WRC moves to Motors TV

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Originally Posted by Simmi

Motorsport News interviewed MotorsTV's head of programming this week and he talks about the direction Motors will take with their new show.

The artcle says Frederic Viger has "innovative ideas" about how to present the rally. The only idea I saw was his complete fetish with onboards. He says "the focus for us will be onboard cameras - so fans can pretend they are driving the cars".

He goes on to say they already have the intro to their first show sorted out. Graphics of the stages, an interview with Seb and then straight into about eight minutes of onboard footage of Loeb. I kid you not that is his plan.

He is directly quoted as saying "On-board is really what people want to see."

The show is for hardcore rally fans but come on! Who is this imaginery mass of people who want on-board footage? I know we have a few real onboard fans on the forum but surely the average fan would like them to use their 45mins to expand on the stories of the day, show the S-WRC etc and not just focus on the leading 4 drivers as has been the case for the past few years.

How about just bog standard shots of the cars going round corners! What ever happened to that? Not cameras mounted in the dirt, not cameras angled against a mirror to see a reflection of a passing car. Don't zoom in on the left rear wheel as the car goes round a corner! Just go back to basics.

With each of these cameras they could have more action shots instead of completely wasting them on some arty bollocks. Is it so difficult to just collect and air raw footage of cars in stages?

I'm going to wait until the first show to make a better judgement but to me Motors are making all the wrong noises. What does anyone else think about the onboards? Was I washing my hair when it got decided they were suddenly the best part of rally coverage?

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+1 :up:

I don't mind seeing a bit of onbaord, usually on the high speed stuff it shows how much a driver is trying. The thing is that I watch rallying from outside the car so that's what I want to see on the telly. The worst ones are when they just show the driver, even to a hardcore fan it's prett much just a picture of someone turning a wheel. In truth the movement towards onboard cameras is just an excuse for laziness and cost cutting so that they don't need as many people stood about with cameras. It sucks.

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Originally Posted by bluuford

When on-board is a live, then it is a good thing:-) Otherwise, too much is boring for sure.

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Agree, but combined in a split picture with outside pictures where they are available and inboard is ok, but too much inboard is not good. They can also try out different positions on inboard cameras - to see if they can be innovative also here !

Also telemetry can be used to a larger extent, and can be developed. Look to F1 and US motorsport.

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Originally Posted by Simmi

He is directly quoted as saying "On-board is really what people want to see."

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I wonder what he based this statement on.

I think onboards are interesting, although I enjoy them less with the current crop of cars, but rallying is a sport that is made for exterior shots. Having said that, live onboards are great to watch, but please combine it with more than enough outside footage (something I thought was a bit lacking on the Monte coverage at times).

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Originally Posted by Simmi

How about just bog standard shots of the cars going round corners! What ever happened to that? Not cameras mounted in the dirt, not cameras angled against a mirror to see a reflection of a passing car. Don't zoom in on the left rear wheel as the car goes round a corner! Just go back to basics.

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I see no harm in experimenting with different angles, but do so with a point! Yes, mirror shots or things related to that are generally terrible, but including the enviroment with the action is quite interesting in my opinion. After all, it's man vs the elements. Still, basic shots of - car going around the corner while camera follows - should be the norm.

Agree with the above, they are surely doing it just to keep it cheap for them rather than providing a proper service. Whilst I do watch long onboard clips on occasion, I get bored after a while. Especially with the poor quality that we've had when the cameras are shaking, or over exposed, or shows mainly the back of the seats in the C4, not good.

Having said that I probably only watched 5-6 events coverage last year on Dave so I really don't mind just switching off if the coverage isn't doing it for me.

The coverage just doesn't have the wow factor I used to get from it, I remember watching Finland in 2003 and thought that I just HAD to get there the next year. And I did. Nothing's come close since, apart from the Azores coverage last year.

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Originally Posted by Sulland

Agree, but combined in a split picture with outside pictures where they are available and inboard is ok, but too much inboard is not good. They can also try out different positions on inboard cameras - to see if they can be innovative also here !

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I think they have tried every conceivable angle for onboards. Each one seems to be worst than the next. A shot from behind looking at the rear wing/dust etc. It's a fine idea in theory but after about 5 seconds you get bored. Unless you put the camera behind the drivers or on the front splitter everything else seems a bit numb.

I agree with people that onboard is a great live tool - as witnessed with the Meeke off on the Monte - but for a pre-packaged highlights show it just bores me. Maybe if they did away with all their driver-expression cams and footwell cams they might have money to put one more decent camera man out on the stages to capture a bit of proper action.

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Originally Posted by Simmi

I think they have tried every conceivable angle for onboards. Each one seems to be worst than the next. A shot from behind looking at the rear wing/dust etc. It's a fine idea in theory but after about 5 seconds you get bored. Unless you put the camera behind the drivers or on the front splitter everything else seems a bit numb.

I agree with people that onboard is a great live tool - as witnessed with the Meeke off on the Monte - but for a pre-packaged highlights show it just bores me. Maybe if they did away with all their driver-expression cams and footwell cams they might have money to put one more decent camera man out on the stages to capture a bit of proper action.

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The worst angle is the one looking back at the driver twiddling the wheel whilst the co-driver reads the notes. I know what that looks like.... I want to know what it looks like to see the road coming towards you at 100 mph!

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Originally Posted by Larry_Japan

There will be Dave highlights. Not wasting time with crap "celebs" either... interesting chat about it here: http://bit.ly/cmOitO chopper-cam is back!?

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Thanks for this. Good to hear Neil's thoughts on it all. He is a genuine rally fan at the end of the day. It remains to be seen how much North One will actually improve the coverage. The Heli-Cam running on every round is HUGE for coverage and is essential IMO.

It just seems like for the past few years the ISC hasn't really taken any pride in their coverage. Eurosport upping the ante might hopefully force them into this. And more of a budget is great news if true. It's just a shame MotorsTV don't seem to have a clue.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

The worst angle is the one looking back at the driver twiddling the wheel whilst the co-driver reads the notes. I know what that looks like.... I want to know what it looks like to see the road coming towards you at 100 mph!

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It's incredible they still keep using this shot. They have got into such a lazy routinized editing process that it goes in no matter what.

As for in-stage cameras they could also do other things like instead of using two cameras to cover a stage start they could move one or both of these into the stage to get some action shots. Everything they do should add up to awe-inspiring not yawn-inspiring.

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Originally Posted by Simmi

It's incredible they still keep using this shot. They have got into such a lazy routinized editing process that it goes in no matter what.

As for in-stage cameras they could also do other things like instead of using two cameras to cover a stage start they could move one or both of these into the stage to get some action shots. Everything they do should add up to awe-inspiring not yawn-inspiring.

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The thing that baffles me is that coverage was better 10 years ago. Remember the old BBC highlights?? They were miles ahead of what North One/ISC have been doing recently. Is Paul King still doing the voice-overs? Not more of the faux Live commentary....
As regard the in car cameras, sometimes they have them so low you can't see much out of the windscreen, so there are no use at all.

Looks like someone is forgetting that North One is in fully power since January 1, 2010. Just a month.

What do u want in a couple of days? Let them work... I know from very close ppl to North One Sports that they're already working on live stages for 2011, but most probably the latest rounds of this year's WRC (as "tests").

;) :s mokin: