All 4 app and F1 coverage.

[patmahe]

Does anyone know if there is particular reason why the ALL 4 app takes so long to have the F1 coverage on it, its often 8 or 9 in the evening before qualifying or the race becomes available. Is there some broadcasting restriction and whats to stop them saying on the app that 'F1 coverage will be available at 20:00 today in the meantime why not enjoy our other excellent programming'

I don't mind waiting as they provide a service to me free of charge, what annoys me is no knowing when I can watch the coverage.

[funkyrobot]

I have questioned this very thing in the Channel 4 thread, and some of the weekend GP threads.

I don't know the answer, but it's silly that it takes so long to get the coverage available on the app. BBC used to have the shows ready on iPlayer within hours. Don't know why C4 cannot do this.

It's got to the point where it appears so late on a Sunday that I have to wait until Monday to watch it.

Also, for some bizarre reason, quali is up around 8:30 on Saturday evening, but the race isn't up until gone 10:00 on Sunday evening.

[KaraK]

Does my head in too - especially when it's a highlights show, there really isn't any reason for such a massive delay. Given you can now watch online as it's being broadcast they already have the show in a streaming-suitable format so why make us wait x-hours to get it on All4? And as a PP said if they really can't get it on any quicker at least give us a time when it's going to be available from to save all the tedious checking every hour to see if it's up

[patmahe]

I just googled the contact us page for channel 4 and sent them a link to this thread, I figured there is no point in complaining to each other when we could bring it to the attention of someone who might actually be able to change it. Or at the very least answer our questions.

[patmahe]

To their credit they came back pretty quick:

Dear Pat,

Thank you for your email regarding All 4.

We appreciate you taking the time to contact us to bring this feedback to our attention.

A lot of work goes into getting a show from the screen and onto All 4, so, in some cases, programmes may take a while to appear. This is especially the case for live programming, such as the Formula 1, as these programmes are often much longer in duration than other programmes.

If a show is not listed on the All 4 service, it is likely we either do not currently hold the rights to show it online or it is currently being processed for online viewing.

The processing time for the Formula 1 coverage is currently around 4 hours. This is currently longer than we would like but we are working with our broadcast partner to improve this across the season.

I am sorry for any inconvenience or disappointment that this may have caused.

Nevertheless, please be assured that your feedback, and your suggestion that an approximate time for our coverage being uploaded to All 4, has been logged and noted for the attention of the web team.

Thank you for taking the time to contact All 4.

[funkyrobot]

[Likes Fast Cars]

It still takes too bloody long to make it available!

[Mr_Thyroid]

And it just doesn't work as well as the iPlayer.

Try and move the timeslider too much and you have to watch the adverts again.
And I get this thing where every so often it will jump back 5 or 6 seconds.

[Likes Fast Cars]

Mr_Thyroid said:

And it just doesn't work as well as the iPlayer.

Yes, BBC seem to have these things working much much better than Channel 4. Seems to me it's a technology issue.

[paulrockliffe]

Surely they do all the prep work when they put the show together, then while broadcasting it they have a black box that takes the broadcast, saves it in the right format and puts it on the server. Struggling to see how in this day and age the whole thing isn't automatic?

[Eric Mc]

That old rubbishy BBC just can't get anything right, can they|?

Oh wait.....

[Kolbenkopp]

Well at least you get to see it, bloody geoip st blocks it from abroad. Why does it take them so long to put up a show? Could be something simple as available bandwidth between the recording/processing studio and the partner they use for hosting the externally available stuff. Pretty sure their IT infrastructure budget is a fraction of that of the BBC...

[TruthCatcher]

So three and a half years on and things have gone from bad to worse with C4 and the availability of their race highlights program post race. This culminated in a race that had finished before 2pm UK time yesterday (Sunday 29th September) and was broadcast between 6pm and 8pm still not being available after midnight the following day. Who knows when it did become available (I suspect not till somebody got in to the office today and pressed the "no one wants to view any more as they know the result so now our patheticl All4 server capacity can cope with the much smaller number of people who want to view" button).

