[Joe Pineapples]

Just wondered if the people who paid sky the £12 to watch the Australian GP, thought it was worth it.

I might try it myself (as a one off) in a few months time (when hopefully i'll have a faster digibox), and i was mainly interested in feedback onthe following

1 how seemless was the switching to different camera views, and what sort of time lag was involved.

2 could you use the colour buttons as 'hot' keys, or did you have to use a menu system.

3 how many annoying graphics were on the screen during the race - the stuff sky like to spash everywhere.

cheers

Dean

[Garrett]

Please do not take the following personal but is a view on pay for view:
What can I say paying £12 for any event on TV only encourages them to make more and more events pay for view, pricing a lot of viewer out of watching, as some thing they would get free on terrestrial, or should be in with there sports channel subscription. When I started watching satellite the sports channel was in with the standard sub, then it went separate, now you have to pay £12 for some events. Were will it end. Also it prices the BBC and ITV out of bidding for them.

[encaser]

Agree with Garrett strongly. I watched the boxing on ITV last night and sat there thinking somethings not quite right here, until it dawned on me that I hadn't had to make a call and pay a rediculous price.

[Lex]

Personally I think the ITV coverage is excellent! So I am not really tempted by this - I watched the preview show on SkySports One and was not very impreesed really, it seemed quite limited - the whole thing is laid out exactly like Sky News Active with 8 different screens and you just pick whichever one you want, however you are still limited by what is on offer: eg You can't really choose your own onboard camera, you can only choose to watch the onboard camera they are featuring at that moment if you know what I mean.

I also agree that pay per view is outrageous - It never ends> pay £12 for SkySports1 for the football > then they put the Internationals/FACUP on SkySports2 > pay extra £4 for SS2 > then they put UEFACUP on SkySports Extra! Then on top of that they charge more for Premiership Season ticket, and then you are still only halfway there cos you don't have the ITVSportsChannel!!!

And whilst we are on the subject.. why do they charge £8 pounds per premiership match on the subscription channel?!! I mean £3 (same as a film) and we might be interested, but £8 is way too much!!
I wonder if many people are buying them?


Anyway, my rant is over! - sorry about that

[gringottsdirect]

Deansimm, paid £12, well worth it, lucky we were awake to watch live with the interactive, next door neighbour and his wife felt agrieved the only benefit when watching the mid-morning replay was the lack of adverts. Sky didn't make it clear this would be the case, maybe they will come into their own for races in our time zone.
Damon Hill, Peter Windsor and John Watson with Ben Edwards commentary was good, although Martin Brundle was worth watching a tivo ITV showing afterwards. Actually, this was probably the best ITV coverage in my memory, certainly seemed fewer adverts and more in-car footage, I know this is under control of the host broadcaster, but interesting none the less.
Will definitely be buying next race week-end, happy to have the extra coverage, mind you we are paying £4 more than our Italian friends for slightly less features.
Those who feel they don't want to pay can make their own choice, if you do try it I am sure you will think it worth it.

[Joe Pineapples]

thanks for the reply gringottsdirect

while i totally agree with the others that at £12 per race, the service is a complete rip-off, i still might try it as a one-off (just for the novelty value i think)

I also agree with you about the ITV coverage - it did seem to be one of the better ones i've seen. Wether this is just coincedence, or they tried to improve it, in light of the new competition from sky, we shall see.

Dean