[LM24] Television & streaming & Shirt

[jasonjessica09]

Are you watching your Le Mans replays now? The MyRaces youtube channel is a good one because there is no commentary. Just the sounds of track and the garage as if you were there. I like watching soccer games like that too if possible.

[Gingers4Justice]

Literally couldn't believe the late-night coverage this year. Normally you get manned cameras from the Corvette Curve to Tetre Rouge the night shift but I spent all night at TR and there was a good two hours where the bloke at the usual TR camera spot wasn't anywhere to be seen.

This year once again proved that the small hours can be some of the most critical in the race. On-board only is not an ample solution. I know there are some very good reasons why most cameras have to be left for large periods of the race, but we seem to be going backwards on the issue. Someone with just a bit of imagination could work out something better than what we had this year without upsetting unions, breaking laws or breaking the bank.

But it wouldn't be Le Mans without some good old keyboard bashing about the event's coverage.

[Simmi]

Completely agreed - pathetic efforts during the night hours.

Have to agree with Hindy's point. If you've got people taking the feed and being good enough to broadcast your race for 24 hours - give them something to watch!! I literally cannot fathom it. It's your jewel in the crown, just hire more cameramen. If you can't afford it, just move the budget from somewhere else. People at the track would benefit by default.

Eurosport or Fox Sports or whoever could certainly make a case for jacking in the night hours if the coverage isn't worth it. Much of Europe might be asleep during that time but the international audience isn't. And if they are tuning in for the first time to a boring, haphazard broadcast then they'll quickly turn off.

[Ginaro Zukovsky]

Surely there's some technical innovation partnership that could be struck to give us say, one camera on the inside of Arnage/Indianapolis, featuring better camera technology for the night hours?

[deggis]

The EU work time law which France took very strictly is often referred but really, so what? Can't they hire more camera men? At least one more? Literally even one camera in a good place could make a huge difference to the #PitsEssesOnboardRepeat

Always fun to watch 1990s highlights from Youtube and realize there was then more night coverage than now.

Better quality remote controlled CCTVs?

[wewantourdarbyback]

Hire more cameramen. It's a global market, so what it's midnight in France, on the east coast of America it's only seven, five further across, you're showing a big potential audience nothing.

It was a disgrace this year, I've always thought it was a disgrace, but this year made previous year's look like heaven.

If anyone can tell me what happened to Olivier Pla, other than a crash, then you've done well.

[Deleted]

It's the same crap they always pull off with the night time TV (+pre-Saturday) broadcasting so it's hard to get annoyed anymore as you know it's gonna happen every single time in this century. So it didn't bother me in that sense...

I thought Eurosport comms booth was very much improved over last year and absolutely dreadful 2012... the total lack of Kirby and the (almost complete lack of) Halliday made it much smoother, and no Justine in the pits also helped even if Adelaide was still there... I mean sure I was still pulling my hair and shouting to the TV when Cole and few others kept making same silly mistakes and pulling "facts" out of their ***es but generally it was improving. The driver input and interaction between Hall, Hancock and Faulkner was quite funny actually. They had some fun time in the booth.

Obviously RLM is the better alternative if you actually want to have people who really KNOW what they're talking about, but then again not everybody wants to constantly hear about recent Audi stint lengths and Toyota pit stop fuel windows every 3 seconds mixed in with the Nissan advertising

Looking forward to hearing some Pruett-less FOX Sports comms now on my next race re-watch. The only one who somewhat irritates me there now is Bob Varsha (liked him in F1 but not in these circles), the rest of the gang actually has some of my favourite comms and especially pitlane people ever.

[Deleted]

https://twitter.com/dsceditor/status/596040671624048640

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEESSS!!!

FINALLY IT'S HAPPENED.

[Simmi]

Incredible news. Such a great move - the ACO actually backing their marquee race with proper coverage. It's been a no brainer for most of us for a long, long time but better late than never.

Maybe someone had a word after that sub-par broadcast last year.

[Deleted]

Maybe it was Toyota

Anyway they've been sub par for years now, but this totally makes up for it, thanks ACO

The only question now is whether or not it means that wednesday and thursday still have limited coverage + CCTV like in the past. I would guess yes. But whatever, at least the most important bit is now fully on line from the warmup till race finish.

