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Posts Tagged ‘Formula One’

TV programming doesn’t get any better than want will be on offer this week. The start of the Formula One marks the beginning of grand viewership. Destined to start on 17th, which is just two days away, F1 is just awesome, with our country well represented by racing greats. This comes hot on the heels of a frustrating week in which all the English teams were bundled out of the Champions league. However before you get all excited, before the action starts this Sunday, you can settle in for something more subtle this Friday.

On Dave ja vu starting from 5:00 pm for a whole one hour you have an opportunity to catch the action in Top Gear. Jenson Button, a great British racing driver will be taking on the F1 Challenge.  Richard Hammond will also be gracing your screens as he test drives the Noble M15 supercar prototype. This is a sure way to wet your test buds as you wait for real action come Sunday. All the same you can flip through the channels to see what else is being televised. Many of the local channels will be showing the latest Formula One news, highlights and previews right through the weekend.

Come Saturday you may wish to break away from the F1 fever. Showing on BBC One starting at 9:40 pm – 10:10pm will be an intriguing episode in the ever entertaining Mrs Brown’s Boys series. In this episode Agnes is upset by Trevor’s decision to work for a mission project somewhere in Africa. She makes a decision to remind him of his loving family in Ireland by throwing him an unforgettable send-off party. Saturday is a great day for the family. If this program does not keep you hooked then an episode from the Spiral 4: State of Terror will keep you edged to your seat.

The program will be on air from 10:00 pm. It is a dramatic conclusion to the series with the police catching on with the likes of Thomas Riffaut and his gang. But the conflict in the police unit leaves some loose ends.

Sunday is the big day, the 2013 FIA Formula One World Championship gets under way officially at the Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia at 2:00 am (ET). There will be major surprises in the first day, next in line will be the Malaysian Grand Prix on the 24^th starting at 4:00 am (ET).

A hearty laugh later in the day should ease your nerves. The big bang theory on Channel 4 will be running from 12:30pm and it will surely leave you in stitches. Leonard and Sheldon’s flat is burgled and they are forced to work on a state of the art security system.

Monday is often very slow. After work you can settle-in, in your couch to unwind as you watch the amazing university students outdo each other in the never wrecking University Challenge program, on BBC Two at 8:00pm. It is the quarters and the competition is very stiff. Jeremy Paxman asks the questions. Tuesday as you begin to brace yourself for the weekend, E4 at 9:00pm will be giving you something to prepare for F1 action on Sunday. Rude Tube: Ultimate Stunts will show case some of the most audacious stunts available on the Internet.

On Wednesday and the week is almost over, on BBC One at 9:00 pm a new series will be on air. The series is known as The Syndicate in which five hospital workers have their numbers come up on a Euro lottery jackpot. Unfortunately one of them does not know what she did with the winning ticket.

Finally it is Thursday and you can start preparing for the weekend in earnest. On BCC Three at 9:00pm We’re Having a Baby will take you on a rollercoaster of emotions as young adults explore issues surrounding pregnancy and child birth in 21^st century Britain.

After Valencia’s Grand Prix two weeks ago Formula 1 has taken the spectacle to another level. People crashing, last lap overtaking moves, failed pit-stops and constant moments of audible ‘wow’s around the stadium, let’s hope that the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on Sunday is similar. With team-mates Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton looking to battle it out in front of the British fans and take on the current F1 championship leader Alonso, we could be in for a treat.

Of course, the Lotus and Caterham teams will want to do well at their home grand prix too so we could see ‘never-say-die’ overtaking moves, ultra quick pit stops and plenty of British Bulldog fight about the UK drivers. As the BBC always brings much more fluid and better coverage than other TV stations we’re going to be blessed with information from Friday’s testing – although you can listen live online, BBC Radio 5 Live and on the Red Button -, as well as Saturday’s qualifying which if it’s anything like Valencia’s qualifying then it’s going to be just as fun to watch as the race! – and of course, on Sunday 8^th July we have the race starting live at 12:55pm but the show starts on BBC One, One HD and Online at 12:05 for the build-up.

The race will last until 15:30pm, so it’ll be the perfect time to enjoy your Sunday Lunch after the race, and if you want to chat about the race then the forum is open for an hour at 15:30pm. Despite the Brits being confident about winning at Silverstone it’s Ferrari’s Massa and Alonso that are the most confident. Although the Ferrari is in dire need of an upgrade – as is Hamilton’s car – the Ferrari is very quick and with two extremely fast drivers anything is possible. The Prancing Horse is suited to the long sweeping corners of Silverstone and would only come unstuck in the tighter, complex section. However, 66% of the track is fast, high-speed corners that take it out of the drivers from the G forces and this is where we could see the rears of the Ferraris pull away towards the horizon.

