conferences.

The Blu-Ray version of the review is more comprehensive than the DVD version and despite some omissions and other faults it’s definitely worth the slightly higher price tag.

F1 Fanatic rating

Buy Victorious Vettel: The Official Formula One Season Review 2012 (Blu-Ray, UK)

Buy Victorious Vettel: The Official Formula One Season Review 2012 (DVD, UK)

Competition

Victorious Vettel: The Official Review of the 2012 FIA Formula One World Championship

Publisher: Metrodome
Format: Blu-Ray (reviewed), DVD
Published: 14th January 2013 (Blu-Ray), 7th January 2013 (DVD)
Price: £24.99 (Blu-Ray), £16.99 (DVD)

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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28 comments on “2012 F1 season Blu-Ray “Victorious Vettel” reviewed”

  1. OmarR-Pepper (@)
    11th January 2013, 16:22

    You accurately mention many things missing, but, why the rate of 4 then?

    1. @omarr-pepper See the final paragraph.

  2. A bit of a technical question Keith, is it presented in 1080/50i or 60i? I live in the Americas and last year I had a horrid time trying to find a way to view it properly, in the end I did it but it was quite a workaround.

    1. @mantresx It doesn’t say anywhere on the packaging but my Blu-Ray player identifies it as being 1080p. I have the UK release copy, of course.

      1. Ok thanks for checking, I’ll find out when my copy arrives hehe

    2. My players shows it as being 1080p50

    3. It is 1080i50 and locked to REGION B.
      You’ll need to either get a Blu-ray player that you can change the region on, like the Orei BDP-M2 for $149 from Bombay Electronics, or rip the disc to remove region coding and burn it back to 50GB blank discs and watch it on any Samsung, LG or Oppo player all of which convert 1080i50 > 1080i60 on the fly.

      I had a hard time with the 2011 disc too, ended up getting our IT guy to rip it and burn it back to 2 50GB blanks which are pretty expensive, then had to buy a Samsung player to watch it as my plasma won’t handshake with a 1080i50 signal, some Insignia and Vizio sets will accept 50Hz signals natively, I have a Panasonic plasma.

      This year I said screw it and just picked up the Orei, as my Samsung Blu-ray player would play 1080i50 discs > 1080i60 but would NOT play PAL DVD’s, even if the region code had been removed. Now I can play ANY disc whether Blu or DVD so I’m sorted!!

  3. I think it’s logical that the Bahrain controversy is missing. It’s a FOM production, not from a newsoutlet.
    I agree it is part of the story which should’ve been told, but you can’t expect people to first pretend there’s nothing goin’ on and later on tell the whole story on their own official dvd.

    For the rest, they seem to make strange choices. But I think they really are squeezing every drop of milk from this cow for as little cost as possible. They know it can’t go on, but for now, it’s all they know.

    1. @verstappen

      you can’t expect people to first pretend there’s nothing goin’ on and later on tell the whole story on their own official dvd

      I know what you mean but even if we lower our expectations that far I still think it’s wrong not to mentioned what happened with Force India as it had a direct effect on their participation in the race weekend.

  4. The annoying thing is, despite its many faults I am still going to buy it. I am going to fund the core issue I have with FOM right now. That they don’t utilise youtube because they are afraid that it will stop people from buying the end of season review.
    I hate that. But I just cannot, not have this review. Its F1, it include things we didn’t hear doing the normal broadcast and it allows me to quickly view the “whole” season later and in high quality compared to my very legal, home recordings of the live broadcast.
    So while I hate my self for buying it, I am going to enjoy the hell out of the unseen footage later. Worth it. Probably.

    1. That they don’t utilise youtube because they are afraid that it will stop people from buying the end of season review.

      That isn’t why they don’t use YouTube.

      YouTube isn’t utilized partly down to contractual issues with broadcasters but largely due to the fact that FOM would get no money from putting content on YouTube.
      In fairness to FOM its not just them who run this sort of policy, There’s a lot of TV companies from sports to regular TV programs regularly have there content removed from YouTube.

      Going back to the money part, I know people often ask about archive races & the reply from FOM would be why put something on YouTube & make no money when a broadcaster will pay x amount for the footage.
      The problem however is that 90% of worldwide broadcasters have little interest in showing archive races even if there able to under there contract (As SkyUK are BTW) so unless you know where to look online fans lose out.

