Bathurst 1000 live in HD
V8 fans will get to see Bathurst live and in HD next month.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Programming
As previously noted, Seven Network will air the 2011 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 in HD for the first time from October 7-9.
It will air live on 7mate and in the US via SPEED.
For those who have been wanting more details on the technology behind the broadcast, it will be produced by V8 Supercar Television, via two Global Television HD supertrucks, HD1 and HD2.
Global will also launch a new HD4 supertruck to facilitate big screen coverage to on-track spectator.
As reporter earlier, SPEED is bringing its own commentary and production teams to cover the event.
Last year V8 fans blasted Seven for delaying portions of the big event.
V8 Supercars Chairman Tony Cochrane said: “It’s fantastic news that for the first time our fans will be able to watch the world famous Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 in full high definition, and live.
“The Global team, along with Seven and V8 Supercar Television, are constantly providing the country and the world with incredible pictures and plenty of Logie awards to prove it.
“This year’s Bathurst promises to be the most spectacular in history and those not at the Mountain will be able to see it in all of its glory on Seven and on Seven Mate in full high definition. The pictures will be absolutely amazing.”
Seven’s Head of Sport, Saul Shtein, said: “This is one of the great sports events. Seven’s first coverage of The Great Race in 1963 utilised the grand total of three cameras, all in Pit Straight.
“We’ve come a long way since then and in many ways – through the first live helicopter camera coverage, racecam and the myriad of new innovations.
“The Great Race has represented huge steps forward in broadcast technology. We could not be more delighted to be involved in this next great step: the biggest high definition television coverage of any event ever undertaken in Australia. We are going to have a great time with The Great Race.”
Global Television CEO Keith Andrews said: “The Global Television team is proud and extremely excited to celebrate 15 years of facilitating the Bathurst 1000 with V8 Supercars’ first-ever High Definition race telecast.
“It is a privilege to work with V8 Supercar Television, Seven Network and SPEED on this historic event and to bring Australian and international audiences thrilling V8s racing in HD for the first time.”
Four months of intensive internal planning, and extensive collaboration with V8 Supercar Television, will culminate with that famous race from Mt Panorama on 7 – 9 October.
Global Television will coordinate the overall technical requirements of the race broadcasts and work alongside a team of 300-plus technical and creative crew.
More than 77 cameras will capture three days of racing action:
• 33 HD track-side cameras, including flycam and aerial views from a helicopter camera
• Six cameras supporting domestic and international hosting and commentary
• Six wireless radio frequency cameras for pit lane coverage
• Four crews with portable cameras capturing behind-the-scenes footage
• More than 28 in-car cameras
More than 40 kilometres of camera cable and in excess of 100 microphones will be used.
Global Television first facilitated Australian Touring Car races in 1996 and has provided broadcast technical services to V8 Supercars since 1997.
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28 Responses
Since it will be shown in HD on 7mate, is there any knowledge if the coverage will be using actual 5.1 surround sound, or just stereo?
PS the 77 cameras refers to HD cameras, right? They had something like 140 cameras last year (including a lot more than 28 in-cars)
@Craig, Cochrane said that all races would be live until the end of the season. Surprisingly, despite the listings on the V8 Supercars website, the PI500 went live to SA and WA.
I forget what HD looks like.
@Jay – yes but the qualifying is held in the morning, race later in the day so they both can’t be live. Unless the race will be live but the qualifying not, I still don’t see every race being live, what about the time delay for WA or NZ and other over seas rounds?
Personally I don’t expect the non endurance rounds to have all races live.
Pointless it being in HD if their bitrate is low like right now its under 10Mb/ps especially when you have fast moving action might get away with it for sitcomms but for fast action sport it needs to be near 14+Mb/ps
@ Craig, The rest of the V8 season has one race Saturday and one race Sunday. So every race for the rest of the season is apparently live
When i read this on theway home yesterday evening i was excited. Hopefully this proves a ratings success and the Seven network continueto show it in HD. I dont really care that they were prompted to do it because SPEED told them to, all i care is that they are doing it at all.
So just by reading that there will be 33 HD cameras and the rest SD?
@Russell , never have truer words been spoken.All the networks that say they cant get HD cameras are full of it.They dont want to spend the money or make the effort.God knows whats happening with the olympics on Channel Nein next year , looks like analogue and SD all the way.
SPEED (here on Foxtel) does have V8s, but not live, re-runs for the 500 are playing all week, including in HD. No I don’t know if it’s full 1080 HD or just upscaled.
@Jay, oh okay. But what I don’t get is how they can have every race live, unless they break up the telecast or have it run all day as unlike on TV the races run all day. Some in the morning and then the afternoon with hours between them. The longer races like Bathurst are different because they obviously run longer, at least 6.5 hours for Bathurst.
I agree the V8s and all sport should be seen in HD, there is no reason why they can’t be recorded in HD since the cost of the technology has come down so much in recent years. I would like to know how much is being recorded in HD only to be downgraded in production or transmission?
Only reason this is in HD is because Speed Channel USA and the yanks demand it
Left to Seven and 7mate alone we’d get SD
Aussie networks can’t even bring us the AFL grand final in HD in 2011
Sorry David, but perhaps one day!
Live means you miss the bits that were on during all the ads they’ll cram in to pay for this technology. It’s a no win situation as far as I can see….
Australian SPEED on Foxtel!? =D
No. SPEED in the US.
Yee-hah! Finally!
@Craig – I’m pretty sure that they were referring to liviness not HD-ness when they said that it would be for the rest of the year. Think only Bathurst and Gold Coast are HD because of Speed. Would be nice if this sets the scene for 2012, esp as Seven will need to sufficiently impress Cochrane if they want to have the V8s from 2013.
@Daniel – if you want to see it in 3D, plan yourself a holiday at Bathurst in about 2½ weeks!
@Ed It was only upscaled SD footage. Back then at least, whenever a sport program was in HD, the “7sport” watermark would have a diamond shaped “HD” symbol beside it. I hope Seven use it again for Bathurst and Gold Coast because back then I dreamed of the day when I would finally see that “7HDsport” watermark on the screen during a V8 Supercar race.
Craig, only Bathurst and Gold Coast are in HD at this stage. However they did say every race is now live for the rest of the season.
Can we have it in 3D aswell?
V8SC should have been in HD at the same time as other sports like AFL/Cricket/Rugby League converted to HD. But only the Bathurst and Gold Coast rounds will be in HD because those rounds are being shown live in the US, otherwise this would not have happened.
To be honest, I thought it was broadcast in HD in 2009, as it was on 7HD and noticeably higher picture quality than 2010, but maybe it was only upscaled from SD.
True HD….. on the Seven network……on the V8’s…. yea right!! They have done nothing good for the sport to date. Excuse me if I dont trust the seven network.
HD? Really? Quite surprised.
I’m amazed it’s taken this long, I think they let it slip at Sunday’s 500 race that all V8Supercar round will be in HD from now on, time will tell I guess but if they now have the equipment why wouldn’t they wan to use it.
Yawn