Whatb was the general opinion of the live television footage of the Margam Park stage 18 especialy the on board footage remember it was live!!

It was pretty good, but not particularly exciting. Commentators talked over the whole thing and made a meal of McRae's puncture / wheel change.

Would have loved to hear the co-driver in-car.

Overall, not too bad, but certainly not a patch on the live BBC Grandstand coverage of Chatsworth house (i think) 5 years ago. Maybe if the finish had been a closer call it would have been better.

In fact, BBC ruled the roost back then with their coverage. DR has a tough uphill struggle to 'follow that'.

It would help if C4 gave them more time to broadcast, and at reasonable times of day. (In fact if it wasn't for the fact that we have Sky, i don't think i would have seen any rally fottage, as S4C wasn't showing it)

Impster

dont forget, the cameras due to be used for that broadcast had to be removed from the cars after the trouble Carlos Sainz had with his smoking.

So based on the fact it was achieved with the wrong equipment onboard, (probably why the onboard sound was so poor) i think they did a very good job. It was good to have a decent commentator onboard, even if they did talk too much.

Tut Tut Carlos, nasty habit! :)

Perhaps the reason they muffled the in-car sound was because it was televised live they had not control over the language used - can you imagine Solberg saying "Oh dear, never mind" if he had chucked it off on that stage? :-)

I bet McRae and Ringer might have had a few choice words about their puncture as well.

I agree it did spoil it though.

The main reason the in-car mikes weren't very clear was related to the audio uplink not being as robust as originally predicted - think I heard that the low cloud was a factor, although the enforced equipment swap referenced by John wouldn't have helped.
The digital audio streams were dropping out to such an extent that you'd have had a hell of a job working out what they were saying.

BTW, when Solberg goes off, he normally lets out some sort of muffled cry, somewhat akin to a small animal being garrotted. It's McRae who almost invariably turns into Chubby Brown when it all starts going pear-shaped. ;)

[Edited by greasemonkey - 11/20/2003 10:42:50 PM]

Thought it was generally good - except for the continual talk by the commentators. Must have been paid by the word.

We picked it up in Margam park - but the quality was quite poor so didn't bother 'live'. Considering it was essentially a BBC resoursed OB - then i expected more. What did we get?Well i know we DIDN"T get Tommi's last ever finish, or Mildred's - not even on the highlights. Nor Mr McRae with his son on his shoulders etc. They probably spent too much time congratulating themselves and blocking paying spectators' views - I remember chatsworth on Tv and the nightly rally bulletins - those were the days:)

[Edited by OppositeLock - 11/21/2003 3:51:54 PM]

Dont get me started with those "good old days"! My blood pressure has taken 2 weeks to settled down!!!! ;-)

but I did think the pictures they showed were OK, but the commentary was rubbish!

easy way to fix that problem. do what i did this year, go to the walkabout pub in Cardiff and watch it on TV in there, with dance music blasting out, lots of jolly people around slightly pissed and a beer in your hand. Looks brilliant in those surroundings and you cant hear jack from the commentators. :D LOL

but that means I will have to visit the rally HQ in Wales, and that goes against all my principals!!! ;-)

No, the Rally HQ is at City Hall, not the Walkabout! :D