      When we were running the F1 Digital PPV platform & had our sky channel in 2002 I was always amazed we didn’t use archive races & other footage as an additional selling point.

      1. John Bergqvist (@)
        12th January 2013, 12:12

        Actually, the extra stuff that sky produced, ontop of the pan-european FOM Digital world feed, such as the shows presented by Matt Lorenzo, did include archive clips etc. I noticed that on the main (called the “Master”) F1Digital channel, Sky would cut away from the world feed to do pit-lane interviews etc, much as they do in 2012. In 2002 however, the “vanilla” digital world feed was always available as the super-signal channel, which was what the Master channel would be showing most of, during a session.

        1. I know some archive clips were used, I was talking more about things like full archive races, Season reviews & other specials making use of the archive.

          Also Sky had nothing to do with that channel, It was all done by FOM (Hence why there were no sky logo’s anywhere). All the studio stuff on the master channel with Matt Lorenzo & guests was done from a studio we setup at FOM’s Biggin Hill HQ. Even the main commentary with Ben Edwards & John Watson was been done from Biggin Hill.

          1. John Bergqvist (@)
            12th January 2013, 17:41

            Ah my mistake then. I just noticed from watching recorded F1Digital races, that the “Super-Signal” Channel was the main world feed (i.e. with the overlays on constantly, whereas the “Master” Channel showed the super-signal most of the time, yet would cut away from it completely to do live video interviews etc. It just seems odd to me that FOM would cut away from their own world feed on the master channel, but then saying that, the vanilla feed was always available on the super-signal channel. It’s complicated all right haha.

          2. John Bergqvist (@)
            12th January 2013, 17:42

            Are you an ex-employee of FOM then?

          3. Yeah was with from from 1997 through to the end of 2007.

            There was cutting away on the master feed as that’s what that feed was all about, Studio analysis with interviews & news from the paddock, That particular feed was a UK exclusive.
            The Super-Signal was the primary race feed & there was never any cutting away from that on the UK broadcast although I think some of the other european broadcasters did insert there own interviews on there.

            While the service only ran in the UK in 2002 it had been available since the 1996 German Gp. While the UK service did very badly the european broadcasters that took it always got solid figures & an interactive service continued in Germany on Premiere world (Now Sky Deutschland) after F1 Digital+ closed at the end of 2002.

          4. John Bergqvist (@)
            12th January 2013, 20:38

            Yeah that’s what I thought. I *HATE* it when the national broadcasters mess about with the world feed, like Sky do with Free practices, cutting away for their own interviews *grrrr* that’s why I like the FOM reviews as it’s purely their team doing it. Also I wish the broadcasters would let us see the extra streams (onboard, pits) as soon as FOM switches them on. The BBC started showing the pitlane feed for the Brazil race a full 20mins before Sky did, and all of them cut away once the session ends too early IMO. It would be nice to stay with the feeds at the end of practice cos you see them doing practice starts etc.

          5. John Bergqvist (@)
            12th January 2013, 20:40

            Actually, I notice Sky cut into the main World Feed while the race was on at the Brazilian GP to show a replay of their own. I wonder if they got a slapped wrist for that, cos I’m sure FOM would frown on that, in the middle of the race.

          6. Broadcasters are allowed to cut away from the world feed during races for a limited time in order to show interviews or put there own replays in. This is written into the contracts mainly for broadcasters who take ad-breaks to allow them to show anything they missed while on Ad’s.

            There less restricted for practice which I guess is why sky spend so much time doing there own thing, At times them cutting away add’s something if one of there pit reporters are showing something useful but I also hate it when they do it simply to show an interview or have Martin standing around randomly talking about something where we don’t need to be seeing him.

            Regarding the additional feeds, Thats totally down to the broadcasters. The pit lane channel starts i think around an hour before the start of the race & the onboard channel when the pit lane opens & cars start making there way to the grid.
            the onboard feed ends just after the race when cars stop in parc-ferme, the pit lane channel usually runs through until the end of the highlight reel FOM play at the end of every session on the world feed.

          7. John Bergqvist (@)
            12th January 2013, 22:29

            Talking of the FOM highlight reel, I have *never* seen a broadcaster keep going with the world feed enough to show that at the end of the sessions, at least not in the UK. Jamie Benning on Twitter (Pit lane channel director) told me that for Practice, the Pitlane channel starts transmitting when the FOM Logo appears on the world feed, and for Quali and the race, it starts when the world feed starts transmitting, which as you say is around an hour before the session starts I think.

    2. I wouldn’t mind FOM’s removal of any F1 videos if they themlseves provided better online content but they don’t, so we are robbed of great footage (even that shot by fans at they track). I feel it is just giving them a bad name in their strict copyright policies because of this and also highlights how F1 is missing out on the Internet. I feel that if FOM just increased the amount online content that F1 could lure in more audiences and hence more of a market to broadcast to, which of course equals more money (which really is two whole issue with the copyrighting on the first place).

      1. John Bergqvist (@)
        12th January 2013, 20:26

        FOM post pole laps and race highlights in HD on the F1 website though… Also in the UK, the BBC and Sky do the same for free. Obviously it’s not FOM’s fault if the national broadcasters aren’t competent enough to do that for themselves. FOM place the onus on the national broadcaster to make online content tailored to their own countries audiences.

        Also, the small print on the F1 ticket says you can’t show footage captured handheld, publicly. Or it did in 2008. It’s the same thing as why you can’t record videos at a music concert.

        1. @john-bergqvist

          FOM post pole laps and race highlights in HD on the F1 website though

          Indeed they do and of course race highlights but where they are lacking is in footage of major events, such as Vettel’s crash in Brazil. If they provided an onboard from both Senna & Vettel’s car, perhaps in combination with the overhead tv cameras us fans on websites such as F1fanatic could be better informed in our debates over who’s to blame. Also, FOM seem to be missing out when it comes to social media (there is no official F1 page which provides any sort of information to F1 fans).

          I think few can argue that they are severely lacking when it comes to online content and that we should be provided with better (and more) footage which can be easily accessed. I could find no footage of Vettel’s crash on the F1 website (bar a small segment in the Brazilian GP race review) and had to trawl through the youtube archives to find a decent onboard from Senna’s car which hadn’t had claims of copyright from FOM. Sure, if indeed they place the onus on the national broadcasters then that is absolutely fine but I feel that on certain occasions material which could provide an insight is mysteriously lacking.

          Also, relating to home video, I understand this but if FOM themselves don’t provide enough footage or a fan has captured something interesting from an alternative angle to the TV cameras should they not utilise the footage instead of immediately banning it? I would prefer they instead allow for it to be used on the F1 website than just banned completely.

  5. I’d love to be able to check out these DVD’s but unfortunately they are only available in PAL format.
    Bummer.

    1. NTSC version is available on amazon.com or amazon.co.jp

  6. John Bergqvist (@)
    12th January 2013, 12:07

    Ahh, good to hear that they’ve added sort of a “Season review: Directors cut” version for the blu ray then. I notice that the 2011 DVD had the full season review proper, but didn’t include ANY extra features for the DVD, so maybe FOM are trying to do a half-way house approach for the DVD?

  7. I guess any officially endorsed product is never going to show FOM in a bad light i.e Bahrain. That said however, I don’t expect that sort of detail is really necessary for what is essentially a season review. The FIA were quiet about it at the time so they would have even less to say now.

  8. I didn’t receive the 2012 Season review on Blu Ray until last Monday the 14th of January. Amazon initially emailed me to let me know it would be delayed by another week from the original lauch of January the 7th.I deliberately ignored reading any reviews on here concerning the BD review because I didn’t want to read any disappointing reviews before watching it.

    I agree with a lot of the above comments. First thing I noticed was how the first race highlights begin almost immediately with no preamble or anything. In fact I swapped the disc over in case the 2nd disc had the driver / car launches as an afterthought on there but to start each race almost at lights out is disappointing. And why show the Drivers championships totals after each race only down to 10th place ???

    I’ve seen all the F1 season reviews to date and yeah they are getting worse. I dont think there was much on the BD that I hadn’t already seen live on the tv at the time. I watched the whole review in one go and was left with the impression that it was okay but not much else.

    It wasnt worth the seven week wait after the season end.
    Still, its better than the 1981 and 1983 reviews!!!

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