Why don't F1 engines sound good on TV?
Discussion
Anyone who's heard an F1 car at full chat, in the flesh, knows what an epic sound it is. So how come then it never sounds like that when we get coverage of races on TV? Thing is, I was part watching this out-take program last night when a presenter was trying to do a piece to camera at the side of the track where F1 cars were testing. There were several out-takes because the cars kept drowning her out. But the cars sounded great, just like they do in the flesh. So why is the sound on race coverage so sh*te?
456mgt said:
There were several out-takes because the cars kept drowning her out.
mmmmm.....
It couldn't be, could it?
While we are here, why oh why is the coverage so sh1t? Given that we have ITV 1 through 67, couldnt one channel do the race, full NICAM digital sound, only Brundle commenting....
I don't think anyone TV speakers could take the decibels. 
F1's all sound the same now due to regulations, but the best race start I ever heard was a British GT race a few years back at SIlverstone when there were 2 Lister Storms, 2 TVR Cerbera Speed 12's, noisy GT2 Porsches and others. Nice
F1's all sound the same now due to regulations, but the best race start I ever heard was a British GT race a few years back at SIlverstone when there were 2 Lister Storms, 2 TVR Cerbera Speed 12's, noisy GT2 Porsches and others. Nice
ok here goes :
Your tv handles audio (best case) from 60Hz up to probably something around 18000Hz. Various frequencies in the F1 engine sound will fall outside these frequencies, so you probably loose some of the harmonics which give the sound it's distinctive edge.
Also the equipment that the tV uses to trap the sound has to be robust enough to live out there on the track (so it's not your Abbeyt Road studio microphones). Also All icrophones loose some clarity of the sound in some way or other compared to a live performance, again due to frequency ranges, but also due to compression and other audio phenomena.
This isn't to say that broadcast equipment is poor, just that all microphones and sound recording equipment loose information compared to human ears which are pretty miraculous things really...
Your tv handles audio (best case) from 60Hz up to probably something around 18000Hz. Various frequencies in the F1 engine sound will fall outside these frequencies, so you probably loose some of the harmonics which give the sound it's distinctive edge.
Also the equipment that the tV uses to trap the sound has to be robust enough to live out there on the track (so it's not your Abbeyt Road studio microphones). Also All icrophones loose some clarity of the sound in some way or other compared to a live performance, again due to frequency ranges, but also due to compression and other audio phenomena.
This isn't to say that broadcast equipment is poor, just that all microphones and sound recording equipment loose information compared to human ears which are pretty miraculous things really...
The audio is intended as ambient, to give you a feel of what it like to be there.
Consider the equipment and time involved to produce a good stereo mix around 2.5 miles odd of circuit, all done by local "host" broadcasters.......
And you still get James Allen yacking across it all anyhow - afetr all its a televised motor race (sort of......)
Consider the equipment and time involved to produce a good stereo mix around 2.5 miles odd of circuit, all done by local "host" broadcasters.......
And you still get James Allen yacking across it all anyhow - afetr all its a televised motor race (sort of......)
F1 sounds bad because we have James t
tting Allen drivelling over the soundtrack...
God I hate ITV's coverage of F1..
Ad breaks when you don't need them, James ttting Allen,
Jim " I know bugger all about F1 but thanks for paying me to travel around the world" Rosenthal, and Mark Blundell with bouffant hair and a cheap suit.
It sucks , it really does. Big time.
The boy Brundle makes the best of it, and he remains the sole shining light in a turgid sea of banal mediocrity.
F1 should be awesome. A festival of speed, colour, and spine tingling noise. That it is not , is a tragedy.
Jim ttting Allen and Jim Rosenthal in a bri-nylon polo shirt spouting rubbish sums up the whole sorry affair.
Its not just poor F1 coverage. Its bad Television. Shameful...
:rantover:
tting Allen drivelling over the soundtrack... God I hate ITV's coverage of F1..
Ad breaks when you don't need them, James t
tting Allen, Jim " I know bugger all about F1 but thanks for paying me to travel around the world" Rosenthal, and Mark Blundell with bouffant hair and a cheap suit.
It sucks , it really does. Big time.
The boy Brundle makes the best of it, and he remains the sole shining light in a turgid sea of banal mediocrity.
F1 should be awesome. A festival of speed, colour, and spine tingling noise. That it is not , is a tragedy.
Jim t
tting Allen and Jim Rosenthal in a bri-nylon polo shirt spouting rubbish sums up the whole sorry affair. Its not just poor F1 coverage. Its bad Television. Shameful...
:rantover:
I have to admit I'm not a huge fan of F1, but seeing/hearing a couple of F1 Ferraris being blasted around Donnington last year was an eye-opening (and ear bleeding 
) experience - TV doesn't even come close to reproducing the aural heaven of a V10 at 18,000 rpm 
.
>> Edited by judas on Friday 18th March 16:10
) experience - TV doesn't even come close to reproducing the aural heaven of a V10 at 18,000 rpm . >> Edited by judas on Friday 18th March 16:10
*somebody who knows*
The audio doesn't sound as good for mainly one reason - the volume of the cars.
F1 engines are incredibly loud. If you were to set the volume level of the microphone at that needed to hear things without the car present (crowd, wind, PA) and leave it untouched when the car comes around, the audio would distort massively.
So, you have several options. You can either set the audio level so that you cater for the extreme volumes produced by the cars (and hear nothing else when they aren't there), or you can electronically compress the audio signal so that quiet things are louder and loud things are quieter - producing an average level which is easier on the ear. You could use an auto gain control, but thats pretty cheap and not really very professional. You could also use a limiter, which electronically limits the volume of the signal, but this is still prone to heavy distortion because of the large dynamic ranges involved.