You might think Channel4 would care as they surely ought to lose advertising revenue from adverts broadcast with the streamed program and you might think they would care the total number of viewers for the GP would be down but no it seems they don't care due to their shady deal with Sky where they get the rights to broadcast for free so long as Steve Jones gives at least one major plug that you could have watched live on Sky Sports F1 instead. So presumably the other point in delaying the availability of the streamed program to the next day (apart from preventing the pathetic and inadequate All4 server from crashing if the program is made available too soon after the race) is to give you the message that if you don't pay to watch live for Sky Sports F1 or pay to have a competent Video On Demand service from Sky if you can't watch live that you will suffer by having the result foisted on you in BBC radio or tv news broadcasts where they always start with "Lewis Hamilton has won today's Russian GP" etc so that you can't hit the mute or change channel button before the result is given.

Despite the email to all of the senior members of C4's management team, including the CEO, I have not had one reply or apology and the viewers and listeners line keeps quoting the same old baloney that its a long program and they have to add audio description so this is why it takes so many hours to become available. Yet the BBC can do Watch From The Start on most of their live programs on the IPlayer but of course not poor and pathetic old Channel 4.

Here is the email I sent last night and then this morning once the program became available on All4:-

---

Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Inexcusable Delays To All4 Sochi F1 Program Availability
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2019 23:06:39 +0100
From: Truthcatcher
To: Peter Andrews <[e-mail]>
CC: [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]

Dear Mr Andrews,

Totally Inexcusable Delays To All4 Sochi F1 Program Availability - Customers Punished For Not Having Access To Sky Sports F1 By Only Being Able To See Online Version of Program Next Day After Already Having Heard Race Result

Please can you explain to me why once again All4 has not made the highlights program of the F1 Russian Grand Prix broadcast between 6pm and 8pm this evening available, even at 11pm at night?! This means that even in the unlikely event it becomes available tonight I would probably fall asleep while trying to watch it.

This problem repeatedly happens with the All4 streaming version of the race program being cynically delayed for many hours after broadcast of this already time delayed highlights show and I believe the whole and only reason for this ridiculous delay is because the concurrent streaming capacity of the All4 platform is so pathetically limited in terms of bandwidth that the only way to avoid true demand to stream the show crashing the platform is to withhold its availability until most fans have had the result foisted on them by radio or television news so that once that has happened most of them will give up trying to stream the race.

This disgusting situation is in addition to the also quite unbelievable spectre of Steve Jones telling us during every single C4 F1 highlights program that we could have watched the race live on Sky Sports F1 instead. And if that isn't a total cop out or a pact with the devil of the worst possible kind then I don't know what is as clearly we all know that Sky shows the races live but we miserable paupers who can't afford to pay Sky's prices or who simply prefer the less trashy C4 coverage don't need to be annoyed further by being reminded about Sky having the live coverage rights to the races.

I take it that as usual nothing will be done to fix this situation as All4 seems to have such a pathetically miserable budget that it still won't be allowed to upgrade its server capacity to handle the concurrent streaming demand created after the Formula 1 highlights programs or after any other live sporting event (there presumably aren't many since the demise of horse racing coverage on C4) that Channel 4 may cover.

Yours in very severe disappointment.

Regards,

TruthCatcher

---

Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Now Available But Sign In/Password Agony Added
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2019 09:20:46 +0100
From: Truth Catcher
To: [e-mail]
CC: Peter Andrews <[e-mail]>, [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]

Dear Ms Mahon,

Sochi Race Highlights Program Now Available Following Morning But Sign In/Password Agony Added

This is to report that the Highlights program for the F1 Sochi Grand Prix has finally been made available (I am viewing on a Youview box but I specifically checked last night via the full PC based All4 website and it wasn't available there either as one would expect given that its the same video stream watched through different player front ends) but to add insult to injury your All4 player is now requiring a user name and password to watch the program (even via a YouView box which is supposed to be a one click to view from the EPG listing proposition). Whereas I wasn't asked for a user name and password to watch the Sochi Qualifying highlights program from Saturday on the same YouView box. So it seems you have now adopted the same state spying on the individual mentality as the BBC and also undermined the very proposition of YouView by making it as difficult as possible to gain access to a program as well as delaying its availability for as long as you possibly can (presumably because your creaking and totally inadequate All4 VoD platform can't offer enough concurrent live video sessions soon after the race, even though it clearly can be updated to obstruct user access with extra username and password requirements).

