![]() ![]() The experience quickly became frustrating. There was constant buffering, stuttering, and the occasional instance of the stream randomly rewinding itself back in time. ![]() But such UX issues are slight compared to the bigger problem: the actual delivery of the stream. There's nary a link on the TV section to help you find it. What I couldn't find anywhere was the live timing and scoring, which actually lives in a different section of the F1 webpage. Thankfully you can change the audio for each onboard to the same selection as the main feed. At first it appeared as if these came with no audio at all, although that just turned out to be the default setting set to "Team Audio"-if the team isn't talking to the driver, there's nothing to hear. Click one of their names, and it brings up their onboard feed. Along the right hand side of the page is a list of all the drivers participating in the session. Additionally there are audio feeds in French, German, Spanish, as well as one with no talking soundtracked with just car sounds. Yes, that's the same bunch you now hear on ESPN calling the races. I'd been wondering exactly who F1 was going to get to provide commentary, and the answer is David Croft, Martin Brundle, and the rest of the team from the UK's Sky Sports. Once squared away, I fired up the stream and settled back to enjoy. Eh, who needs a 25-character password anyway? Advertisement Figuring it could be an issue with Chrome I switched to Safari, but I saw more of the same. I dutifully purchased a year's pass for F1 TV Pro, then spent some time getting site errors every time I tried to change my password. The first hint of trouble appeared as I went to sign up his morning in time for the second Free Practice session for this weekend's race. You still get the archives, documentaries, timing, scoring, and some radio feeds, but this tier only offers replays of each session. F1 TV Access-just $2.99 in the US-is a little more basic. F1 TV Pro-$11.99 per month here in the US-gets you the races as well as all the other track sessions live and on-demand after the fact, along with all 20 cars' onboard feeds, unedited team radio broadcasts, an archive of past F1 races, documentaries, live timing, and a driver tracking map. There are actually two different subscription levels on offer. But I'm not going to sugar coat it-this new F1 viewing option seems really quite mediocre, particularly considering the cost. Many other racing series have been live-streaming their races for some time now. This new stream probably represents the biggest fan-facing change Liberty has made since buying F1's commercial rights from a vulture fund, and it's an offering many of us have been crying out for. The introduction of its own online stream was a huge priority for Liberty Media, the sport's owner, which is trying to bring the 21st century to a series that until now had stoutly ignored the Internet. This week, Formula 1's long-anticipated Internet streaming service went live just ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix. The oldest race in the archives is also a classic! The 1998 Belgian Grand Prix.
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