Yes ... it.

>>> "It's not even based on the actual objective observable reality of how truly terrible he is, it tries to win the argument by proxy ..."

The "tactics employed in support and service of the argument being proposed" is the subject of the sentence, not the person making the argument, so it's definitely an it, of that i'm quite sure.

What has James Allens website got to do with BBC F1? Have I missed something?

You are talking nonsense, and you know it. Firstly, you are not "trapped" by anything, you have a choice as to which commentary you prefer to use.

Secondly, many here spout the same rubbish when it comes to MotoGP coverage, saying how utterly brilliant Toby and Julian are and how they can't stand Charlie Cox and Steve Parish. I say to you again, both the BBC's F1 and MotoGP coverage have extremely high audience appreciation scores. The viewing public are telling the BBC that they are very happy with the product being offered.

Your hardline views are NOT shared by the viewing public as a whole, either on paper (via the BBC's methods of audience research) or in practice (by the numbers choosing an alternative commentary) - FACT.

Here, calm-down sunshine, first things first, you don't tell me what I know ... I tell you what I know ... let's make sure we get the arrow on this relationship the right way round, and it's not you > me, so cool your jets homeboy.

You have singularly failed to offer up any tangible argument in favour of the feeble Legard, nothing, he is shambolic. Inconveniently for you we have his performance on public record, so you clearly cannot deny the dire lack of quality or ability, so you must choose to continue this merry go round of audience rating ... it is a non-argument, so you should quit trying to sell it, no-one here is buying it.

BBC1's lazy existance relies on most viewers inability to find much more than the 1 or the 3 key. It is an absolute fact, and you definitely DO know this, that audience rating is zero correlation to program quality.
The "800k club", that you know exists, that watches a Jonathan Meades doc on BBC4, are you really saying that Meades is worse than whatever ex-Eastender celeb is doing a doc about lions in Kenya or whatever currently passes for BBC1 factual ... we know one will do ten times the numbers of the other, so what is your point, that as a documentarian, Meades is 10x worse than Tamzin Outhwaite or one of the Mitchell brothers. Bollocks.

So now that we have put that hopeless distraction to bed, let's concentrate on the main issue, the only issue; your man's complete inability to read a race, to comment on what is transpring, to react, to anticipate, to communicate any sense of drama, to connect with a sport or its audience on any level. Listen to him, the race doesn't reach turn2 before he is a mile out his depth and Brundle has to start bailing. He thinks a stream of sub-Motson stat bollox makes up for insight or charisma, a tedious grating stream that more often than nought, goes nowhere and comes to a juddering halt and dead-air. He is a disaster, a fur lined, gold-plated, ocean-going cliche-addled clueless disaster.

Go on, tell me the ratings again, I dare you.

Actually, he's a "mile out of his depth, stream of sub-Motson stat bollox, tedious grating stream that more often than nought, goes nowhere and comes to a juddering halt and dead-air, disaster, a fur lined, gold-plated, ocean-going cliche-addled clueless disaster" who's going to be annoying you for very long time.

It's nonsense like this that Steve Rider was alluding to in that interview he gave last year.

In your opinion.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the case for the defense ... pretty meagre isn't it. Pretty thin stuff.

Is that it? Nothing to speak to his performance, no attempt made to defend his quality as a broadcaster, nothing, no, only to re-iterate and make quite clear to us, that due to the unique way the BBC is funded, you can like it or lump it, now feck off and don't bother us. Your main problem seems to be that you think this is Points of View, that you can condescend and cut us off, this aint that, this is Internet, we talk back.

Well lets take a bet, when the whole enterprise is soon put out for tender, and when real-world commercial professionals bid, lets see how many include the bold Legard in their plans. BBC Sport wants "one of theirs" in the chair ... no-one else does, he is a broadcast joke.


Fortunately for F1 fans, Legard is slowly crushing the soul out of poor Brundle, a sorry shadow of his former self, so the option to jump ship increasingly becomes no great loss.

Has the Audience Reseach asked specifically about the commentary?

And have you understood the various factors that would depress the red button figures irrespective of the quality of the commentary?

By that reasoning you must think that James Allen was a superb commentator. That's what the audience research concluded.

Wow, you are a credit to the BBC. Your open and frank disrespect for public opinion is exemplary. It's good to know public money is going towards people with such humility and intelligence.

If you work for the BBC, that is.

He does work for the BBC. He's the source of a lot of insider information this time last year, and works in BBC's Red Button/New Media department.