Btw mods could change the thread title to 2014-2015

[CTD]

Ill add my comment from the other thread here too:

Well I haven't watched it on TV since 2011, but I must admit I kinda liked it when it shifted to the night, and things calmed down with Onboards and more focus on the pits. It suited the night atmosphere which is also present at Le Mans, everything except the cars and teams slow down and the crowd thins out. Only the diehard stays alive (or sorta alive )

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by CTD

Ill add my comment from the other thread here too:

Well I haven't watched it on TV since 2011, but I must admit I kinda liked it when it shifted to the night, and things calmed down with Onboards and more focus on the pits. It suited the night atmosphere which is also present at Le Mans, everything except the cars and teams slow down and the crowd thins out. Only the diehard stays alive (or sorta alive )

But what about the new motto, you know 'this isn't old endurance racing where you saved machinery but new where you push on 100% all the time?'

What about when something important happened at Mulsanne or somewhere and all you had (if even that) was some grainy CCTV footage from 300 meters away? Also meant officiating was harder.

Also night time at Le Mans is day time at States (and Australia I suppose) so having boring coverage on FOX of pits and onboards only can be frustrating. Not to mention when you rewatch the race, wherever you are.

[Gingers4Justice]

If you watch footage of 1999 the cameras stayed on way later than 11pm. Hence how you get footage of Brundle struggling back to the pits in the Toyota, and pretty stunning shots of glowing break discs at Mulsanne Corner. Always found it strange that we'd gone backwards from there.

Excellent news, just hope the ACO stays strong and don't go full floodlight at the behest of the TV people.

[Deleted]

Immensely agree, for once

[vincegail]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

Excellent news, just hope the ACO stays strong and don't go full floodlight at the behest of the TV people.

Uh, please no!!! But the ACO having ties with the FIA nowadays, I fear we will have F1-style "night-racing" soon....

[deggis]

What has suddenly changed then?

There has been some theories in the past, e.g. French work laws (which I guess is a money issue, because you can always hire more cameramen).

The tweet can be interpreted in two ways, but I think it means the full race and roads will still have to be opened between the practice/qual sessions and the race.

edit:

A senior source from within the broadcasting community has informed DSC that the current plan is for all broadcast TV cameras to be manned and live throughout the whole 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours.

http://www.dailysportscar.com/2015/0...-24-hours.html

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by vincegail

Uh, please no!!! But the ACO having ties with the FIA nowadays, I fear we will have F1-style "night-racing" soon....

As they have chosen to utilize 100% night-for-day Formula 1 setting at Bahrain for no reason, as well as install considerably bright floodlights at CotA when in the past regular ACO night races required absolutely nothing beyond minimal start/finish straight posts and maybe couple of random posts elsewhere (like at Portimao & Hungaroring few years back), I have zero doubt that all of la Sarthe will be brightly lighted in 5-10 years time. In similar time frame as how the track transforms...

And for the record, I'm fine with Sebring/PLM styled smooth lighting, even if I prefer total darkness.

[CTD]

Let's remember we are talking about Circuit de La Sarthe which is 13,6km long, and not a 5-6km long F1 track.
This means it is at least twice as expensive to build and flood with lights. Not counting in the several pieces of land needed to be purchased to build the towers!

A fully flooded Circuit de La Sarthe will never happen.

[AstonGeoff]

It'll be better for those of us at the circuit staying up all night and with access to a big screen, the modern cameras should be more than up to the job. I've often heard people on TV saying that it's a lot darker than the camera shows.

As an added bonus I hope the DVD will be able to include the extended night time coverage, maybe making it longer this year?

[Simmi]

If the lead car retires in the night it would just be nice to be able to actually see what's happening.

Hopefully this move will solve that - although I see from the DSC story that we don't actually have official confirmation yet.

[Spyderman]

I suppose the next step would be to provide streaming of the Test day.

[Chuliandred]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

I suppose the next step would be to provide streaming of the Test day.

First they should start to stream FP3 of the regular races. Bringing all the cameras for the testday would be quite expensive while in FP3 most of them are already setup for the qualifying anyways.

If they really want to broadcast the testday they should use a few cameras in the area of the mainstraight/pit, and maybe one or two more stationary cameras where you can see the cars relativly long. For the rest of the lap they could just use the onboards.

For the future I would wish that they install additionall "onboard" cams on the rooftop. Like they have on the IMSA-GTs.

