Kangaroo TV / Fanvision at GPs

[rdjohn]

I am off to Monza at the weekend. I have my Fanvison TV but not much in the way of information.

Does their coverage include F1 practice and support races?

[hondafanatic]

Yes. Everything. And all the F1 practices, Quali and Race are feed by Radio 5 Live with Crofty and Ant Davidson. The news section is also kept right up to date.

[vescaegg]

I had one at Silverstone this year and it was excellent. Well worth it everyone around was asking me what was going on round the other parts of the track as we had no big screen!

[rdjohn]

Thanks for the info. I now know to carry it with me on Friday, if I get the code tomorrow before I leave.

[paulrockliffe]

I had one for Spa (an live timing on my iPad) it's really good, but surely they can give you the full BBC1 TV coverage as well, would have been great to have watched the build up etc.

[LocoBlade]

paulrockliffe said:

I had one for Spa (an live timing on my iPad) it's really good, but surely they can give you the full BBC1 TV coverage as well, would have been great to have watched the build up etc.

Its not a UK specific device so not sure why you'd expect BBC1 to be on there, it just shows a standard Bernie feed with a few choices of audio over top depending on your language.

[the other me]

At least you have BBCRadio 5 live commentary.

Oh, & don't be in a hurry to give it back after the race, as the full post race interview + the press conference (that you normally only read on autosport.com, but never hear) are also there after the race (or they certainly were at Spa )

And you get to keep the cheapo earphones afterwards (as a little message tells you after the race )

All in all , a wonderful addition to the weekend, and WELL worth it IMHO.

[LocoBlade]

Ive still got my headphones from Barcelona 2008, not sure if they're still the same but mine actually work quite well!

[hondafanatic]

I bought a spliter for the headphones so the missis and I can have one tv set between us but each have a set of headphones.

[rdjohn]

hondafanatic said:

I bought a spliter for the headphones so the missis and I can have one tv set between us but each have a set of headphones.

That is the piece of kit that we could really do with; but I will try to keep her up to date.

[paulrockliffe]

LocoBlade said:

paulrockliffe said:

I had one for Spa (an live timing on my iPad) it's really good, but surely they can give you the full BBC1 TV coverage as well, would have been great to have watched the build up etc.

Its not a UK specific device so not sure why you'd expect BBC1 to be on there, it just shows a standard Bernie feed with a few choices of audio over top depending on your language.

I realise that, but it's just a matter of swapping a few wires over at the BBC bus isn't it. I couldn't see that there were any other feeds from other broadcasters available, just the BBC though, so the device appears to already by UK-centric.

Thing is the 5-live commentary is a radio feed aimed at people who can't see what's going on, the TV feed would be better suited given that we have the pictures anyway. It also has blank bits when 5 Live go to various football pundits for match updates and obviously didn't go live until 4 minutes before the start of the race, whereas the BBC TV people were talking for an hour before the start.

It's not a massive criticism, it's just an obvious area where it could be done better.

[LocoBlade]

Not sure about now but when I had one a few years back you had to select your commentary simply by selecting your language, so if you chose English you got 5live, if you chose Spanish you presumably got their equivalent.

I guess it would be possible to use the BBC commentary rather than 5live fairly easily, but the TV pictures you're seeing dont go anywhere near BBC so to get the full BBC visuals including buildup etc would need a complete re-jig and a substantially more expensive agreement with the BBC to use their production, plus there may be licensing implications of broadcasting outside their native country, not sure

[Richard-G]

LocoBlade said:

Not sure about now but when I had one a few years back you had to select your commentary simply by selecting your language, so if you chose English you got 5live, if you chose Spanish you presumably got their equivalent.

I guess it would be possible to use the BBC commentary rather than 5live fairly easily, but the TV pictures you're seeing dont go anywhere near BBC so to get the full BBC visuals including buildup etc would need a complete re-jig and a substantially more expensive agreement with the BBC to use their production, plus there may be licensing implications of broadcasting outside their native country, not sure

its a complicated cookie that one, The BBC tv programme don't commentate on the practices so Fanvision use a company called USP for their uk comms, thats why at the end of every session in race and qual crofty says "this has been a usp content production for bbc radio 5 live, bbc iplayer and fanvision"

its probably what bernie will allow the bbc (tv) to re sell to fanvision, which itself has to pay F1 for the feed. After that you start to enter the layercake................

[rdjohn]

rdjohn said:

That is the piece of kit that we could really do with; but I will try to keep her up to date.

Bought the splitter and sat here in my hotel in Milano, I can honestly say that it exceeds my expectations, which were pretty high.

To buy expensive tickets, travel and hotel and not get the basics of what you have at home is silly. The fact that you can also watch a driver's fast laps and race starts onboard just adds to the unique experience of a non-UK GP.

Oh, the ear phones are superb as well