Posts tagged television

Thrills and spills in Australia

I’ve been watching the live streaming feed of the opening Formula One race of the 2008 season on ITV.

The deal with Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One Management, includes coverage of practice sessions, and is understood to be initially for a year.

From my connection to the net the feed was struggling at times - not surprising given the speed of the cars resulting in plenty of changing picture data.

It was disappointing the original 4 by 3 aspect ratio of the pictures from Australia had been ’squashed’ into 16 by 9 on ITV’s site.

The race itself showed the dramatic effect of the 2008 rule changes, particularly the removal of traction control - only seven cars finished, the lowest number in the history of the Melbourne race.

The race was certainly one of the most unpredictable and exciting Formula One race I’ve seen for a number of years and show the rule changes have put more emphasis on driver skills.

Forget HD - I want Super Hi-Vision!

The Guardian reports on Super Hi-Vision.

The system claims a resolution of 7680×4320 pixels, compared to the HDTV maximum of 1920×1080.

The Guardian encapsulates the one big problem “of how to transmit huge amounts of data remains”.

Forget HD - I want 3D!

At the weekend the BBC carried out trial live coverage of the Six Nations rugby match between England and Scotland in 3D high-definition.

This is the first time such an outside broadcast has been carried out in the UK.

Pictures were captured by three sets of dual high definition cameras bolted together for each 3D picture channel.

The clever stuff was carried out by The3DFirm technology, with the result viewed through polarising glasses.

The trial involved BBC Resources London Outside Broadcasts - ironic given the announcement last week of the plan to sell the department despite no agreement from BECTU.