Is it too much to ask of FOM's trillion dollar budget to at least install onboard cameras on ALL of the cars? The next gen cameras are fantastic even on a old tele!

Along those lines, does anyone have info on whether or not we'll see true HD next year from FOM?

All cars do carry OnBoard camera's. They all have to carry the T-Cam on the roll-bar which houses 1 forward & 1 rear facing camera.

FOM can only have 9 active OnBoard's at any single time.

They seem to have 8 or 9 of the newer HQ-OnBoard's & I guess they will get more & more of those in the next months. These units are pretty expensive so I guess there buying newer one's as & when there able.


As to HD, Id say its highly likely but not totally certain for next year.

From what I have heard, Abu Dhabi will be the test race for HD broadcasting, and 2010 will be fully broadcasted in HD. However, I do not believe that FOM has confirmed that yet.

stefmeister - 03 October 2009 10:21 AM

All cars do carry OnBoard camera's. They all have to carry the T-Cam on the roll-bar which houses 1 forward & 1 rear facing camera.

FOM can only have 9 active OnBoard's at any single time.

They seem to have 8 or 9 of the newer HQ-OnBoard's & I guess they will get more & more of those in the next months. These units are pretty expensive so I guess there buying newer one's as & when there able.


As to HD, Id say its highly likely but not totally certain for next year.

Hi Stef,

Interesting. I wonder what the limitation is in having only 9 active onboards “at any single time”, when each car has one onboard. At track broadcast bandwidth, network switching, recorders, etc.? (e.g. my TV can have only two picture in pictures, even though I have 900 channels to pick from).

Is this just an FOM thing, for broadcasting purposes? I kind of assumed that the FIA had access to video on all cars, at all times, during the event – in order to review/settle disputes. Are you saying that isn’t possible?

Maybe there are examples where the FIA had no video on certain incidents.

ipso - 03 October 2009 02:18 PM

I wonder what the limitation is in having only 9 active onboards “at any single time”, when each car has one onboard.

I believe its due to the bandwidth limitations of the Gigawave digital reception system they use for the OnBoard feeds.

There are similar limitations with all series that carry Live OnBoard camera's.

Before they started using the current Digital reception system they actually had less OnBoard feeds avaliable to them. With the old Helecopter Link I believ ethey only had 4 feeds avaliable at any single time.

ipso - 03 October 2009 02:18 PM

I kind of assumed that the FIA had access to video on all cars, at all times, during the event – in order to review/settle disputes. Are you saying that isn’t possible?

Maybe there are examples where the FIA had no video on certain incidents.

They don't have footage avaliable from all cars, If an OnBoard camera isn't one of the 9 active then there is no footage been recorded from it.

There has certainly been times when accidents have been missed by the Trackside & OnBoard TV camera's & if that happens the FIA will often look to CCTV or Amateur footage to try & solve them.

If no video footage at all is avaliable they will go by Telemetry & statements from onlookers who witnessed the incident.



I actually have a shot of the OnBoard camera section of the FOM TV Centre:


On the Left & Right you see the 9 active units on 9 individual screens & in the centre is 1 screen with all 9 active units as a mosaic.

stefmeister - 03 October 2009 03:25 PM

ipso - 03 October 2009 02:18 PM

I wonder what the limitation is in having only 9 active onboards “at any single time”, when each car has one onboard.

I believe its due to the bandwidth limitations of the Gigawave digital reception system they use for the OnBoard feeds.

There are similar limitations with all series that carry Live OnBoard camera's.

Before they started using the current Digital reception system they actually had less OnBoard feeds avaliable to them. With the old Helecopter Link I believ ethey only had 4 feeds avaliable at any single time.

ipso - 03 October 2009 02:18 PM

I kind of assumed that the FIA had access to video on all cars, at all times, during the event – in order to review/settle disputes. Are you saying that isn’t possible?

Maybe there are examples where the FIA had no video on certain incidents.

They don't have footage avaliable from all cars, If an OnBoard camera isn't one of the 9 active then there is no footage been recorded from it.

There has certainly been times when accidents have been missed by the Trackside & OnBoard TV camera's & if that happens the FIA will often look to CCTV or Amateur footage to try & solve them.

If no video footage at all is avaliable they will go by Telemetry & statements from onlookers who witnessed the incident.



I actually have a shot of the OnBoard camera section of the FOM TV Centre:


On the Left & Right you see the 9 active units on 9 individual screens & in the centre is 1 screen with all 9 active units as a mosaic.

Nice takedown! Thanks.

I wonder: is the “FOM TV Center” in a rolling truck, onsite for races? I presume stewards and FIA officials need local immediate access – and that they have to bring the equipment to each race.

I wonder how many people Speed has on the ground, and supporting equipment. I’d really like to see a special showing all the moving parts of the broadcast production. Or maybe that is taboo in the industry – like a magician explaining how rinky-dink their tricks actually are.

What is real HD?

Blub - 03 October 2009 05:13 PM

What is real HD?

Any resolution of 1280x720 pixels (720p) or 1920x1080(1080i/1080p). These two resolutions are the most common, but it is in general any resolution higher than standard 480p video. Also most "real HD" feeds are 1080i at the moment, but in the future they will be 1080p (Blu-Ray Quality).

As someone who has to deal with H264 and 480i and 720p and 1080i/p and 2k and 4k and all the various codecs all the time I have good beginning understanding of what HD is.

What I don't understand is what is the flip side of real HD? I see Speed in HD, it is much better then SD, but, it seems someone sees it as not real HD, what is it?

speed's f1 coverage is upscaled sd.

Blub - 03 October 2009 05:35 PM

As someone who has to deal with H264 and 480i and 720p and 1080i/p and 2k and 4k and all the various codecs all the time I have good beginning understanding of what HD is.

What I don't understand is what is the flip side of real HD? I see Speed in HD, it is much better then SD, but, it seems someone sees it as not real HD, what is it?

Real HD matters as long as you plan on watching on anything bigger than a 32" tv.