It's fixed now and we're on to WRC2 cars, nice experience overall.Quote:
Originally Posted by satnav
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It's fixed now and we're on to WRC2 cars, nice experience overall.Quote:
Originally Posted by satnav
And there it went again?
yeah it's gone
After a break of not really following the rallies on WRC+, I've been watching the last few nearly from start to finish. And I'd like to complain. Ok, Molly doing the service park bits was a nice breeze of fresh air. But the commentary team needs a serious shake up. Most of the time it feels so generic that they might as well be comparing washing powder. Only Porter can not carry it. Often it feels like they know as little as the viewer who doesn't follow anything else besides the All Live.
When All Live started, it felt like there was ambition. Now it just feels like 9 to 5 job and no ambition.
They need more guys like Østberg - people with recent experience of how everything works, and enjoy explaining in great detail. Porter's knowledge (like Brundle in F1) is decades old and of ever diminishing relevance. I also feel like they're wasting Seb Marshall on these stage ends. All he can do is ask the same generic questions Molly used to ask, and his experience doesn't help here. At least in co-comms, he would be able to share his experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Franky
I subscribed for a month and watched bits of Sardinia and some Safari while I was there. Didn’t bother to renew and can’t see why I ever would again.
I've always found it awkward that the stage end reporter can't converse naturally with the commentary team. "Let's hope Molly asks him about a potential issue", she asks about conditions, then 3 minutes later, "Whatsapp from Molly, says she could smell oil".
Is that down to delay? They can't say "Hey Molly, looks like an engine issue", "Yes let's find out, and I can smell oil" ?
Naturally there is a delay. What you have seen on All live in reality happened many, many seconds ago. Delay is because of transmission and also live is delayed to allow director to switch in time to correct camera or cut the stream from camera in case something bad happen (like Suninen in Portugal). So in fact what you can see happened +- 30 seconds ago...Quote:
Originally Posted by WRCStan
With 4G connection in the woods we counted almost 2 min of delay on stageside.Quote:
Originally Posted by PLuto
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Amen!Quote:
Originally Posted by Franky
I only have wrc plus cause of live maps.
Haven’t watched alllive since 2021 when Go3 and TV3 Sport channel got the rights and started to broadcast. Much better and more fun feed
They really need new commentators for alllive
A broadcast delay makes perfect sense. A production delay does not. The director is not saying "run the graphics, and Paul you talk about this in 30 seconds time."Quote:
Originally Posted by PLuto
Another issue is the ERC events now being covered by the same people and commentators. It all getting much too samey.
Previously we had Chris Rawes who did it with Julian Porter and they were great on radio and the odd live YT stage and I miss that different way and feel.
Yes more like 2 min from my experience too.Quote:
Originally Posted by cali
I've thought about this a lot over the last couple of months / events. Is WRC All Live really worth it?
How many people actually sit and watch it for the whole weekend? As in, every second it's online?
How many people find out what they need to find out about an event from it (as opposed to on social media)?
How much of what is being broadcast is truly interesting, breathtaking, spectacular stuff (as a proportion of the time it's on-air)?
How much do people enjoy seeing and hearing the same talking heads saying basically the same things event after event?
Is it really worth forcing events to follow an itinerary and timetable that suits being 'All Live', to the detriment of practically every person actually involved in the event? Are so many people watching it that it makes sense for crews to be in their cars for 12-14 hours some days just to do around 120 competitive km? That's before we even speak about the utterly mental hours some mechanics / engineers have to do...
Does watching hours of (mostly) pretty ordinary onboard footage with hardly anything happening, Julian Porter chatting over the top of it, and 1/100 stage end 'interviews' being of any interest at all, give us any more than rally radio and an hourly highlights / catch-up show would do?
Don't get me wrong. I like it, and I'm sad enough to have it running from dawn til dusk during events, regardless of my apathy toward the commentary team. I can understand the value it has for teams too, to be able to see in real time how their cars / crews are performing.
But... is what we have in 2022 any better than in 2012, or 2002, or even 1992?
And now imagine that all of this is being produced for ERC as well. That is overkill IMHO. And just like you, I have All Live running basically all day on my TV.
You said it all
Think you answered your own question in the penultimate paragraph!Quote:
Originally Posted by ouvreur
But I guess a lot of people don't watch it live - but sit down when they feel like it and select what they want to watch. Horses for courses.
