F1 Fanatic

Hi, I’ve posted the content of the ‘Problems of BBC coverage’ thread that was closed on the forum to see if anyone else has any ideas.

@mclaren : Hi, is it only me or is the Beebs f1 coverage picture, too wide. I’ve viewed it on all 3 TV’s at home and always the

left hand side of the picture that usually has the driver names and times is cut off and i can only seen the end of the drivers lap

time and cant see the name at all, i tried shifting the screen right, but the picture was still cut from the left hand side!!

@jonnyw360f1 : Sounds like you’ve got a 4:3 display trying to show a 16:9 picture. Fiddle with the pictue/display settings until

you have the correct proportions. It will be either 4:3 or ‘fit’.

@mgp w01 : It happens to me as well. As you say @jonnyw360f1 I have fiddled with all the picture settings, which include Auto

Format (this makes the whole screen fill), widescreen, 16:9, 14:9 and 4:3, yet even if i do this i can’t see the left and right

edge of the screen. It is really annoying in qualifying as all I can see is the times and not the names so i have no idea where

anyone is. Even if I put the format on to 14:9 or 4:3 which basically ‘shrinks’ the picture, the names are still cut off and

replaced with bands.

The same happens when I watch sky sports news, the only sky sports channel I have, and the right hand side which includes tables,

results and other small headlines is mostly cut off as well.

I thought of three main possible causes:
1. It’s the T.V. that is at fault. Although I doubt it is that now considering @mclaren has the same problem.
2. I have a cable Virgin Media service, maybe that is the cause?
3. If i have the same problem on sky sports, maybe it is something to do with how sky format their broadcast when shown by virgin.

Or is it that now Sky is the primary broadcaster, do they get choice on the formatting of the feed from FOM?

Or are Sky secretly conspiring to get me to become fed up of not knowing who’s where on the BBC so that I buy their service. ;)

@slr : I think it’s to do with your TV. I have an old TV in my house which can’t show widescreen pictures. But the widescreen TVs

in my obviously can show the picture in widescreen. To be honest, the best thing to do might be to get a new widescreen TV. However

I’m no expert and could be talking complete rubbish.

@mgp w01 : The T.V. is a 2007 Philips widescreen LCD but I don’t know the proper name.

I can’t understand how this problem has happened because it doesn’t happen on any other channels and it’s not exactly a bad T.V.

either.

I suspect Virgin T.V.

@chalky : I’ve got VirginMedia and I set my V+ box to 16:9 in the settings.
However, varying channels still fight with the “Auto” setting on the TV. I’ve given up changing it every time I switch channel as

it means having 2 remote controls in use.
I connect my V+ box to a standard 32″ CRT (Yes people still use these). I always assumed that when I change to a LCD or equivalent

TV I would not have this issue as my Sony CRT maybe just not able to interpret the signal properly via the SCART socket.
@mclaren Is this just with standard aerial, freeview or do you get your TV via Virgin or Sky?
Maybe someone who uses VirginMedia and HDMI can confirm if they get the correct ratio showing.

Bahrain BBC viewing figures:

Race highlights: 15-minute peak audience of 4.1m
Qualifying highlights: 15-minute peak audience of 3.4m

i have to disagree with most of your comments about the beeb, i prefer DC and ben commentary (ben used to do champ car on eurosport), ive never been a fan of brundle he’s full of waffle i know he’s an average ex-driver but blimey he thinks he is an all knowing all seeing f1 guru and as for the other sky commentator he sounds way to over the top at times, i do however like sky’s camera stuff with the onboards etc beeb cant match that, i for one am glad its still on the nonpay to view i think if we lose this more of us will be out of pocket courtesy of skys world dmonination, so come on beeb keep it up

I’ve just had a look on the BBC iPlayer, all they’ve got up there from 5 Live is 2nd practice which turns out to be 1 hour and 40 minutes of BBC Asian Network instead.

Thought the bbc highlight package was great yesterday. showed atleast 75 minutes of footage from a race that lasted just over 92 minutes. Means we missed pretty much nothing. Good job.

I think the sky title sequence is inspired. Good to know what the tune is finally. Thanks. If everything about the coverage was as good, they would on to a real winner. Their pre-season trailers were awesome too. The end result of the final show is far from perfect, but also far from terrible. I watch the practice on Sky now and when live everthing else BBC.

Speculation Jake Humphrey may leave at the end of the year:

http://duncanblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/09/jake-humphrey-could-quit-bbc-f1-.html

He’s got a book coming out in November:

http://books.simonandschuster.co.uk/Inside-Track/Jake-Humphrey/9781849837248

That’s a bit of a surprise, thought he was a BBC man through and through. Surely it’s a no brainer to put Lee Mackenzie up for it full time? Only thing that we’d lose is the Diet Top Gear style “banter” before the races.