Formula 1’s official live streaming service F1 TV Pro will have more feeds added to it for the 2019 F1 season.
The over-the-top streaming service already gives subscribers the choice of more than 20 feeds including the world feed and each drivers’ onboard camera. However F1’s commercial managing director Sean Bratches confirmed to RaceFans in an exclusive interview more is coming next year.
“We are going to continue to add elements to it,” said Bratches. “We are going to materially increase the number of feeds next year [and] the number of languages.” The coverage is currently available in English, French, German and Spanish.F1 TV Pro was criticised following its first appearance during the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, two months after its intended launch to coincide with the start of the season. Early race broadcasts were blighted by buffering and other problems.
Bratches defended F1 TV’s performance, pointing out rival products had similar problems when they were launched.
“If you look at just the La Liga platform, [that] had trouble coming out of the gate. World Surf League had trouble, AC Milan too.
“This is a complicated business. We’re not hiding from it, we’re being very transparent about it, but we want to do it right.”
Speaking to RaceFans during the Italian Grand Prix weekend, Bratches said the initial teething problems with F1 TV have now been fixed and the service is being scaled up to reach users through more devices.
“Our aspiration last year was to have Formula One Television launched for the beginning of this grand prix season. I think we are in an accuracy-over-speed mode at Formula One and what we want to do is provision the content to the consumer that actually works.
“We felt comfortable in Spain, and the demand for the product created complexities that we didn’t anticipate. And so we’ve managed it to web-only until this grand prix where we launched an iOS and Android, because it’s stable now.
“Once we get it stable on those two platforms, we’re going to launch it to internet-connected televisions. Once it’s stable on that platform we’re going to introduce it to game consoles and so on and so forth.”
Don’t miss our full exclusive interview with Sean Bratches later today on RaceFans.
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bob
12th September 2018, 7:43
Thanks, Bernie for giving Sky exclusive rights until 2024.
Any VPN’s work with this?
Daniel Vary
13th September 2018, 4:43
I think that deal shows how blind to the value of online rights Bernie was, and how wise Sky were to it.
I wonder if they might end with a situation where sky essentially offers a “franchised” version of F1TV in the Uk. There have been comments before from Chase Carey and Sean Bratches about possibly making alternative deals with partner broadcasters in certain countries.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
12th September 2018, 8:36
Are they going to expand to other countries? That’s the important question…
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
12th September 2018, 8:43
I think they would if they could Fer, it’s down to who holds the broadcast rights though I believe :(
bosyber (@bosyber)
12th September 2018, 9:25
Well, I have to say that I got it late (the ‘need creditcard registered at an address in your watching country’ was a blocker for me initially), but have been quite happy with it. And my wife too, bc. now I can watch it all from my computer, so the living room isn’t F1 territory any more. Last race I even was able to use the working wifi (recent development) at the fitness club to watch most of qualifying and finish watching while I bought some stuff for lunch.
The one thing I’d like them to improve is discoverability/usability: I only found out that there is a ‘head to head’ function for those feeds when I installed the app on my phone and it mentioned that possibility, so I searched for it, but, in the end, I only found it more or less by accident. And I never really know when exactly the streaming feed will start before a session either; you’d expect them to have a counter instead of the ‘start feed’ button or something, instead, when it’s almost starting, it will go to the ‘running feed’ screen but then just show a black screen until it starts. Not quite ideal.
bosyber (@bosyber)
12th September 2018, 12:15
I also have to say, what I do like, is that the feed can be very clutter free if I switch it to the full-screen view; which is great with some of these fantastic races we have had, I can just focus on watching the race unfold; but I have my phone (I guess one could use a 2nd PC screen too) to look at timing etc. in between if I want to.
ColdFly (@)
12th September 2018, 12:53
@bosyber, have you tried using your subscription overseas in a ‘no F1TV Pro’ country?
David (@davisp)
12th September 2018, 9:44
do they offer pre-race interviews and some stories before the session starts aswell or only the session itself?
alex
12th September 2018, 10:22
You ll hear (if you choose the english language) Martin Brundle running up and down the grid trying to get some interview partners, but you ll see the live feed.
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
12th September 2018, 10:29
@davisp There is no pre or post session coverage due to the fact it has to be something that works for multiple regions. If they were to do some wrap around coverage in English that clearly wouldn’t work for those watching in regions with other languages.
They simply give you the uninterrupted world feed coverage of each session with commentary provided by Sky (English), RTL (German), Movistar (Spanish) & Canal+ (French) as well as onboard camera feeds from all 20 cars with live/uncensored team radio.
bosyber (@bosyber)
12th September 2018, 12:10
I liked the recent ‘live view’ of the pitlane/track/drivers parade F1 had on youtube recently, wouldn’t mind that also being on F1 tv, do you think there’s a chance of that @gt-racer?