Then he should probably know better than to wade into an Internet forum discussion related to his line of work.

They should get Martin Haven I love his commentary he is enthusiastic, excitable and informative and his passion shines through.

Also isn't he free lance so he wont be contracted to anyone.

^ He's a Le Mans-head, though, his career took off as a pitlane reporter for Radio Le Mans. And if the Beeb don't allow for one absence per year... (as Le Mans generally clashes with the Canadian GP)

Well, I trust you on this DMN, so if you say so.

However it's shocking to me that anyone working for a corporation like that would act in such an ignorant way.



Actually, for half of last year I didn't, with less services this coming year (oh, hold on, your department!), I expect even less.

BBC crew might not be allowed inside TR motorhome..

sarahholtf1

On a lighter note, I thought I'd been caught red-handed taking M&Ms from Toro Rosso as a loud shout rung out just as me & my pal left.

;)

edit: ok, BBC-TR MM's war has been postponed:

sarahholtf1

BUT, it turned out it was a Spanish fan shouting at Fernando Alonso. Phew!

Which research was that, a poll on here?
Most people I have spoken to, and many on this site agree that whilst Legard may not be the best man for the job, he's a shedload less annoying than Allen.
Sure, "on a charge, up the Hill" isn't great - but it's better than "Goooooooooooo!" or "So tell me Martin, what do they mean when they say 'tyres'?"

He stopped doing that thankfully... but seriously... trying defend Legard's commentary is like trying to put air freshener on dog turd. Brundle suffers with Legard, I miss the old Brundle when paired with Walker/Allen

I disagree with Legard being better than Allen. He is equally annoying AND unable to figure a damn thing by himself. I switched to Radio5 in the middle of the season so I don't know if finally managed to figure live timing out, but I wouldn't put my money on it. Allen was unbearable at times but he had good understanding of what is going on the circuit and was thinking fast enough to stay in touch with what is going on.

See I think Brundle just shines less brightly because he's not stood next to such a turd.
Matter of opinion, we're not all going to agree, but I'd bet that most people tuning in care about the commentators a lot less than we do.

I think Brundle is used to someone who knows his stuff and either does not realize how out of depth Legard is or simply chooses to stay quiet for the sake of not ridiculing him live on air. At least this is how to sounded like during first races.

In the first few races , Legard seemed to annoy Brundle at quite a few occassions, cutting him off all the time and generally not being a team player ; that can dampen one's enthusiasm a tad, I guess .

Later into the season, they seemed to get along better , someone might have had a chat with Legard at some point, and he learned to keep his trap shut more often.
To be fair, to me he also seemed to become more knowledgable and in tune with the racing.

Brilliant coverage by the BBC team, I even grew to like EJ ! ;)
The commentators are excellently chosen (term?), very close to what's going on and all the players, great sports TV .
I've been going out of my way to grab the BBC coverage for every race, just for the commentary and pre-race show, ignoring local (German) coverage and all the news pages till I could get it; I'd gladly pay the beep for it, if only there was the option.

If EJ is p!ssing you off, or Brundle appears detached to you, try the German coverage only once - even without understanding a word, you'll know what I mean ....
One look at Niki Lauda makes you switch channels to online poker.

Don't forget tomorrow is the day of the BBC F1 press launch, and as thus expect some press releases from BBC's Press Office. Hopefully, although not guaranteed, Mark Wilkin will blog as well on plans for 2010 and changes to coverage (if any).

No High Definition F1 broadcasts on BBC this year



So the races ARE shot in HD, but Bernie won't give the broadcasters access to the HD feed...? More likely, the BBC and others don't want to pay extra for it

The article says some of the race is shot in HD. It might be the case that not all the cameras have been upgraded therefore making a HD feed a no go. The last thing you would want is constantly switching from HD to SD at different points on track.

I'm sorry but you have interpreted the article entirely wrong.

Rather Bernie doesn't want to pay for the investment in infrastructure to make the HD feed available. He's probably using it as a bargaining chip to get broadcasters to eventually pay more for it.

"Some if not all..." - probably means the small cameras stuck in kerbs, and other odd places are not yet HD, having mixed HD/SD primary cameras is very unlikely from a purely logistical point of view.

Upscaling the odd SD shots won't spoil the experience for most people (i.e. excluding über-critical tech-nerds), which should be the criteria on which the decision is made IMHO.

Well it seems to me that the BBC spokesperson isnt certain the whole race is shot in HD.

