F1 TV Pro or SlingTV Orange?

P1

Race Winner
Contributor
I haven't had any form of cable service for a while now. I only have streaming apps like Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime, Disney+, etc.

Last year I watched the F1 races at a friends house, but he also got rid of cable so that option is out.

Doing some research it seems the cheapest way to stream F1 races in the USA is the F1 TV Pro service which is $9.99 per month. The second cheapest is Sling Orange which is $30 per month. Sling orange gives you the ESPN coverage with the ability to record it online. So that's closest thing to cable.

The F1 TV Pro service is much cheaper. But last year I found that it was pretty much useless if you aren't watching live:
  • There is no way to start watching a race from the beginning an hour after the start of the race. During the live broadcast you cannot rewind, start from the beginning or replay anything. So if you miss the beginning of the race (which in US time zone you often will), then you have to wait till 2 hours after the race is over to access the on-demand version.
  • If you wait till later in the day to watch the race on-demand, the website will give you the race result before you can pull up the stream. So basically this app spoils the ending unless you are watching it live from the beginning. They also would scroll the race results in a banner at the bottom of the on-demand stream. Its totally idiotic!
  • Its also very glitchy and sometimes you get no commentary.
I'm wondering if they have fixed these issues with F1 TV Pro for 2020 or is it still useless for anything other than live viewing?
 
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If it was available in the UK I would probably risk the F1 pro. Is it a 1 year contract or can you cancel at any time?

The spoiler thing is shit. If enough people complain it will change. Get on an F1 group on facebook and get everyone to spam their twitter and Facebook with complaints.
 
If it was available in the UK I would probably risk the F1 pro. Is it a 1 year contract or can you cancel at any time?

The spoiler thing is shit. If enough people complain it will change. Get on an F1 group on facebook and get everyone to spam their twitter and Facebook with complaints.

it is monthly for 9.99 or a year for 59.99 (special promo pricing because of late season start).
 
Have a look at this picture of the reddit thread on F1TV.

Screen Shot 2020-07-03 at 4.19.16 PM.png
 
it is monthly for 9.99 or a year for 59.99 (special promo pricing because of late season start).
Yeh but we don't get the TV live due to sky's exclusive deal. So you are paying for a shit news feed. Pointless.
 
I subscribed to F1 TV Pro about this time last year because they were offering a 25% discount making the annual subscription reasonable. We all know what happened immediately after that. As a result, they extended the subscription by a few months so my subscription runs until after Monaco (as currently scheduled). I am ambivalent about renewing at the full price so will look for a referral from somebody. That gives the referee a 20% discount and the referrer a cash bonus on PayPal (last year it was an Amazon voucher). A subscription allows up to 6 devices to log onto the account but I'm not sure if or what technical/geographical limits apply. Over the course of the season, the service appeared to improve but there were a few definite technical glitches early in the season. These were attributed by F1 TV Customer Support to "Internet issues outside our control". Customer and technical support are pretty much non-existent in real time but Reddit and Twitter community support is just fine.
 
F1TV is totally rubbish. I wouldn't touch it. But if it runs on Amazon then I may try it again since Amazon knows how to do video streaming.
 
F1TV is totally rubbish. I wouldn't touch it. But if it runs on Amazon then I may try it again since Amazon knows how to do video streaming.
Why do you say that? Is it the non-Sky commentary you don't like or some technical aspect of the service itself. It's the only choice I have (here in Toronto) for comprehensive coverage of all the practice and quali sessions as well as ad-free coverage of the race itself.

They announced a raft of technical changes to the service and platform this year: F1 TV 2021 revamp

In that article, they say "Developed with Accenture’s Industry X group, utilising its Connected Product expertise, the Accenture Video Solution and AWS Products & Services, the latest version of F1 TV focuses on performance and quality, featuring an enhanced underlying platform, higher video quality and improved user experience. This is the biggest update to the F1 TV platform since launch in 2018."

So Accenture (Video Solution) and Amazon (AWS) are the technical service providers behind F1TV.
 
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Why do you say that? Is it the non-Sky commentary you don't like or some technical aspect of the service itself. It's the only choice I have (here in Toronto) for comprehensive coverage of all the practice and quali sessions as well as ad-free coverage of the race itself.

They announced a raft of technical changes to the service and platform this year: F1 TV 2021 revamp

In that article, they say "Developed with Accenture’s Industry X group, utilising its Connected Product expertise, the Accenture Video Solution and AWS Products & Services, the latest version of F1 TV focuses on performance and quality, featuring an enhanced underlying platform, higher video quality and improved user experience. This is the biggest update to the F1 TV platform since launch in 2018."

So Accenture (Video Solution) and Amazon (AWS) are the technical service providers behind F1TV.
I haven't tried in 2021, but my experience in 2020 was that it was missing critical features:
1) Ability to stream a race from the beginning while the race is still going on
2) Ability to pause, rewind and fast forward during a race
3) No native AppleTV app nor ability to Airplay to TV

Given these limitations it was better to use the Sling Media app to watch the race.
 
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I haven't tried in 2021, but my experience in 2020 was that it was missing critical features:
1) Ability to stream a race from the beginning while the race is still going on
2) Ability to pause, rewind and fast forward during a race
3) No native AppleTV app nor ability to Airplay to TV

Given these limitations it was better to use the Sling Media app to watch the race.
I doubt #1 will change anytime soon as it is a critical point of differentiation between their two products,F1 TV Pro and F1 TV Access.

#2 and #3 appear to have been addressed according to the link above:

Cast to TVs: Users will be able to cast F1 TV using Chromecast and AirPlay (iOS) – enjoying live and on-demand F1 content on their TV.
Improved user experience:

Improved player controls – Users now have full control over the live stream; play, pause or rewind to watch that overtake again, across every channel, including On-board Cameras.
Improved channel switching – An improved interface allows users to easily switch between F1 TV’s multiple additional streams: Pit Lane Channel, Data Channel, Driver Tracker and On-board Cameras.
 
I use a VPN to pretend I'm in Luxembourg, then watch the free RTL live stream. It's in Luxembourgish, but I can grasp enough of the gist of it to get by. The VPN sub was something like £75 for two years.
 
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