Formula 1 in 4K (UHD) ultra high defintion resolution?

[Sieper]

I understand that beginning this season onwards the F1 races are being recorded in UHD, 4K resolution. I believe if you live in the UK you can even already watch the races in this resolution? What is the bitrate of the signal etc. What options, if any, are available internationally? Does anybody know already? I live in the Netherlands and have glassfibre connection into my home but the (pay) channel Ziggo Sport "only" delivers the signal in a reasonably (compression rate) HD signal. I am really looking forward to having the option to view the races in 4K. Does anybody already enjoy that option? and DO you enjoy it?

Curious to know

[dren]

As technical as F1 is, they only made the jump to HD recently. I don't think there are any 4K feeds at all. With the new ownership, I expect that to change sooner than later.

[RicME85]

Pretty sure the Sky F1 UHD feed is just upscaled HD from FOM.

[Sieper]

As I understand it the races would at least be recorded in full 4K (at the track) . But it indeed is reasonable to assume that SKY sends out an upscaled HD stream (bandwidth). Anybody in the UK that can confirm?

Maybe at the end of the season we can buy a "real" 4K Blu-ray season overview? PS If anybody has a link to 4K material (all be it a short demo or so) of current season I would be glad to see it.

[BanMeToo]

I'm still waiting for them to upgrade the onboard cameras...

[Juzh]

I'm still waiting for them to upgrade the onboard cameras...

They've been upgraded to 1080 (but don't know if P or I) since the start of 2016.

[zonk]

https://www.google.pl/amp/www.pocket-li ... hd.amphtml

[BanMeToo]

I'm still waiting for them to upgrade the onboard cameras...

They've been upgraded to 1080 (but don't know if P or I) since the start of 2016.

I thought that was the plan, but it didn't actually happen. Maybe I'm wrong on that . Either way they look much worse than the trackside cameras, Which makes sense to an extent, but it's a pretty huge difference.

[Juzh]

I'm still waiting for them to upgrade the onboard cameras...

They've been upgraded to 1080 (but don't know if P or I) since the start of 2016.

I thought that was the plan, but it didn't actually happen. Maybe I'm wrong on that . Either way they look much worse than the trackside cameras, Which makes sense to an extent, but it's a pretty huge difference.

That's because they've literally only upped the resolution, but left all other aspects in dust. Also the reason why most older onboards seem to have better picture quality, despite the lower source res.

[ME4ME]

They've been upgraded to 1080 (but don't know if P or I) since the start of 2016.

I thought that was the plan, but it didn't actually happen. Maybe I'm wrong on that . Either way they look much worse than the trackside cameras, Which makes sense to an extent, but it's a pretty huge difference.

That's because they've literally only upped the resolution, but left all other aspects in dust. Also the reason why most older onboards seem to have better picture quality, despite the lower source res.

Not sure if I agree with that. Last year I watched some 1080-50fps races which looked great.

[Juzh]

I thought that was the plan, but it didn't actually happen. Maybe I'm wrong on that . Either way they look much worse than the trackside cameras, Which makes sense to an extent, but it's a pretty huge difference.

That's because they've literally only upped the resolution, but left all other aspects in dust. Also the reason why most older onboards seem to have better picture quality, despite the lower source res.

Not sure if I agree with that. Last year I watched some 1080-50fps races which looked great.

On some tracks they get it right, on some others not so much.
Example. Check out 2017 pole lap provided by the FOM and compare it to 2011 lap, also provided by fom. 2011 has better quality, at least in my opinion.

2011
https://tinyurl.com/mdq8sth

2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mtjC9DozXs

edit.
After looking it at it more closely, 2011 has better colours while 2017 obviously has better res. Shame they couldn't combine the two.

[BanMeToo]

I thought that was the plan, but it didn't actually happen. Maybe I'm wrong on that . Either way they look much worse than the trackside cameras, Which makes sense to an extent, but it's a pretty huge difference.

That's because they've literally only upped the resolution, but left all other aspects in dust. Also the reason why most older onboards seem to have better picture quality, despite the lower source res.

Not sure if I agree with that. Last year I watched some 1080-50fps races which looked great.

Are you talking about onboards shots? The broadcast itself looks great (other than some camera placement and zoom overuse.) My complaint is the youtube-quality onboard cameras.

[Andres125sx]

I wonder what´s the size of your TVs, because 4K is only worth for VERY big screens

Also, people usually focus on resolution, when bitrate may be a lot more important, specially for broadcasting as that´s what they reduce drastically, reducing picture quality

The only real HD we can see is that from a pro camera recorded by ourselves or from a Blu-Ray, any other HD picture may be HD but compressed to a point it actually does not look like HD.

Compare a Blu-Ray with a TV signal suposedly HD, the difference is huge, and both are HD.


As a note, there´s a trick to upload videos to Youtube. Even if they´re HD, upscale it to 4K. The picture will be the same (no improvement) but since YT will recognize it as a 4K picture it will allow a higher bitrate so the video will look much better. Youtube limit bitrate, but that limit is different for each resolution, allowing a higher bitrate for higher resolutions, so upscaling the video means Youtube will compress your video less and it will look much better

That´s also the reason 4K videos on YT look better even if you´re watching on a HD display

[Hammer44]

That's because they've literally only upped the resolution, but left all other aspects in dust. Also the reason why most older onboards seem to have better picture quality, despite the lower source res.

Not sure if I agree with that. Last year I watched some 1080-50fps races which looked great.

On some tracks they get it right, on some others not so much.
Example. Check out 2017 pole lap provided by the FOM and compare it to 2011 lap, also provided by fom. 2011 has better quality, at least in my opinion.

2011
https://tinyurl.com/mdq8sth

2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mtjC9DozXs

edit.
After looking it at it more closely, 2011 has better colours while 2017 obviously has better res. Shame they couldn't combine the two.

They need to get rid of that 2017 onboard camera.

[ME4ME]

I don't think the 2011 onboard video-quality is better in any way compared to the 2017 video. However, the "oldschool" camera position ruins it, and focuses mainly on the cockpit area rather than anything in front. The surroundings are quite blurry.

I wasn't talking about onboards though, just coverage in general. Last weekend I watched using a streaming service at 1080p 25fps at a bitrate of about 8000 kb/s. I thought it looked great.