- This topic has 324 replies, 45 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 1 month ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Hopefully when Virgin staff decide to come back to work tomorrow they will issue a statement.
Hopefully Virgin get it in HD quickly, as on the Sky platform the HD pictures are excellent. Graphics and overall production are slick, so i assume it will get better as time goes on as regards tweaks to the programming, not quite sure why they decided to take away the seconds from the time clock right enough on SSR. And the slo mo camera at the finish line is neat, and thats going to be at all SSR courses.
From what im seeing on Twitter thought RTV are having a time of it with split screen and most of Fairyhouse shunted onto nomans lands on RTV extra which cable subscribers are unable to access. On busy days Irish racing is going to play 2nd fiddle to the RTV UK tracks which is what they feared.
Virgin & Sky have always had a sticky relationship and seem to have regular falling outs over pricing for channels quite often but eventually seem to sort it out.
The Racing TV extra service is on their website (which isn’t ideal for people that don’t have access I know) but then short of having a 2nd channel I don’t think any options that are put in place will suit everybody all the time as there will always be race clashes.
Indeed, had the Irish meetings (which were scheduled 20 mins apart starting at 12:00 & 12:20) still been with SSR today you would have had races clashing and split screens as the last 6 races of a 7 race card at Tramore were scheduled for the exact same off time as all 6 races at Southwell.
I think we have been spoiled to have two dedicated racing channels for so long but we have to bear in mind that they are competing against each other so there will never be a situation where courses will be decently split between them with nicely spaced gaps between all race times.
I would much rather we have what we now do rather than go back to the days when we would get 3 (sometimes 4) races on terrestial TV from BBC or ITV.
Someone on another forum says they had 4 meetings going off at same time at 3.30pm and they used a quad screen.
Is this true the person was actually praising the use of a quad screen.
I maintain it’s an own goal for SSR not to have been available on NOW TV, Sky Go or in HD on some platforms on the big launch day. However, I was always going to be glued to where most of the action was today so how did RTV do in the face of launching on one of the busiest couple of days of the year?
A heavy focus was put on the Irish meetings in the first part of RTV’s preview programme (which itself was more track than studio based) until the dedicated Irish channel kicked in on RTV Extra at 11.30. Before long 8 streams were conveniently available on Extra: main, dedicated Irish and one for each of the 6 courses. No problem casting these from the website.
Sticking with the main channel, I counted about 4 occasions when RTV stayed with a single screen for the climax of a British race before joining an Irish race just after the start. In contrast, the 1.45 at Tramore had not reached its conclusion when RTV went split screen because the 1.50 at Exeter was underway. The same thing happened in respect of Tramore’s big chase despite the contest at the west country track being one of 3m.
Generally, though, split screens were kept to a minimum – there were a lot less of them than I had feared – and the programme/presenting/production went very smoothly. Until the delay at Catterick!
In a way the delay was a good thing as it provided the viewer with the chance to see what will happen when things get out of kilter. When the delayed race, a tinpot affair, was finally off it forced a split screen with a race at Cheltenham. Over to ITV I went. More unplanned split screens followed. Firstly, with one circuit of the 2.45 at Catterick to go there was a shared screen with the 3.0 at Exeter.
Then a slight delay to the 3.25 at Musselburgh (off 3.28) combined with the delayed 3.20 at Catterick (off 3.30) forced a split screen between the two which, when the first of these had finished, went straight in to a split screen with the beginning of the 3.35 at Exeter. By this time even Tom Stanley didn’t know if he was in Gloucestershire or Devon! And what of the 3.30 at Tramore? It was not shown live. All we got was a very brief replay of the finish after Exeter was done. However, there was never more than 2 races shown at one time let alone a quad screen.
Overall it was not the equalising own goal I had expected (there was never much time to see the horses and for chat before and after races on NYD in years past anyway). What’s quite clear is that RTV is indeed obliged to show the entirety of all British races live but does not have the same obligation to Irish races and the relative importance of a race has no bearing. With this knowledge in the future, especially when SSR is on NOW TV, it will be a case of identifying possible clashes, prioritising which races I prefer to see and setting up my laptop and TV for quick switching between RTV, ITV, NOW TV and Cast!
As for Irish viewers and fans of Irish racing – well, I would not be happy. Have I got this correct? Assuming you wish to keep the basic Sky package for reasons unconnected to Irish racing you face paying an extra 25 euros/quid per month for RTV and (if you don’t already have one) a further small amount for a casting device because on busy days the main RTV channel has no choice but to relegate Irish racing to second fiddle. We will have to see how often or seldom this actually occurs.
Echo the disappointment of Virgin Media customers having to make do with SSR SD, a big let down when I switched on this morning.