[AstonGeoff]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

I suppose the next step would be to provide streaming of the Test day.

The trouble with test days is, they are just that, there is no guarantee of continual action. Certainly if it rains then there would be limited running.

Plus it would cost a whole heap of money and that would probably end up meaning some sort of subscription based service, not something any of us wants surely?

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by CTD

Let's remember we are talking about Circuit de La Sarthe which is 13,6km long, and not a 5-6km long F1 track.
This means it is at least twice as expensive to build and flood with lights. Not counting in the several pieces of land needed to be purchased to build the towers!

A fully flooded Circuit de La Sarthe will never happen.

Just think about it, if they can bother and afford making considerable changes to La Sarthe every year, and in the last few years only increasing the amount of euros going into track and trackside changes, do we really think they couldn't do the same with lighting levels? No-one needed asphalt shoulders to Mulsanne and rundown to Curves either, but hey they are there now anyway. I could even see some ACO/FIA representative at some point citing that more visibility equals superior safety or some shiz.

Utilizing the night-for-day F1 nonsense at Bahrain is one thing, but the overly bright floodlight posts at CotA weren't designed for F1, or for that matter any other series since no one else have utilized them. Meaning that they were put in place specifically for WEC. And since it is highly unlikely that the initiative came solely from circuit's side alone (who would invest in such a thing after lackluster reception of previous years event), the ACO/FIA surely wanted them there. And if they can put them around 5,5 kilometrer tilkedrome that has far lesser importance than Le Mans, they sure can for 13km track - of which is mostly lit already, albeit with considerably weaker lights and lesser amount of posts. But the groundwork is there already. The remaining bits can be worked around with Le Mans city council.

Also, "never" is a long time. If one looks back 15 years ago - you know beginning of the century - and general circuit designs, no-one would have predicted how immense change there was to be in the landscape.

Anyway, of course I wish it doesn't happen, but just as I predict all of the remaining grass/gravel runoff areas to be replaced by asphalt in less than 10 years time frame, I am rather certain of floodlights appearing as well. Because of how things are evolving right now in this sport.

Well at least it's gonna be good for now, and with full TV coverage.

Originally Posted by AstonGeoff

Plus it would cost a whole heap of money and that would probably end up meaning some sort of subscription based service, not something any of us wants surely?

Thought we already had such a thing...

[CTD]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Just think about it, if they can bother and afford making considerable changes to La Sarthe every year, and in the last few years only increasing the amount of euros going into track and trackside changes, do we really think they couldn't do the same with lighting levels? No-one needed asphalt shoulders to Mulsanne and rundown to Curves either, but hey they are there now anyway. I could even see some ACO/FIA representative at some point citing that more visibility equals superior safety or some shiz.

Utilizing the night-for-day F1 nonsense at Bahrain is one thing, but the overly bright floodlight posts at CotA weren't designed for F1, or for that matter any other series since no one else have utilized them. Meaning that they were put in place specifically for WEC. And since it is highly unlikely that the initiative came solely from circuit's side alone (who would invest in such a thing after lackluster reception of previous years event), the ACO/FIA surely wanted them there. And if they can put them around 5,5 kilometrer tilkedrome that has far lesser importance than Le Mans, they sure can for 13km track - of which is mostly lit already, albeit with considerably weaker lights and lesser amount of posts. But the groundwork is there already. The remaining bits can be worked around with Le Mans city council.

Also, "never" is a long time. If one looks back 15 years ago - you know beginning of the century - and general circuit designs, no-one would have predicted how immense change there was to be in the landscape.

Anyway, of course I wish it doesn't happen, but just as I predict all of the remaining grass/gravel runoff areas to be replaced by asphalt in less than 10 years time frame, I am rather certain of floodlights appearing as well. Because of how things are evolving right now in this sport.

Well at least it's gonna be good for now, and with full TV coverage.



Thought we already had such a thing...

It seems almost idiotic for me to debate a matter I think will never happen.
The main point is that the majority of Circuit de La Sarthe is on public owned highway with privately owned property right next to it.
Flooding the track with lights would need a lot of permanent light towers set up on these private owned parts. This would be expensive to buy, and would not be well taken by the neighbours and the local government.
This is all unique to Circuit de La Sarthe and not comparable with other tracks in the world.