Money will certainly be going on Sebastian Vettel, who retired from the European Gran Prix with a failed alternator, after dominating most of the race, and the Red Bull has been changed completely for Silverstone so we could see him launch to the front again. However, as always with the new style of qualifying it’s those flying laps that count in helping the drivers get race position on the grid for Sunday’s race.

Of course, most teams are going to announce that their cars are going to be the best but McLaren’s director Sam Michael thinks that their car will suit the high-speed nature of the Midlands-based track. Will top speeds reaching higher than other tracks and fast turns, as well as the driver’s on board ‘boost’ button we could see some tasty overtaking moves throughout the race and the McLarens will be the ones to watch, especially with Hamilton angry at being tagged on the final lap in Valencia which put him out of the race and the points.

We’ll have to wait and see what qualifying holds for the teams and that begins on Saturday at 12:00pm on BBC1, so don’t miss it! You can watch it live as always, though if you are in some crazy time zone don’t forget the whole thing is available at any time in the next 7 days. Also those of you with a SkyGo account can watch the Sky F1 abroad too, depending on your account type you will get full access to the multiviews as well. Identity Cloaker covers you for all your F1 TV abroad needs!

For those of you following the Formula One, and as I keep saying the BBC has by far the best coverage of every race, I have compiled the sessions times for you. All times are GMT+1,  i.e. they are the local start time back in the UK.

Friday: First practice 0855-1035, Radio 5 live sports extra and online.
Friday: Second practice 1255-1435 Radio 5 live sports extra and online.
Saturday: Third practice 0955-1105 Radio 5 live sports extra and online.
Saturday: Qualifying 1210-1415 BBC One, 5 live and online.
Sunday: Race coverage 1200-1535 BBC One, 5 live and online.
Sunday: F1 forum 1530-1630 online.
Sunday: Highlights 1900-2000 BBC Three
 

Remember you will only see the online page if you visit the BBC Sports website with Identity Cloaker already turned on, if you visit with your local IP they will not even show you the video box!

If you want a bit more vintage F1 action you can also check out Nico Rosburg's classic F1 choice, where you can see the 1985 South African Grand Prix in which Nico's father Keke competed. Again you are going to need to fire up Identity Cloaker in order to watch the vintage races as they are normally only available to those in the UK. Happy viewing!

Well what a treat the BBC have this week, as part of their ongoing series where current F1 drivers pick their favorite races from history we have all been given access to the 1979 French Grand Prix, a race famous not for who won rather who came second. Over the finals three laps the Renault of Rene Arnoux and Ferrari of Gilles Villeneuve fought wheel to wheel, passing and re-passing each other. Rarely do we see racing like that these days, though perhaps we are getting a glimpse of it at times this year with the new tyre situation. 

You can watch it at the BBC Sports F1 site, if you visit and you get this screen:

Then you are going to need to fire up your copy of Identity Cloaker, select the UK from the dropdown list of countries and click 'connect'. Then simply refresh the page (you may need to hold down <shift> and then click refresh) and you will no longer get the warning message.

I almost forgot it was a Grand Prix weekend, I was just checking the F1 news when I noticed first practice was already on! Normally I would be watching the live video stream supplied by the BBC however being a little busy right now I quickly headed over to the BBC iPlayer website and clicked over to the Radio 5 Live page, where they have complete audio commentary of the whole practice session. They provide this both live and of course time-shifted if you are a bit busy to listen live.

One great thing with listening is the fact you need almost no bandwidth for it to work, even here in Australia where sometimes you have issues watching the videos the radio option will always work. In fact it only needs 96kbps to work perfectly with Identity Cloaker! This is so small that it even works perfectly over 3G, so listening to iPlayer abroad is even easier than watching it.

Spanish Grand Prix Schedule:

Friday 20^th May 2011
1st Practice: 08:55 – 10:35 on BBC 5 Live Extra
2nd Practice: 12:55pm – 14:35 on BBC 5 Live Extra

Saturday 21^st May
3rd Practice: 09:55 on BBC 5 Live Extra
Qualifying: 13:00 on BBC 5 Live

Sunday 22^nd May
Race Coverage: 13:00 on BBC 5 Live

All times are British Summertime, which is GMT+1 (Or UTC+1 if you must be American/French!)