Going by today’s offering of the Savills Chase on main channel RTV, Irish racing goes bush-league on clashes. Can’t see it as a step forward for the sport here.
Will stick with it for January, but can’t see myself paying 31 Euro for it after that.
I set my Sky+ box to record the live racing on RTV. Have been watching it this evening but for some reason the recording ended at 2.45!?! Does anyone know if the coverage was split into two programmes?
I also expected more split screens. As has been pointed out elsewhere this is a busier day than most so hard to judge RTV And we need to bear in mind that many of the best Irish meetings are on Sundays when there isn’t as much racing in the UK.
Yes, the electronic programming had the live coverage split, so you needed to set both to record.
The same split in live coverage is set for tomorrow too. Need to keep an eye on this if it’s going to be a regular occurance.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
I don’t really follow these shenanigans closely, but regarding picture quality & other matters here’s my experience as a Virgin customer.
– About 6 weeks ago, my Racing UK dramatically improved from what was a perfectly decent picture (that I presumed was HD) to eye-popping quality. For a couple of weeks a new ‘HD’ symbol appeared in the top-right.
– My ATR picture if anything got worse (although this may be due to the starkness of comparison with the ‘new’ RUK). By last week, the channel looked as though it was being shot on a 2001 Nokia.
– Since the re-brand to SSR, although it remains non-HD the picture has certainly improved a lot, which I find a bit baffling though not unwelcome.
– The RUK website never lets me view any video, prompting the message “To watch this exclusive content, please subscribe to one of our plans”. It was explained to me that Virgin customers had a ‘capacity problem’ which is not something I’ve previously been accused of.
– Since yesterday, I can now view some races in full, some with just the race finish and some not at all. When I am randomly allowed to view, it’s in a low-quality ‘letterbox’.
– I never receive my annual badge by right, although if I can summon the stamina to shout at an Afghani call-centre operative for 14 hours, they begrudgingly send me one by about September (‘Winter Season Ticket’ anyone..?)
– I pay £22 a month for RUK/RcingTV
Mike
Espmadrid reports on another thread that compared to RTV Racing Replay SSR Racing Review is really poor.
He is also the second person (Bruce Millington) to complain about some of SSR’s graphics.
Meanwhile, in the continued absence of SSR on NOW TV, I enjoyed excellent coverage of Ayr on RTV yesterday.
Latest score: RTV 2 SSR 0 lol.
The sort of thing that annoys me about RTV happened yesterday. Here we are in the depths of the core Jumps season and it allocated merely 3 minutes build up to a competitive handicap at Ludlow. There was a long and interesting interview with Josh Moore beforehand, recorded, but this could have been broadcast live instead of part 1 of a Meydan preview being crammed in. Put the latter on Extra for fans of foreign glorified dog racing!
Gawd, does anyone watch Meydan??
The hours of coverage and stultifying analysis it’s afforded is just beyond me. “Let’s have a look at those sectional times again, James…”
Mike
Rtv and ATR in discussions over replay rights.
the 2.35 race at Newcastle today is called the”watch sky sports racing HD on Virgin 535″ what HD where is this HD?
Try to please all and you’ll please none. I was expecting this today from RTV on one of the lower key Saturdays.
Sandown was clearly the stand-out meeting while Wincanton and Cork were workaday. Fears of a bias towards the studio were unfounded as presenters were at the two British tracks, however, RTV would have done better to have someone at Cork also instead of two studio pundits. Probably the reason it didn’t can be found in the paragraph below.
So much for Anglo-Irish co-operation on race times, the three meetings were all bunched together instead of being spread evenly across 30 minute segments. Additionally, Cork were not prepared to wait one minute for Sandown to finish.
The upshot for British fans was the absence of immediate post-race analysis from the principal meeting, a rushed feeling and the lack of any introduction to unfamiliar Irish horses (not to mention the studio host interjecting over the commentary of the climax of Sandown’s £100,000 handicap to announce Cork was off and the substandard calling of Peter O’Hehir).
For Irish fans the start of two races was missed (including one where a well fancied horse refused to take part), there was only a nod to any pre- and post-race coverage and, as on NYD, the Irish racing would have felt crammed in and second fiddle.
Therefore, now on both a busy day and on a quiet Saturday RTV’s product has not been satisfactory, especially for Irish fans.
Essentially, the transfer of Irish racing to RTV is going to prove detrimental all round (but particularly for the Irish) more often and more significantly than it is going to be a positive. As I suggested when news of the acquisition first broke, RTV needs to have two channels on all TV platforms (at no extra cost) on appropriate days which can be split between British and Irish or between Flat and Jumps when necessary, thus giving viewers a choice.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.