I pay a licence fee, therefore it's not free. When I lived in Tenerife I could watch every race for free. I did not have to pay a licence fee. I did so by turning the volume off and having the BBC R5 commentary on. The same was done in bars. That cost me the price of the beer which I would have drank anyway had I been in the pub.

As for football, I only watch my team when they are on BBC/ITV or ESPN (which is thrown in as a freebie by Virgin - if I remember it's on).

Maybe you should be asking "If you want to watch Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari would you pay?" I doubt many would want to pay Sky prices to watch Marussia 'racing' HRT which is the equivalent of Sunday league football.

 

All accepted when you say you did not intend to offend me.

The changes do not affect me of course since I contracted to have Sky some time ago when I had a longish recuperation to put up with at home and had decided to keep it going anyway before any F1 changes were made. It is an expense which I accepted at the time. I am lucky in that the contract changes do not affect me, in fact it may be that I am better off the way it has gone.

I also accept of course that the extra payment needed to be able to see all the F1 is significant, I would find it hard if I had to find an extra £30 in order to see the F1 coverage. It is a bad situation when as you say, the BBC have done what they have especially when we could see it all before having paid our BBC TV licence fee.

Sky as usual has played a blinder, but naturally I shall leave things as they are here. It so happens that I get very poor reception of terrestrial digital TV where I live because of hills etc. and need to have satellite TV in order to see it anyway.

Les

 

Les,

You should be thankful that you have electricity where you are

 

http://www.vipbox.tv/watch/32669/1/s...am-online.html

 

Bookmarked

 

Awesome: http://www.skysports.com/video/inlin...581434,00.html

Series linked

 

Funny you should say that Chip-but you know I am on the very end of the power line too!

Les

 

 

The 2012 season preview show right now....

 

I've got sound sync problems ?

 

Me too!

You can adjust for delay in the menu system.

Or on your AV amp/receiver (seeing as it's in DD).


...So long as the sound is ahead of the video.

 

They need to change ... Not me. Don't think the sound is to hot either.
Is it really HD ? Look normal to me

 

I've put the delay to the max 200 milliseconds - pretty much sorted it out.


Yeah defo HD! You must have a bad monitor if you can't suss that.

But it does seem to have a slightly 'soft-edged' feel to it, granted. I've seen better.

Normally, Sky's HD sports fodder are some of the best HD images IMO.

 

Missing jake :-(

 

He's still on BBC One HD for 9 of the season's races, though.

BBC are gonna their do their own take on the grid-walk, by having Jake, DC and EJ on the grid before the race! Could be entertaining i.e. mayhem.

 

From what I've watched of the launch show, I'm glad I didn't upgrade.

 

I've got to say it seems a little soulless .....

There was a passion with BBC crew

 

I like it! Give em time to bed in - remember DC on his first commentary eek!!

 

It IS a preview show though. We don't know what quali and race day will hold..... yet.

But I agree - Sky tend to go for the ultra professional, soulless studio analysis angle - and I hate it. I really hope thay can get the atmos of the days across, in the way that the BBC do so brilliantly!..................

 

Well I think it has potential. It is a preview show and they are crammming a lot in, but at least they aren't talking down to us like the BBC and particularly ITV used to do.

Right at the start of the show they mentioned the Concorde Agreement and .... carried on assuming we all know what it is. Perfect! The BBC would have given us a 5 minute explantion of it like they were talking to retarded chimps and ITV would have tried to illustrate what it is by finding a comparable storyline in Coronation St and having it explained as such by a Z list celebrity who probably appeared in something like Big Brother 2007!!

 

That's our 'Auntie' Beeb for you. What with their time immemorial mantra: Inform. Educate. Entertain. ...Equals: be condescending/patronising to your audience.


One thing that does look promising on Sky are the technical sections. I love it when they get their snouts in and around the cars and point out new/interesting ****, etc. I really dig it lol

Plus it looks like they've carried over MB's car testing articles, where he goes out on track in F1 cars of years past.

 

The stuff you can do via interactive looks really good. Show was a good start to SKY's F1 coverage I would say.

 

Got to give them a chance to get used to the job. Jake Thackeray was not that good when he started but he did develop into an excellent presenter in the end.

Les

 

Thackeray? Thought it was Humphrey.

I agree - his first couple (unsurprisingly) were a bit 'rabbit in the headlights' - but he soon made the role his own. Plus I like his subtle, dry, barbed comments - esp. to EJ. Makes me smile.

 

I'm watching the preview on sky now and I have to say it seems miles better. I'm a nerd and like details and technical info and sky has been very good so far.

I have sky HD anyway and prob wouldn't pay for sports if I didn't as can't stand football it's total bollocks.
If I didn't have it I don't think the fact that BBC are still covering every race albeit not live is not all that bad tbh.

Dave

 

Funnily enough I always think of him as Thakray as well who was a singer songwriter in the 80s.

Chip

 

Booyah! Two pair baby
Astraboy.

 

This f1 channel is class. Just locked it on channel 408 and hid the remote from the mrs lol! Love the behind the scenes stuff

 

Showing your age there, he was around in the 1960s and 70s

 

Must have been his later stuff that I remember then