F1 OTT service - where will it be available?

[Just_a_fan]

They won't listen. They didn't buy the contract from Bernie in order to sell just F1 access. They bought it in order to force people to buy the whole package. You want F1? Then pay for all of the other stuff you already get elsewhere, plus the other sports stuff that you don't want. F1, like football, isn't about them servicing the fans, it's about handcuffing those fans to whole packages that make Sky money.

[Juzh]

I just hope it actually comes out ahead of spanish gp. But even then, odds of a smooth launch are not very good imo.

[Fulcrum]

Is there any way at all to engage with this platform if you are domiciled in a country without access rights?

As I understand it, your credit card has to be issued and/or associated with a country that has access rights. If you could produce a card with said details, I assume a VPN would work? Or are their additional protections in place?

[r101]

Is there any way at all to engage with this platform if you are domiciled in a country without access rights?

As I understand it, your credit card has to be issued and/or associated with a country that has access rights. If you could produce a card with said details, I assume a VPN would work? Or are their additional protections in place?

We should know more when the service starts.

There is more than one way to do the VPN, and also more than one way to protect your product. By this I mean that service could be protected from popular VPN providers, or could just be 'provisionally' protected and you could access it via anything other than plain internet.

[MtthsMlw]

Is there any way at all to engage with this platform if you are domiciled in a country without access rights?

As I understand it, your credit card has to be issued and/or associated with a country that has access rights. If you could produce a card with said details, I assume a VPN would work? Or are their additional protections in place?

We should know more when the service starts.

There is more than one way to do the VPN, and also more than one way to protect your product. By this I mean that service could be protected from popular VPN providers, or could just be 'provisionally' protected and you could access it via anything other than plain internet.

They recently updated their subscription terms in regards to VPN. It says they may end the contract for the Services at any time without refunding or compensating you [...] if you use stuff like VPN.

[r101]

Is there any way at all to engage with this platform if you are domiciled in a country without access rights?

As I understand it, your credit card has to be issued and/or associated with a country that has access rights. If you could produce a card with said details, I assume a VPN would work? Or are their additional protections in place?

We should know more when the service starts.

There is more than one way to do the VPN, and also more than one way to protect your product. By this I mean that service could be protected from popular VPN providers, or could just be 'provisionally' protected and you could access it via anything other than plain internet.

They recently updated their subscription terms in regards to VPN. It says they may end the contract for the Services at any time without refunding or compensating you [...] if you use stuff like VPN.

That means that they are legally washing their hands of it. Does not mean they will be active or passive in searching for VPNers. On the other hand, if you are doing something illegal, you should be aware that you can stay without your subscription (and that month-per-month payment is a better option).

[MtthsMlw]

https://f1tv.formula1.com/en/
It's live now but from what I heard it's quite buggy and not well optimised yet (as expected).

[Cuky]

I had just one problem when I tried to watch any of the first 3 races this season: sound.

Here in Croatia I can choose between FX, English, German, Italian and Spanish. FX gives me all the sounds that we hear in broadcasts, including trackside sounds and music from FOM at the start of the broadcast. But there are no commentators.

If I choose English, as it is the only language from those available that I understand, I get commentators from SkySports F1, but I don't get any other sound except them.

[gandharva]

https://f1tv.formula1.com/en/
It's live now but from what I heard it's quite buggy and not well optimised yet (as expected).

Streams from first races are running fine. Onboard streams are there too. FX sound option is great. If you choose any language stream, the background sound is way too low imho, but i will not use that option .

[Juzh]

https://f1tv.formula1.com/en/
It's live now but from what I heard it's quite buggy and not well optimised yet (as expected).

Streams from first races are running fine. Onboard streams are there too. FX sound option is great. If you choose any language stream, the background sound is way too low imho, but i will not use that option .

Onboard streams are a joke in terms of playback smoothness. They lag and chop back and forwards all the time, which is strange because so far this kind of issues have not been seen. What's even more perplexing is the same onboard footage in the race replays is butter smooth.

I'm not sure what's going on there

[zeph]

I just got an email encouraging me to sign up for F1 TV Pro, for $4.29 per race. I had hoped for $3 per race, but it could be worse.

edit:

But the signup page actually says $24.29 per year, or $2.99 per month.

[SoCalWJS]

Anybody know who the Broadcast Team is for the Live/Streaming coverage? Is it just the Sky Announcers?

[godlameroso]

It's not taking my money, I wish it did, but at the same time I'm willing to wait until they get the bugs out. Still to be able to swap onboards at will, patience.

[zeph]

The regular package at $24.29 it is much more affordable than I thought it would be. I really thought the baseline would be $60 p/y, $5 p/m.

Pleasantly surprised, and I will sign up, even though they’re broadcasting everything without commercials on ESPN now.

So far I like what Liberty Media is doing!

[bill shoe]

I just signed up.

I've been an F1 fan since ~ 1985, long before I could drive, and long before F1 was cool. I live in the U.S., so not really lots of mainstream media access to Formula One, especially before ~ 2005. Over the years, I've missed many races completely. I've been a poor college student. I've been a young Engineer with a family and no disposable income, not even enough for basic cable TV. I remember times when I didn't know who won the race or even the championship until my Autoweek arrived in the mail. I was a big Senna fan and didn't know he won his first championship until I got Nigel Roebuck's race report in the back of the old-school Autoweek magazine the following Thursday. I've watched races at sports bars with others and by myself. I've invited myself into other people's houses. I've snuck into restaurants and hotels after business hours. I've driven an old rusty Dodge Neon to the local Ferrari Club's F1 watch parties. I've had great times joining up with watch parties in Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas. Great people all. But I've never had reliable access to live video images of the action.

Now I paid $90 for a year of access. Everything live and in high definition. No waiting for the "cable TV guy" to show up, sweat a lot, and install some magical device to enable my cable. I paid money directly to F1 and It Works.

The clouds have parted, the sun has come shining through and all of a sudden, without much effort, I am a fan with access. Good access.

Life gets better. Bernie go to hell.