Of course one would like to thing that things would get better and that this won't happen again and that the F1 Highlights program will be made available to view as soon as the broadcast of the Highlights program has finished broadcast or within minutes thereof, or ideally it would even be available to watch on a time slip basis at any time after the program has started broadcasting on air on Channel 4 as now offered by the BBC Iplayer with their Watch From The Start function while a program is still on air.

I see that this problem with delays in availability of the catch-up tv version of the F1 highlights program was being complained about as long ago as May 2016 on the pistonheads discussion forum at www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=18... but instead of Channel 4 addressing the issue because it clearly loses massive numbers of viewers (and therefore ultimately advertising revenue) as a result it continues to keep its head stuck firmly in the sand and instruct its customer feedback department to tell customers total lies such as that it is very technically complicated and takes many hours to make available a program that covered a once live sporting event, while failing to point out that Channel 4 does not even air the race live but several hours in arrears

Even though I generally enjoy the coverage and commentators (even in this year's reduced form and even though all too often the result is foisted on me before I view by deliberately unhelpful BBC sports news broadcasts that always start off saying "Lewis Hamilton has won" etc rather than "Today's Formula 1 Grand Prix in Sochi was won by") in my view Channel 4 is not fit for purpose as a broadcaster of the F1 highlights program if it cannot address and fix this longstanding issue of failing to make the F1 highlights program available on its All4 player within half an hour at most of the completion of on air broadcast of the program (although ideally it should also bring in a Watch From The Start function while the program is still on air like the BBC IPlayer). Also trying to further obstruct viewer access by requiring a user name and password to watch the program on the All4 player amounts to the final adding of insult to injury and quite clearly shows that the Board directors of Channel 4 are not prioritising the right kind of investment in the All4 player service.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

TruthCatcher
[/quote]

Edited by TruthCatcher on Monday 30th September 19:39

[TruthCatcher]

So three and a half years on and things have gone from bad to worse with C4 and the availability of their race highlights program post race. This culminated in a race that had finished before 2pm UK time yesterday (Sunday 29th September) and was broadcast between 6pm and 8pm still not being available after midnight the following day. Who knows when it did become available (I suspect not till somebody got in to the office today and pressed the "no one wants to view any more as they know the result so now our patheticl All4 server capacity can cope with the much smaller number of people who want to view" button).

You might think Channel4 would care as they surely ought to lose advertising revenue from adverts broadcast with the streamed program and you might think they would care the total number of viewers for the GP would be down but no it seems they don't care due to their shady deal with Sky where they get the rights to broadcast for free so long as Steve Jones gives at least one major plug that you could have watched live on Sky Sports F1 instead. So presumably the other point in delaying the availability of the streamed program to the next day (apart from preventing the pathetic and inadequate All4 server from crashing if the program is made available too soon after the race) is to give you the message that if you don't pay to watch live for Sky Sports F1 or pay to have a competent Video On Demand service from Sky if you can't watch live that you will suffer by having the result foisted on you in BBC radio or tv news broadcasts where they always start with "Lewis Hamilton has won today's Russian GP" etc so that you can't hit the mute or change channel button before the result is given.

Despite the email to all of the senior members of C4's management team, including the CEO, I have not had one reply or apology and the viewers and listeners line keeps quoting the same old baloney that its a long program and they have to add audio description so this is why it takes so many hours to become available. Yet the BBC can do Watch From The Start on most of their live programs on the IPlayer but of course not poor and pathetic old Channel 4.

Here is the email I sent last night and then this morning once the program became available on All4:-

TruthCatcher said:

---

Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Inexcusable Delays To All4 Sochi F1 Program Availability
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2019 23:06:39 +0100
From: Truthcatcher
To: Peter Andrews <[e-mail]>
CC: [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]

Dear Mr Andrews,

Totally Inexcusable Delays To All4 Sochi F1 Program Availability - Customers Punished For Not Having Access To Sky Sports F1 By Only Being Able To See Online Version of Program Next Day After Already Having Heard Race Result

Please can you explain to me why once again All4 has not made the highlights program of the F1 Russian Grand Prix broadcast between 6pm and 8pm this evening available, even at 11pm at night?! This means that even in the unlikely event it becomes available tonight I would probably fall asleep while trying to watch it.