I am one of those who try to have WRC+ in the background as long as possible during the rally days. But after watching Estonia, just partly, i could not get out of the feeling that it all starts to look boring, predictable, even artificial. I also think thag WRC+ is annoying since day one, e.g. results and driver comments I am checking only via E-Wrc app.
During last ERC rounds, in the service area I have heard many times, that rally radio was better than All Live...Quote:
Originally Posted by Fast Eddie WRC
What's to be gained from scrapping it? Itineraries were always long days for crews and mechanics, isn't that part of the game? And what's really different? Top 15 cars don't overlap?Quote:
Originally Posted by ouvreur
Consider this: alllive is not the flagship entertainment package we think of it. The cameras and reporters are there anyway to gather everything for the purpose of highlights and TV live stages, and those on the car are for stewards and safety surveillance in Rally HQ. It's their jobs to stay on top of everything even without all live, so broadcasting live is squeezing extra value, is easy and monetisable.
It was never aimed at being watched all the way through from start to finish by subscribers, there's no prizes for doing that and there are off buttons. So if you're asking yourself "why am I watching?", turn it off once in a while maybe? Typically, rallies get less entertaining as it progresses, so cut Sunday's stages out for a start and catch up on the powerstage. That once-in-fifty-rallies event where the rally leader bins it by mistake on a Sunday really ain't worth it to say you saw it LIVE! Second step is go further when there isn't a race on, stick just to the live TV stages on Saturday, then maybe also Friday. Suddenly the commentators and stage ends aren't repetitive but informative.
I didn't bother with Saturday at all for Estonia after gauging from the Friday leaderboard, scrolled though the chat here to see if there was much to catch up on. No, lol. But you betcha though, when a Loeb v Ogier at Monte comes along you'll be wishing you could see it (all) instead of listening to a chap on the radio speculating and hypothesising.
When CDs came along vinyl started to die off then streaming came along and music was available 24/7 without having to clean the record or put the disc in the machine. Now vinyl is in big demand again for the warmth of the sound and yes a bit of nostalgia for some.
Rallying for me is best consumed like vinyl, you have to make an effort and then sit back and enjoy the best bits. I dont need splits to peak my interest I'm happy to wait and watch a highlights report as long as it was like back in the day when filmed by BHP and fronted by Mark James and not Desborough/BeccsyWeksy. I'm usually out watching/taking part in motorsport on a weekend so havent got time to sit by the computer and just see in car videos.
I bet you can't tell me one driver or team manager in the ERC service park who has said that.Quote:
Originally Posted by PLuto
TV exposure or radio coverage? Mmmmm......
'Long days' in the 'good old days' at least meant decent mileage. Now we've got the 'clover leaf' format (despite which, we're seeing an increasing number of events not running midday services on some days), all double-used stages, long delays (especially on gravel rallies with 3 or 4 minute gaps) between one stage finishing and another starting for Rally1 cars, and taking 12 hours to cover 120 competitive km. All to suit an All Live format. Do away with that, and how much more interesting could itineraries be? How many more opportunities for interesting things to happen?Quote:
Originally Posted by WRCStan
So, let the stage-side cameras continue to serve that purpose. No problem for me. It's not like the shots we get from them are ever really that interesting / capture anything dramatic happening. You've seen one Rally1 car sliding around a medium-speed corner, you've seen them all. Most interesting external footage comes from 'fan cam' on social media. Let the onboard cameras continue to be broadcast live. Absolutely fine. But manipulating itineraries and event formats to be able to show that stuff live just does not make sense to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by WRCStan
I'm not asking myself that. I don't sit glued to the screen all weekend, often it's just on in the background, but I like to know what's going on, and in the now-absence of rally radio, it's the only option. What I'm asking is, does it offer us - and indeed the sport - anything that justifies the impact broadcasting All Live has on itineraries?Quote:
Originally Posted by WRCStan
If your suggestion to make something (that only takes place once a month) seem more interesting is for me to just consume less of it, that tells me there's an issue with some part of the product, not my ability to feel excited by things...
We get the speculating and hypothesising (more often than not incorrectly) with All Live anyway!Quote:
Originally Posted by WRCStan
By all means, keep Sunday as an 'all live' day. That's the day the greater number of people have completely free anyway, and generally it needs to be a shorter day to enable teams to pack up. But I'll ask again - what does the sport gain from having Fridays and Saturdays broadcast live in their entirety, that justifies the dull, over-long itineraries?
I think you're using AllLive as a scapegoat here for why rallies don't look like they were 30,40,50 years ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by ouvreur
All Live came out like 15 years after clover leaf format. And the only thing All Live has dictated for event itineraries is that stages don't overlap and that there can be only four normal stages in a loop. I remember in 2017 rallies like Sardegna or Catalunya (especially the gravel stages) were like this. First stage at 10 AM, second stage at 10:45, third stage at 11:30. It's all over in two hours for the top drivers. Then you wait for five hours for the service break and then again two intense hours. I think it's a lot better now with the stages spread out.
I personally love to follow every moment of All Live, maybe even a bit too much. I get a terrible FOMO if I miss out a stage and just read the results. It feels like always all the drama happens when I'm not watching live. But it's difficult to find the time and sometimes I just have to make a compromise with myself. At least All Live can be paused and buffered, radio could be not.
As for rallies being longer, nowadays I just get people complaining that nothing is happening after Saturday.
The most terrible duo is Becs + Ben. I can assure watching live footage in a pub with random viewer commenting would be more exciting. Sorry to say, but they know shit. They say what they see, like literally. Becs is in this for years and she doesn't know basics.
She's there twenty years and all we hear is, 'they finished the stage for us' and reading times that we can know on the screen. Another thing that grinds my gears, is that they try to sugar coat everything, someone has been making mistakes for 4 rallies in a row: "he's been a bit unlucky" or my favourite: "title race not over yet?" when Thierry has literally yet to won a rally this year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Portimao
There is absolutely no way this can be true. C'mon...Quote:
Originally Posted by PLuto
Not every driver wants/needs exposure, and it sounds reasonable that somebody might not want to pay huge entry fees just to be put in the position of providing value to somebody else's profits for no reward.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lancia Stratos
I don't think there's a problem with the people in the first place, but the style of commentary they use. And then we can ask whether that's their personal decision or something that has been ordered from above. Remember how Colin Clark said he wanted to go to Dirtfish to be more free to voice his opinions. Maybe this very polite, void of jargon style of commentary is asked by the WRC Promoter? Me as a rally geek would prefer a more analytic style, more rally professionalism, and that's what I get when there is a driver co-commentating.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eli
As far as I know Colin was basically kicked out of WRC+.Quote:
Originally Posted by AnttiL
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As somebody already said, a lot of the people involved have been there since the ISC/North One era - so approx 20 years. And it shows....it's stale, tired and needs a massive refresh. One wonders just how much input Red Bull have; watch any of their output (MTB World Cup, Hard Enduro, etc) and it's far better than what we're seeing in the WRC. I do think there are far too many previous era (North One) people involved in the coverage.
If anyone else is bothered with this:
I sent an email to wrc + support about Rally winner: Kalle Rovanperä (f.ex) being displayed on top of stage selection in all live.
This has ruined many rallies for me now. I often don't have time to watch live, but watch a stage or 5 when I can and perhaps finish watching a rally a week later. I want to see all the stages still and am able to keep spoilers away, except this one. Knowing the winner already takes the excitement away and I then don't bother watching..
Would appreciate if anyone else could send a mail about this too! Maybe they can remove this if enough ask for it
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I doubt they read the emails. Or to be honest, I believe they read them and they ignore them. They just do not care.
We'll see! They've listened to things in the past. Definitely not going to sit back continuing to be annoyed by this without at least trying to ask about this firstQuote:
Originally Posted by bomber21
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The only problem is if they did a big refresh they would probably make it even worse and alienate the existing (older) fans with some annoying young trendy types.Quote:
Originally Posted by AndyRAC
In what way is the Red Bull coverage of other sports better ?
The Flying Finns documentary made by YLE in Finland is now available on WRC+ with English subtitles. It was shown on YLE during the week of Rally Finland and I think it's a really nice modern documentary about Finnish rallying. Not going through every bit of history in chronological order, but taking interesting topics and drivers and focusing on them in depth. And with lots of nice archive footage.
He was not. There were issues at the time with budgets for all staff, from camera men to commentators, to producers and the like.Quote:
Originally Posted by cali
He received a better offer else where and moved on.
Re Becs Williams... it is a bit weird that this Male-dominated sport (competitor-wise) has had a female main commentator all this time (and one who has zero experience of driving or co-driving). Other sports dont even do this now, even in this 2022 woke, PC, maximum equality era.
Moving her on would be the biggest and simplest re-fresh WRC+ could do.
We can always debate and discuss level of professionalism of the commentator but gender does not make any difference.