I’ve followed F1 since the early '60’s and ever since NBCSN has been carrying the races it has only been possible for me to hear distinctly about 1/2 or 2/3 of what the commentators say. The rest is drowned out by engine sounds especially when they go to the in car cameras. I don’t remember this happening when F1 was on the old Speed TV. Its as if the sound engineer adjusts both the voice feed and the car feed so that together they don’t exceed a predetermined level. Why they have to have the engine level so high is beyond me. These modern engines have nowhere near the personality of the old ones. I should also say I think my present TV set was bought around the time NBCSN took over. Could it be the TV or is something wrong with my hearing? Have any other F1 fans out there noticed this?
I haven’t watched F1 in ages, but I have seen what you describe is the past. I think the problem you have is likely still the same.
The feed the various TV stations get is all the same, there is one video feed, and there are a range of sound feeds. The individual TV station will add commentary, and mix the sound down. If you are a top tier TV company, with your own, on-site commentary team, you will have additional video and sound feeds to add to the mix, and possibly even some on-site production. Somewhere in the middle, you may have some on-site commentary, but all the mixing, both video and sound is done remotely. I have noticed, that in general, those that have no on-site presence, and just get a basic feed, never seem to have anything like as good a sound. Sometimes you would see changes from race to race, as the feed changed, and the actual resources the broadcaster was able to throw at the coverage changed.
No-one likes the new engines. That bit isn’t your hearing.
How does this apply to a cable network like NBCSN, which doesn’t have individual stations? Each cable carrier doesn’t do their own mixing, do they?
I don’t have a problem hearing the commentary, but I can very rarely make out what the drivers are saying over their radios. I think it’s a combination of their accents, the quality of the transmission, and the audio mix.
No, F1 is worldwide. By broadcaster I mean the company that has the rights for a given country. So in this case NBCSN. Part of the problem is that you need commentary in many languages, and in some cases individual countries will enough interest in F1 that they will demand their own commentary, even if there is existing commentary.
One thing I found - the video feed and some of the audio is under the control of the local broadcaster. F1 doesn’t do its own. The FIA may provide some of the audio feeds - for instance of the drivers radio, but I’m not sure. The rules requires that the radio be “open and accessible” to the FIA and broadcasters, but not much more.
OK, but in your previous post you mentioned individual TV stations, which implies an OTA network of stations. I’m not trying to come across as nitpicking, just trying to get the terminology clear in my mind.
Yeah, sorry, a bit of a mismatch in terminology. Here in Oz the mapping between station and network is more direct, and one tends to forget the that US is much more complex. We don’t have the same cable company setup either. So it is easy to use the wrong words.
Understood. I didn’t realize you’re not in the US.
I love the new quieter engines.
I can’t speak to F1, but for most broadcast US sporting events, e.g. football, baseball, etc., the same problem obtains.
I think the style has become to add lots and lots of crowd noise to make the experience of watching seem more real, more like being there. And so they mix the commentary in too low to be easily heard over the crowd.
Just as many restaurants have decided to do away with sound deadening ceilings & wall treatments. The whole place becomes an echo-y boom-y cavern full of tables shouting at each other to be heard over the din of the other tables shouting. Some pundit someplace told them it sounds more like a party that way which will increase sales. Not for me it doesn’t. And get off my lawn. 
AFAIK, F1 provides the “world feed” – the same video feed coming out of their production trucks to all the networks around the world that are covering F1. Things like the position/lap graphics are included in this feed, so they are the same everywhere. F1 likes to control things like that.
The network may break away from the world feed for things like putting its own announcers on-screen, or doing their own interviews on the grid, but the majority of the time, what you see on-screen is the same thing being shown around the globe (meaning NBCSN has to hope that the world feed show the replay that they want, for instance). Sound would be included in the world feed, but I don’t know the technical bits about that.
In terms of how it’s done on the network end, NBCSN does it the same way SPEED did…unless the race is somewhere convenient like Austin, they simply have the commentators watch the world feed in a studio here in the states and add the commentary. So when you are watching a race held in a far-flung locale, the American TV guys are just sitting in a room here stateside watching on a screen, just like you.
The engine noises are sent via the F1 feed, and the commentators are being layered over that – I am sure there is plenty of adjustment there, so the engines may be too loud vs. the commentators for your liking, although others may complain if they can’t hear the engines clearly, so it’s a balancing act. There are also the issues of your exact setup at home…if they, for instance, allow the engine noise only to play through rear speakers in order to make you feel “part of the action” and you are sitting close to one or have it turned up too loud, that might cause part of the issue.
Hope this helps add a little clarity to the discussion, at least.
F1 broadcasters are required to use the world feed for video (including graphics) and sound, whether they want to or not. I think the sound quality varies slightly between countries because of the cable/satellite/OTA decoding systems, though. Personally, I never have any trouble understanding most of the cockpit transmissions except for Jenson Button’s, which invariably sound like he’s drunk (but are witty when intelligible).
Are you sure? I am 99% that the full NBCSN commentary team went to Monza and Silverstone, or at least that they pretended to be there.
We have a 60 inch Visio, and from day 1, the sound was terrible, just as you describe. Background noise drowned out everything. We fiddled around with the sound settings on the TV, and Turning off the stereo, or surrround feature (or something like that). It made a HUGE difference. Now we can hear everything correctly.
Karen – It just so happens that the last set I bought is a Visio w/surround sound. I am absolutely going to try this. I can’t wait for the next race, might be able to tell what’s going on.
Thanks, I hope.
I am sure they attend some of the races when everyone’s schedule works out to do so – it’s probably not limited to JUST the USGP – but they definitely do a LOT of them in studio. Leigh Diffey sometimes does F1 and IndyCar on the same weekend and most of the time that wouldn’t even be possible if he wasn’t in the studio here in the states.
That makes sense. Thanks.
This is a problem a lot of people have with a lot of programs. Music, noise, special effects sounds, etc. are too freakin’ loud. You turn up the volume to hear the dialogue and the other stuff drowns it out.
Some people luck out with certain settings on their TV, but many don’t. I’ve tried them all to no success.
The TV/movie folk know this and don’t have any interest in solving it. They want to wow people with big booms and such.
They were not at Monza for sure, I don’t believe they were at Silverstone either. They were at Monaco, which was a big deal when the F1 rights moved to NBCSN a couple years ago, they’re also in Canada and, of course, Austin.
Will Buxton, the MSNBC pit reporter, does go to all races.
As well as fancy sound features, you might try turning up the bass.
The mens voice may be clearer in bass.
Pro tip: if there is rock music or lots of banging sorts of noises (not the F1 …), you might turn down the bass, so you can hear the mid range.
A lot of TV’s have a quick fix in the audio options , such as “SOUND : normal, music, cinema, CLEAR VOICE”…
I just wish they would all shut the hell up once in a while. I swear, they must get paid by the word! I was in Brazil in the 80’s and the TV Globo announcers did a great job of letting you enjoy the race and the car sounds and only flapping their gums when needed.
The very worst, however, is those idiots who do MotoGP. They never shut up! And they just talk louder and louder as the race progresses.