Which brings us to the technology of television and how a couple of recent developments can help you appreciate racing more.
To begin with, I cannot say enough about digital video recorders (DVR), which improve the entire TV viewing experience but particularly any event that involves commercials and/or announcers. They are mostly available from Rogers and other cable providers, or from Sears and other retailers.
Your first instinct with a DVR is to record something that you can't be there to watch in person or something that's on while you're watching another show, and for that reason alone DVRs are worth the price of admission. But you quickly learn the joy of being able to speed through commercials, pause the show for a bathroom break, or rewind it for another look at something you want to see again, perhaps in slow-motion.
You can of course use a DVR to record all of a race or the Oscar show or the Grey Cup or Super Bowl or whatever for later viewing, but then you have to wait until maybe the next day and you might find out the results by accident. This is when you learn the beauty of a DVR's "pause" feature, which allows you to watch something live (sort of) with all of the benefits of regular taping.
You wait for the show to come on and the first moment you encounter something you don't want to watch (vapid announcer, stupid commercial, etc) you hit the pause button on the DVR's remote. You can get up and spend the next 45 minutes or so doing something else while the DVR stores the show you want to watch. Press the play button when you're ready to go and the show picks right up, only now you can fast-forward through the vapid announcers and the irritating commercials and so on, as the DVR continues to tape the live broadcast. Pause again for a bathroom or snack break or whatever and the DVR keeps on recording. You can also command the DVR to rewind or provide a slow-motion view of the action. You're in control, and with clever time management you can see the end of the race as it's happening live, or shortly thereafter. This is nothing less than a revolution in the way you watch any TV show, including auto racing.
J
ust as revolutionary is the technology that allows a cable provider to deliver multiple-channel coverage of an event, which the customer can choose between. Rogers does this with Nascar, giving viewers in-car coverage for seven drivers on seven channels to pick from. This is not as good as it could be, with multiple camera angles around the track, but it's a big improvement on having the TV show's director dictate what you get to see.
If you don't have a PVR, you can at least use the picture-in-picture function of cable to watch the commercial-free in-car coverage and the regular broadcast.
This service is also available with F1, though I don't think anyone's brought it to Canada yet.
Anyway, the bottom line is that the viewing experience for the racing fan has never been better, and that's a good thing.
Next time, we'll have a look at the general picture of racing.
To begin with, I cannot say enough about digital video recorders (DVR), which improve the entire TV viewing experience but particularly any event that involves commercials and/or announcers. They are mostly available from Rogers and other cable providers, or from Sears and other retailers.
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You can of course use a DVR to record all of a race or the Oscar show or the Grey Cup or Super Bowl or whatever for later viewing, but then you have to wait until maybe the next day and you might find out the results by accident. This is when you learn the beauty of a DVR's "pause" feature, which allows you to watch something live (sort of) with all of the benefits of regular taping.
You wait for the show to come on and the first moment you encounter something you don't want to watch (vapid announcer, stupid commercial, etc) you hit the pause button on the DVR's remote. You can get up and spend the next 45 minutes or so doing something else while the DVR stores the show you want to watch. Press the play button when you're ready to go and the show picks right up, only now you can fast-forward through the vapid announcers and the irritating commercials and so on, as the DVR continues to tape the live broadcast. Pause again for a bathroom or snack break or whatever and the DVR keeps on recording. You can also command the DVR to rewind or provide a slow-motion view of the action. You're in control, and with clever time management you can see the end of the race as it's happening live, or shortly thereafter. This is nothing less than a revolution in the way you watch any TV show, including auto racing.
J
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If you don't have a PVR, you can at least use the picture-in-picture function of cable to watch the commercial-free in-car coverage and the regular broadcast.
This service is also available with F1, though I don't think anyone's brought it to Canada yet.
Anyway, the bottom line is that the viewing experience for the racing fan has never been better, and that's a good thing.
Next time, we'll have a look at the general picture of racing.