HD feeds use the same uplink equipment as SD feeds, it's only a bandwidth/bitrate issue. I'm of course assuming the mixing suite used at the circuit is HD equipped (almost certainly) and that the only difference between delivering the current SD feed and an HD feed is to change the head end multiplexer, which is relatively trivial.

Bernie's TV contracts are negotiated well in advance, and are bound to include additional charges for HD, which the current bunch of broadcasters are obviously unwilling to pay for.

You seem to be making a lot of assumptions, but, like the rest of us you can only guess. IMHO it's not obvious that the broadcasters are unwilling to pay as I've yet to see anything that even suggests they have been offered a HD feed. In fact I'm sure BE would be quite outspoken if it was simply a case of the broadcasters not taking a feed.

It's unbelievable how much FOM sucks at anything even vaguely connected to modern technology. It looks like they're doing what they can to annoy F1 fans and I don't quite see why sponsors are not pushing them (or at least I haven't heard anything about it) to change their attitude. If Santander (or any other company) pays millions of dollars to have their logo on the screen they should care about whether people can actually see it during let's say free practices, no?

It is a fact that F1 races are already shown upscaled on dedicated HD channels in Germany, Italy and Austria, I know because I've seen them, and there are probably others (Poland, Brazil etc...).

Those channels only upscale the SD feed to HD.

When F1 was shown in some UK cinemas a couple of years ago, they were claimed to be in HD (but proved to be only 720 at one point when the signal dropped and something popped up on screen saying 720).

Unfortunately Danielle Naglar appears to be more a political tool than someone who is on the side of HD viewers, as a read through her "blogs" on BBC will show, so I wouldn't put too much store in what she says.

e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/200...re_quality.html

I'd forgotten to add that over-rider, have updated my post. Even upscaled it looks better than the Beeb's coverage.

The cinema feed was upscaled SD.

720p is HD - check the specs.

I watched/recorded the cinema feeds off satellite and they were very good indeed.

This was the HD feed


SD feed: Note the difference in the size of the race order bars

It's now been what 4 and a bit seasons since FOM admitted they were slowly phasing out their SD gear for HD capable trackside cams?

After some poor maths, the entire changeover would cost something like 0.0025% of total F1 turnover for 2009.

The commercial greed in this sport is just amazing.

I'd seen that Nagler blog entry a while ago, well worth it for the double-barrelled roasting she gets ... she tries to use the blog to "draw a line under the debate", and instead gets 1200 replies of unadulterated contempt, rage and loathing for her dishonest antics and lies regarding the BBC's stomping on HD broadcast bitrates. classic.

They should return to having seperate host broadcasters, that might increase an HD chance.

Not helped by half the money leaving the sport and going to CVC

Wow.

This happens so often with the BBC, I find a lot of the journalists - for example, Andrew Benson, Jake Humphrey - are usually quite responsive, they don't mind answering questions from time to time, even if it's not really what you want to hear (Benson stalled over the whole James Allen thing for months), yet the people involved in actually running the BBC seem so aloof and rather discouraging of any response. It really doesn't help matters, like when they announced channel 302 was to be removed, I don't remember any response trying to calm people down.

True but the BBC can't use BBC HD to show upscaled pictures. The BBC Trust states 85% of BBC HD's output must be full HD.

Today is the BBC's F1 Press Launch for 2010. The schedule is as follows (take from Jake's Twitter) :

09:00 - Jake Humphrey, David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan 'rewatch' bits of last year's build-up so they know where to improve for 2010
- pictures: http://twitpic.com/11blgh ; http://twitpic.com/11blot
12:00 - BBC F1 press launch

Then meetings through to 21:00 for Jake and the boys. All the team are there, apart from Ted Kravitz and Martin Brundle who are both sunning themselves on holiday.

http://twitpic.com/11bwli

I'm sure you guys can play 'Guess Who'...

That doesn't make any sense, "can't" and less than 100% is incompatible.

The BBC can't take a full SD program and upscale it to HD. The 15% allowance is for instance if during the pre race show they show archive footage which isn't in full HD. So the BBC can show upscaled pictures, but only a very limited amount within a HD show (and I don't mean they could show the pre and post race show in full HD and upscale the race, that would far exceed the limit).

Thanks for the background, wasn't clear in your original comment that the 85% was per programme, and not of the total output.

The current BBC HD Encoder can't cope with movement very well (at least, not at the bitrate it is running at) so the pictures will probably look better on SD anway.... Unfortunately...