Now I don't normally bother watching UK TV while I am on holiday, after all it is supposed to be a vacation! However as many of you know I do like watching Formula One racing, and here in Thailand they are not showing the Formula One Turkish GP practice sessions.

However as always the BBC are showing this streamed live from their website, so as always I have opened up my trusty copy of Identity Cloaker, this time installed on my netbook (very low powered) and I am currently watching BBC iPlayer here in Thailand.

Now as some of you know Internet connections in Thailand are monitored, and whatever you do here is recorded. So using Identity Cloaker here also allows you to keep you connection secure, and bypass restrictions placed on some websites from being viewable here.

If you do want to watch iPlayer abroad here in Thailand then you need to disable the encryption while watching, it would seem just like in Australia connections which are encrypted are throttled.

Everything looked SO good when they announced they would be showing full practice and qualifying for the GP a few weeks ago here in Australia. Normally all we get on TV is a little bit of the qualifying and then the race, minus most of the buildup and analysis afterwards. For the Australian GP OneHD here in Australia showed everything! BUT. Now it seems we have gone back to normal for the Malaysian F1 GP and the only F1 on TV this weekend in Australia is the usual little bits.

Not if you have Identity Cloaker though!!!

Just like last year I have been able to watch the full practice sessions from the BBC website by using Identity Cloaker to get myself a UK IP address, check out the post from last year showing how to watch the Malaysian F1 GP from the BBC Sport Website.

The one downside of this is I now have much more of Eddie Jordan on my screen, not even Identity Cloaker can help with this problem!!!

For the race, if they don't show it in your country, you can also watch online via the SpeedTV website in America, however the BBC TV coverage is better (honest!).

Doing the rounds again is the news that the BBC will be launching a global iPlayer for those living outside the UK.

Great we can all cancel out subscriptions to Identity Cloaker!!! er…. Well… Probably not.

There are a number of things to consider, not least of which is that BBC Global iPlayer is not going to be free either. In fact given that the BBC has already stated that people will be willing to pay up to 10 pounds a show, that more than an entire months subscription to Identity Cloaker! There is also the simple fact that this will be a select service, there is NO way it will include all the content broadcast by the BBC and included on the proper iPlayer Website. Why? Well just consider F1 racing, they do not have (and never will have) the rights to broadcast this online internationally. Equally shows which the BBC do not directly own will require special permission to be broadcast, something they are unlikely to bother with.

So what will be on BBC Global iPlayer? Well lets take a guess that you will be getting Doctor Who, Top Gear and Eastenders for sure. However would you be willing to pay so much just to watch these shows?

At the moment there is no timeframe for the deployment of the Global iPlayer (past attempts have been blocked by other UK and European TV companies, and this may well happen again), it has however been stated it will be sometime in 2011. So right now if you want to watch BBC iPlayer abroad your best bet is still Identity Cloaker. In 12 months time I would say 99% your best bet to be watching iPlayer outside the UK will still be Identity Cloaker and not BBC Global iPlayer.

As I know many of you like to use Identity Cloaker to watch the Formula One racing, well the sessions such as Practice 1,2,3 which are often not shown on local TV, I just thought I would mention an alternative to BBC F1 Online abroad. Those of you in the USA, or using a2bTV US TV slingbox service, will know that US coverage of F1 racing is done by Speed TV. They use different commentators to the UK coverage but the pictures are 99% the same as they use the same feeds. Now Speed TV ddon'tshow everything on TV, and the bits they don't show they stream Live online!

Now for those of us in Australia this is really useful, as firstly our local TV never shows any of the practice sessions, and secondly IDC works VERY fast from Australia to the USA.

So if you have trouble watching BBC F1 Online abroad why not give Speed TV a go, tonight they will be showing the Brazilian first practice session.

They have a number of F1 related programs about latest F1 news, and of course other forms of motor sport too.

It might well be a hung parliment but that fact is the massive amount of interest in the UK elections have resulted in many BBC services not working too well at the moment! If anybody tried to watch the BBC coverage of the Spanish GP online today they may well have been met with blank screens!

So if you are testing out Identity Cloaker to watch BBC iPlayer abroad and its not working quite how you would hope then give it some time and try again as the problems are at the BBC end of things!