F1 Disappointment

The big news in Formula 1 this week has of course been the BBC selling part of the broadcast rights to Sky Sports. There has been a huge reaction online with a wide array of opinions. I decided I should take a moment and write down my own thoughts. The basic idea of the new deal which starts next year is that all the races will be broadcast on Sky Sports while only half of the races will be live on the BBC, but BBC will still show highlight programmes.

The first reaction a lot of people seem to be having is about the cost. To view everything related to F1 from new year onwards you will require Sky Sports HD. If you don't have Sky already then that is quite an investment. Now personally I have no problem paying for something so long as it has worth and value. People talk about keeping F1 free-to-air but seem to be forgetting about the license fee. Although I will admit there is quite a difference.

The following is based on a season of 20 races with 6 hours of coverage in each race weekend and of course ignoring all the other channels these services offer. Currently on the BBC it costs £7.20 per race to watch. Sky HD with the sports channels will cost you around £669 per year so that is £33.45 per race. If you really enjoy F1 that could be a lot worse. For me personally I am already a subscriber of the basic Sky package so I would just need to add the sports package. The would cost me £375 extra per year or £18.75 per race. That's actually not too bad for a full weekend of entertainment. Still I do have to question whether I really need a channel for just one thing. There is nothing else on Sky Sports in which I am interested, that's why I don't have the package already. It is for similar reasons I don't have Sky Movies either. I go to the cinema and watch DVDs so I don't have any time left for films on Sky, so it's not worth the cost considering how much I would watch it.

My biggest issue is with the coverage itself. The BBC was the original home of F1 and where it was when I started watching. Then in 1997 the broadcast rights went to ITV. I remember at the time being concerned about the mid-race adverts but being glad that Murray Walker would be moving too so there would some continuity. Still it was during the ITV years that I drifted away from the sport. Then in 2009 F1 came back to the BBC and since then they've been building top quality coverage ever since. They've got a great team with Jake, DC and EJ, also with Ted and Lee who came from the ITV team I believe. The team have all built up their relationships with the sport and the teams leading to some unprecedented access. I've read comments online from foreign viewers being extremely surprised how much coverage and special features we get. Of course they won a BAFTA this year for it as well.

So what will happen to this team next year? If they're no longer at the races every week then the unique relationships will degrade. It's pretty obvious that Jake Humphrey is a BBC man through and through, he'll be doing the Olympics after all. So he'll probably remain on the reduced BBC content. Martin Brundle tweeted that his contract was up and he'd be looking at options. I wouldn't be surprised to see him stop his TV work and go back to driver management or perhaps he'll move to Sky. For Lee McKenzie and Ted Kravitz who are already the roving reporter type I imagine different things. Lee has worked at Sky before so I guess she might go back. Ted on the other hand I'll guess he'll end up attached to Radio 5 Live instead. I'm only making vague predictions but I can't imagine the team not being split in some way.

Regardless of what does happen the coverage will be very different next year and having to choose how to watch half of the races will be strange. The problem this become what to watch on the races which both channels air. It will become a competition and if the BBC coverage ends up being better than the Sky coverage then it will make the races that are only on Sky seem less interesting. If I even decide to watch the Sky coverage and it ends up not being very good I can see myself drifting away again. That would be a shame as it's happening when I was getting right back in to it again.

Khaos Legions

The second new album I had to listen to was Khaos Legions by Arch Enemy. They're quite similar in style to In Flames with a melodic death metal vibe, although they're heavier on the death part and lighter on the melody part. Again though I'm not really sure what to write about it. I liked the album a lot although it is not my favorite by the group. However I can say I did enjoy it more than Sounds From a Playground Fading but that is only relative to me really. Still if you liked their previous albums there is a pretty good chance you will like this too.

Sounds of a Playground Fading

It has been quite a while since I heard any brand new albums. Looking back through my archive the last CD I posted about was The Final Frontier which was Iron Maiden's release, almost a year ago now. I know I have added the Tron: Legacy and Portal 2 soundtracks to my library since them but I can't think of anything else. On checking my CD rack I see there was also a new Children of Bodom at some point as well, I guess I didn't write about that one. Last month three new albums were released that I'd been interested in but I'd been too busy with The Old Republic to notice. I rectified that.