This problem repeatedly happens with the All4 streaming version of the race program being cynically delayed for many hours after broadcast of this already time delayed highlights show and I believe the whole and only reason for this ridiculous delay is because the concurrent streaming capacity of the All4 platform is so pathetically limited in terms of bandwidth that the only way to avoid true demand to stream the show crashing the platform is to withhold its availability until most fans have had the result foisted on them by radio or television news so that once that has happened most of them will give up trying to stream the race.

This disgusting situation is in addition to the also quite unbelievable spectre of Steve Jones telling us during every single C4 F1 highlights program that we could have watched the race live on Sky Sports F1 instead. And if that isn't a total cop out or a pact with the devil of the worst possible kind then I don't know what is as clearly we all know that Sky shows the races live but we miserable paupers who can't afford to pay Sky's prices or who simply prefer the less trashy C4 coverage don't need to be annoyed further by being reminded about Sky having the live coverage rights to the races.

I take it that as usual nothing will be done to fix this situation as All4 seems to have such a pathetically miserable budget that it still won't be allowed to upgrade its server capacity to handle the concurrent streaming demand created after the Formula 1 highlights programs or after any other live sporting event (there presumably aren't many since the demise of horse racing coverage on C4) that Channel 4 may cover.

Yours in very severe disappointment.

Regards,

TruthCatcher

---

Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Now Available But Sign In/Password Agony Added
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2019 09:20:46 +0100
From: Truth Catcher
To: [e-mail]
CC: Peter Andrews <[e-mail]>, [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]

Dear Ms Mahon,

Sochi Race Highlights Program Now Available Following Morning But Sign In/Password Agony Added

This is to report that the Highlights program for the F1 Sochi Grand Prix has finally been made available (I am viewing on a Youview box but I specifically checked last night via the full PC based All4 website and it wasn't available there either as one would expect given that its the same video stream watched through different player front ends) but to add insult to injury your All4 player is now requiring a user name and password to watch the program (even via a YouView box which is supposed to be a one click to view from the EPG listing proposition). Whereas I wasn't asked for a user name and password to watch the Sochi Qualifying highlights program from Saturday on the same YouView box. So it seems you have now adopted the same state spying on the individual mentality as the BBC and also undermined the very proposition of YouView by making it as difficult as possible to gain access to a program as well as delaying its availability for as long as you possibly can (presumably because your creaking and totally inadequate All4 VoD platform can't offer enough concurrent live video sessions soon after the race, even though it clearly can be updated to obstruct user access with extra username and password requirements).

Of course one would like to thing that things would get better and that this won't happen again and that the F1 Highlights program will be made available to view as soon as the broadcast of the Highlights program has finished broadcast or within minutes thereof, or ideally it would even be available to watch on a time slip basis at any time after the program has started broadcasting on air on Channel 4 as now offered by the BBC Iplayer with their Watch From The Start function while a program is still on air.

I see that this problem with delays in availability of the catch-up tv version of the F1 highlights program was being complained about as long ago as May 2016 on the pistonheads discussion forum at www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=18... but instead of Channel 4 addressing the issue because it clearly loses massive numbers of viewers (and therefore ultimately advertising revenue) as a result it continues to keep its head stuck firmly in the sand and instruct its customer feedback department to tell customers total lies such as that it is very technically complicated and takes many hours to make available a program that covered a once live sporting event, while failing to point out that Channel 4 does not even air the race live but several hours in arrears

