Radios

[Brian696969]

I'm watching the olympics road race . Why are the riders not allowed radios when teams like Team GB have "
Spotters" along the route to relay information to their riders ?

[robgul]

You could also ask why they didn't appear to have on-bike transponders to feed positioning to the broadcaster to use that for on-screen data ..... poor old Boardman commentating had no more clue about what was going on than we did. Awful coverage.

Rob

[Brian696969]

True. But still
An exciting race


I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my wobbly bog brush using hovercraft full of eels

[Brucey]

I thought I saw transponders attached to the bikes.

That the commentators didn't get to see the data doesn't surprise me; the media centre for this race apparently consisted of little more than a load of cardboard boxes or something.

I was a bit cheesed off that they said 'coverage continues on the red button' right after the race started to get interesting. Not on my red button! Presumably they were deluged by complaints, because Hazel Irvine then had the cheek to say 'it depends on the age of your technology'. Presumably my six month old TV is 'too old' then....

So instead of the cycling we were treated to two channels broadcasting that well-known crowd pleaser 'ladies sevens rugby' at the same time not to mention repeat broadcasts of the same lacklustre reporter tooling about in the team hotels etc.

Must try harder!

cheers

[mjr]

It's not so much the age of the TV as the last time you rescanned. BBC seemed rather late putting the extra Olympics red button channels on air this time. I suspect some receivers won't have rescanned recently enough to see them yet.

[Psamathe]

I thought I saw transponders attached to the bikes.

That the commentators didn't get to see the data doesn't surprise me; the media centre for this race apparently consisted of little more than a load of cardboard boxes or something.
...

I didn't see it so can't comment on the coverage, but as far as facilities go, I wonder if the budgets available (from the host nation providing those facilities) might be somewhat limited. And it is not so much the host country paying for those facilities but the taxpayers from that country ....

UK might have had pretty well unlimited budgets but not all countries are so wealthy (and just look at the austerity those "unlimited budgets" have contributed to).

Ian

[andrew_s]

I believe that there are about 8 "red button" channels on Freesat and Freeview HD.
If you are on old non-HD Freeview (like me), there are 2 red button channels in the evening (after about 7pm), and none during the day.

I watched the non-visible red button stuff online.

[Brian696969]

Many thanks to all
Brian