Compression is what nearly all commercial radio station use to make their output sound 'louder' by the way.
The other thing is, even if you use a stereo microphone (and some broadcasters do), the stereo effect relies mainly on ambience, reflections from grandstand roofs, walls, etc. This ambient sound is much much quieter than the cars themselves, so while you sit in your grandstand seat marvelling at the sound the cars make (while slowly being deafened), when the cars are racing away/toward you you are also able to hear this ambiance. For the reasons I stated above, you can't hear this on television.
Also you have to factor in that no single broadcaster controls the coverage of the F1. Each country has its own facilities and crew producing the event coverage. While this has changed recently (Bernie's FOM tv company now produces some of the races), you're still going to have varying degrees of quality from one race to the next.
Another factor is that because you're watching from your settee, from about 20 angles around the circuit, the audio has to smoothly mix from one angle to the next - unlike pictures, which just cut from one camera to the next. This further reduces the audible impact of the cars which would in person be extremely impressive.
Don't think that many people haven't thought of ways to improve the quality of the coverage. The next technical step would be to mic the audio using a 5.1 surround setup, but thats only possible on a good digital transmission (like Sky Digital), and therefore it is not currently feasible for the broadcaster to provide this.
Oh, in case you're wondering, its the BBC who provide the coverage for ITV and the world at Silverstone
/edit: one more thing I forgot, F1 engines produce noise sometimes at infrasonic frequencies - its these frequencies that vibrate your gut and make the experience more real. Microphones and speakers are not normally capable of reproducing these frequencies
>> Edited by parrot of doom on Friday 18th March 16:14
The audio doesn't sound as good for mainly one reason - the volume of the cars.
F1 engines are incredibly loud. If you were to set the volume level of the microphone at that needed to hear things without the car present (crowd, wind, PA) and leave it untouched when the car comes around, the audio would distort massively.
So, you have several options. You can either set the audio level so that you cater for the extreme volumes produced by the cars (and hear nothing else when they aren't there), or you can electronically compress the audio signal so that quiet things are louder and loud things are quieter - producing an average level which is easier on the ear. You could use an auto gain control, but thats pretty cheap and not really very professional. You could also use a limiter, which electronically limits the volume of the signal, but this is still prone to heavy distortion because of the large dynamic ranges involved.
Compression is what nearly all commercial radio station use to make their output sound 'louder' by the way.
The other thing is, even if you use a stereo microphone (and some broadcasters do), the stereo effect relies mainly on ambience, reflections from grandstand roofs, walls, etc. This ambient sound is much much quieter than the cars themselves, so while you sit in your grandstand seat marvelling at the sound the cars make (while slowly being deafened), when the cars are racing away/toward you you are also able to hear this ambiance. For the reasons I stated above, you can't hear this on television.
Also you have to factor in that no single broadcaster controls the coverage of the F1. Each country has its own facilities and crew producing the event coverage. While this has changed recently (Bernie's FOM tv company now produces some of the races), you're still going to have varying degrees of quality from one race to the next.
Another factor is that because you're watching from your settee, from about 20 angles around the circuit, the audio has to smoothly mix from one angle to the next - unlike pictures, which just cut from one camera to the next. This further reduces the audible impact of the cars which would in person be extremely impressive.
Don't think that many people haven't thought of ways to improve the quality of the coverage. The next technical step would be to mic the audio using a 5.1 surround setup, but thats only possible on a good digital transmission (like Sky Digital), and therefore it is not currently feasible for the broadcaster to provide this.
Oh, in case you're wondering, its the BBC who provide the coverage for ITV and the world at Silverstone
/edit: one more thing I forgot, F1 engines produce noise sometimes at infrasonic frequencies - its these frequencies that vibrate your gut and make the experience more real. Microphones and speakers are not normally capable of reproducing these frequencies
>> Edited by parrot of doom on Friday 18th March 16:14
rude-boy said:
*somebody who knows*
So that rule you out of being Kelvin or Flang, And you don't live on the IOM so you can't be Bobby "the worlds greatest ENG allrounder ever" B or Keith W.
Heh, I'm not Todge or Flange, although I saw Flange recently and hes doing well. Todge is still camera supervisor on the WRC. And I saw Bobby in January, Bob isn't an ENG cameraman but hes a very good OB cameraman - I've seen few who are better. And Keith is still firmly tucked up on the IOM doing Greenlight stuff I believe
I did 3 years on FOM, I've done sound on the WRC, and much other stuff, so you've probably seen me about. PM me if you want to know who I am
I've watched F1 races with finnish commentary, and beleive me, that is even more boring than normal (I like/am obsessed with F1). The commentator sounds very very bored until Raikonnen comes on the screen and then he shouts like James Allen at the start. Its pretty crap.
Brundle does an excellent job and is a fantastic co-commentator... It really makes me cringe when he says something slightly technical (but pretty simple) and Allen says "Just explain that for the viewers". Brundle is not afraid to put foward his opinion of decisions made by race stewards and teams... Allen seems much more timid in this respect (this makes him boring). He also gets the cars confused... not a stellar attribute for a commentator.
Anyway, I don't know why they sound a bit crappy on TV, (probably all the reflections bouncing around) but round Monaco they are awe-inspiring (as they are at silverstone actually).
Brundle does an excellent job and is a fantastic co-commentator... It really makes me cringe when he says something slightly technical (but pretty simple) and Allen says "Just explain that for the viewers". Brundle is not afraid to put foward his opinion of decisions made by race stewards and teams... Allen seems much more timid in this respect (this makes him boring). He also gets the cars confused... not a stellar attribute for a commentator.
Anyway, I don't know why they sound a bit crappy on TV, (probably all the reflections bouncing around) but round Monaco they are awe-inspiring (as they are at silverstone actually).
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