Even though I generally enjoy the coverage and commentators (even in this year's reduced form and even though all too often the result is foisted on me before I view by deliberately unhelpful BBC sports news broadcasts that always start off saying "Lewis Hamilton has won" etc rather than "Today's Formula 1 Grand Prix in Sochi was won by") in my view Channel 4 is not fit for purpose as a broadcaster of the F1 highlights program if it cannot address and fix this longstanding issue of failing to make the F1 highlights program available on its All4 player within half an hour at most of the completion of on air broadcast of the program (although ideally it should also bring in a Watch From The Start function while the program is still on air like the BBC IPlayer). Also trying to further obstruct viewer access by requiring a user name and password to watch the program on the All4 player amounts to the final adding of insult to injury and quite clearly shows that the Board directors of Channel 4 are not prioritising the right kind of investment in the All4 player service.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

TruthCatcher]

[AlexRS2782]

I shouldn't laugh / reply, but Jesus Christ

Have you not considered that any delay in uploading the race to catch up is most possibly part of the contract they had to agree with Sky to maintain a free to air highlights package. The same contract that results in the "unbelievable spectre" of Steve Jones having to advise viewers during the qualifying show that the race is live exclusively on Sky - because it is as that's who own the rights.

Love how you're also blaming C4 for the BBC reading out the results on their news before you've had a chance to watch the highlights package. How is that C4's fault?

Then there's your "demands" over how quickly it should be made available - specifically to when you wan't to view it - fking hell

I'm going to guess, based on the content / wording of your emails, that you're one of those people that complain about everything including your food home delivery being 10 seconds late

Edited by AlexRS2782 on Monday 30th September 20:45

[TruthCatcher]

AlexRS2782 said:

I'm going to guess, based on the content / wording of your emails, that you're one of those people that complain about everything including your food home delivery being 10 seconds late

Edited by AlexRS2782 on Monday 30th September 20:45

I'm also going to guess that you are one of those people who likes watching endless boring football games so already have a Fully Monty Sky package that includes Sky Sports F1 (so are rejoicing at the discomfort of those of us who hate football and so don't pay for Sky) and I'm also going to guess that you are one of those annoying forum posters that particularly enjoys winding other forum members up by picking on and trying to vilify and discredit them personally, especially if they appear to be some wordy and pontificating bloke who you don't empathise with.

Of course we know that with the deal this season that the Highlights programs are being pushed back later in reality to increase the must have Sky proposition but on the excuse also that they may get more viewers in evening prime time (which may work with those who are just spoon fed what they are given, except that numerous articles this year have said that C4's F1 viewing ratings are crashing) but that doesn't excuse the Catch Up Tv service being next day when we have already had to wait many hours for the highlights program to appear.

Personally I think the delay in the catch up version becoming available has damn all to do with further encouraging people to get Sky Sports F1 but everything to do with the fact that in the evening period the All4 player simply can't cope with the number of concurrent video sessions it would have to run to service the F1 highlights program in addition to all the other stuff that people watch in the evening like films, drama and sitcom. So the highlights being delayed to next day (when they are effectively useless except for archive footage interest) is a further unintended consequence of postponing the on air highlights show until the early evening.

[TheDeuce]

You must be the fun guy at parties

Seriously, if you care so much then PAY for sky. Surely anyone capable of tying their own shoelaces can work out that if sky have paid for exclusivity, then other networks will be limited and time delayed (including repeats/on demand) in what they show.

Your email is the kind that gets printed off and pinned to the staff notice board - it helps keep the troops entertained. As such, you have at least been extremely charitable.

[daddy cool]

Say what? The race highlights WERE available on All4... because that's how we watched it.
We watched it on a fire stick at about 8pm last night...
And the best part was there were no adverts throughout the race either...

[Kolbenkopp]

TheDeuce said:

Seriously, if you care so much then PAY for sky.

Gee why would anyone do something as stupid as that. Expensive, antiquated tech, very little of interest motorsports wise. For F1, just get F1TV and if needed a VPN service...

[TheDeuce]

Kolbenkopp said:

Gee why would anyone do something as stupid as that. Expensive, antiquated tech, very little of interest motorsports wise. For F1, just get F1TV and if needed a VPN service...

Which won't work, because the payment needs to also come from a card registered in an authorised to watch country. Solveable but also fraudulent.

I don't pay for sky directly, I don't even have sky. Just nowtv to allow access to sky sports when F1 is on.