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
12th September 2018, 12:49
@bosyber I think things like that will remain on platforms like Youtube & Social Media sites.
I think they want to keep F1TV as a platform for the track action with anything extra been on other platforms as a way of promoting the races & F1TV.
bosyber (@bosyber)
12th September 2018, 16:35
Hm, right, I see @gt-racer, and I sort of get it; also for those who don’t have F1tv, I sure understand they’d go to youtube, and F1 should have some compelling stuff there for them (to avoid growth of illegal stuff).
Having said that, since for me it replaces the (well, at the moment) RTL Germany F1 show, including the pre-, and post-race stuff, I’m not so keen on having to switch to youtube (or facebook, I more or less hate that for stuff like this) or any other platform to get that content.
But, I will admit that while I used to watch the great few years of BBC F1 fully (in NL it was part of our tv package), nowadays I’m often not so interested in the post-race blame game that often ensues online and on tv, so I’ll switch off from F1 and check the analysis bits later.
LyndaMarks
12th September 2018, 10:36
i would hope that they add the onboard-mix & pit lane channels in the future as we used to have those feeds as part of the sky coverage in germany and i have really missed having access to them this year.
we do have access to onboard camera’s from every car on the f1tv service but i miss been able to load up the onboard-mix (which is directed by fom & includes car data) on a second display & watching it alongside the main coverage. having the individual onboard camera feeds is fine but it’s hard trying to sync them upto the tv coverage every time you switch to another car & i’d rather just be able to load the mix up & not have to worry about switching between different cameras myself.
it is cool to switch around different cars during the practice sessions but in qualifying and races i would rather just have the mix so i hope it is available again soon.
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
12th September 2018, 12:07
I agree.
Tango (@tango)
12th September 2018, 10:49
Is it me or do they still lack capacity to cast (on a Googlecast or other) so that we have video on the TV and control on the phonr. (And live timing etc…). If it does exist, then it’s not self evident and I’d appreciate a how to.
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
12th September 2018, 12:06
@tango There is no way to cast to TV currently.
The live timing stuff isn’t & I don’t believe will be part of F1TV & will remain as a separate thing on the F1 website/app for those regions that don’t have access to F1TV for rights reasons.
bosyber (@bosyber)
12th September 2018, 12:13
I have to say I like it that way, I commented above @gt-racer, as I like to use the f1 app with timing data, and radio (with a few seconds less lag than the more complicated f1tv feed) to know what I like to see, and to switch camera views.
Tango (@tango)
12th September 2018, 12:23
The real problem is I’d like to have it easily available on my TV or any screen in my house for that matter. I understand your preferences on how to use the phone while casting. I’d rather use the phone as a remote AND an eye on timings etc.
bosyber (@bosyber)
12th September 2018, 16:30
Yeah, I get the desire @tango, and I do think it should be an option, even if I personally don’t need it.
pastaman (@)
12th September 2018, 13:51
Can we get engine sounds on the onboard feeds? Love watching onboards, but kinda boring with no sound (other than team radio)
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
12th September 2018, 15:28
@pastaman You can already have engine sounds on the OnBoard feeds, You click on the headphone icon & select the FX audio option.
https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1892/43728059455_b65449e047_o.jpg
pastaman (@)
12th September 2018, 17:25
@stefmeister life saver! Thank you! Also, I feel dumb.
Mercedes F1
12th September 2018, 21:03
F1 TV is approximately around 30s behind the live timing app. It makes watching on F1 TV a bit weird, I don’t like that. I get to know what’s going to happen half a minute before in live timing app before I see it on F1 TV. Do you all notice the same is it just me?
Victor (@)
12th September 2018, 23:40
I’ve tried watching sky f1 with the sound off and with bbc 5 live in the background. Unfortunately the sky feed is around a minute behind the bbc. Shame coz crofty gets a little to carried away for my liking.
Icarus
13th September 2018, 11:28
You can rewind the time on the live timing app so it’s in sync with the tv feed
Kenny Schachat (@partofthepuzzle)
13th September 2018, 20:12
All F1 TV Pro live and replay streams have very annoying commentator audio drop outs for several seconds at a time. These occur dozens of times in every race. Channel4 doesn’t have that problem. Now TV doesn’t have that problem.
I don’t car how many individual driver views they offer if they can’t get the basic commentator audio right F1 TV Pro should be renamed F1 TV Amateur.