The first is Sounds of a Playground Fading by In Flames. These things tend to vary depending on mood but I would say that In Flames consistently rate as one of my top five bands. The thing is, even though I write reviews for film and TV, for some reason I don't quite feel qualified to do the same with music. I know what I like and what I don't but I always have trouble putting why in to words. I think it's the melodic/death/thrash combo that I like the most about In Flames, quality guitar melodies along with fast and heavy drums. There is plenty of that on this album, so I like it. It's not my favourite or theirs but it is a good one.

Daze of Hate, Knights of Suffering

It happened. Everyone on their own separate stories arrived at a conclusion and it happened to be the same place where factions are fighting for control of giant space worms (think asteroid belt in Empire). This series works much better when it is focused like this. The story had had its ups and downs and been of variable quality. However when it gets it right it's really good. We end up back on Taris again where the story originally started. Some people have been lost on the way while others have been gained. Zayne finally seems to be taking on the main plot rather than just sitting back and seeing where life takes him. It seems like a lot has been resolved and we're about to move in to a new phase of the story. Also there were more cameos and references from the game which was nice. So volume four of the Knights of the Old Republic comic turned out to be great and a huge improvement over volume three. I hope that the series can continue with more of the highs.

Days of Fear, Nights of Anger

There has been a lot of Star Wars in my life recently and I felt like it should continue. To that end I picked up volumes three and four of the Knights of the Old Republic comic series. Volume three gets off to an odd start when our group, which we're finally getting to know, splits in to two for pretty flimsy reasons. Each go off in their own directions with their own agenda. The stories are then almost complete isolated to single issues so it's like you're reading two separate books at a time. In theory this is fine but it doesn't quite work here. The main character Zayne and his shady friend Gryph plan to clear their names by sitting back and laying low for a while. Other than some background to the Mandalorian war it doesn't serve much purpose and it seems like they're waiting for the other story line to make the big discovery so fate can thrust them back together again. This does have the bonus of including the character Carth Onasi (from the game), but it only serves as an introduction for things to come.

The second story line with Jarel and Camper is much more interesting and has an actual plot beyond hi jinks. Sure there was the threat of destruction at the hand of the Mandalorians in story one but it never really felt pressing. In story two there is much more subtly and menace alone with lies and deception. Unfortunately this story suffers too because it doesn't have a solid end. It ends on a "to be continued" moment but it's not really a cliffhanger just a natural act break. It's like they ran out of pages and just stopped what they were doing thinking they'd just carry on next time. I suppose that's going to happen sometimes when you're compiling 4 to 6 monthly comic issues in to paperback form. It did feel a little abrupt though. I'm very glad now that I bought volumes three and four together so now I can continue straight away, lucky coincidence that.

Out of date

I have recently been paying closer attention to PHP related news. If you don't know, PHP is a programming language and its main use is scripting for web pages. It is the main language I have worked in for the past ten years. Reading more of the news wasn't intentional, it just seemed to happen naturally as I came across PHP related articles online more frequently. This has led me to realize that quite a few of the techniques and methods I use and rely on regularly are getting out of date. There are new and better alternatives coming and some of the older functions are becoming deprecated in new releases. It's time for a major update on some of the generic code which I regularly reuse, some of that dates back to 2006. I have become a little complacent in my development, basically repeating the same thing over and over for each new client. Now with some new learning I'm already inspired looking forward to programming more. It's definitely good to get out of your rut once in a while.

First Impressions: Eschalon - Book 1

This is a role-playing game which is a modern development but with a old style take on the look and the game play. As a fan of games in that style I have been keeping an eye on this and finally bought a copy when it was marked down in the Steam sale. Without a demo available I had been unwilling to pay the full price they were asking for a game I knew so little about. It's got a tile based map and it's got turn-based combat and looks like it came from the late nineties. Still there are a good number of character creation options and the graphics are improved over the originals it is imitating. The retro style is by choice rather than for hardware limitations so the performance is not a problem. I played for about an hour and it seemed like if could be fun. However then my character got killed and I realised I hadn't saved. It's not like a modern game with regular auto saves, so dead is dead. Next time I'll have to start again. That probably won't be right away and the story hadn't really grabbed me yet. I'm sure I'll come back to this one day, but in the mean time there are more important things to do and play.