In Search of Formula 1 Live Race Feeds
UPDATE: check out my F1 Technology Channel on Splashcast
For previews of forthcoming F1 races, and regular F1 news via blog, podcast and videocast, check out sidepodcast.com - "Your Weekly F1 Fix"
Another off topic post, but I can't resist... While the Grand Prix was on yesterday, I wondered whether F1 (Formula One motor racing) had got into the spirit of APIs and data feeds for circuit timing, team telemetry, team radio feeds and so on.
I couldn't get in to register for the
official F1 live timing site - the site was too busy - but I did find a nice feature on the
Renault F1 site which had a stylised plan view of the Bahrain circuit and the two Renault cars plotted on it in real time. It was quite something to watch the car drive into the pits on the TV and see it stop in the pits on the interactive map at the same time, and then for both of them to set off again in synch...
The scope for playing with real time data once a fortnight or so for a couple of hours for 6 months of the year is immense - if the teams and/or F1 could be persuaded to make it available.
F1 is one of
the technology demonstrators, as well as a driver (pun intended) for computer games - though I don't play games, I can see how the 'driver cam' on the real cars gives a view surprisingly like that provided in a driving game.
We don't have digital TV where I live (not countng Sky or Freesat - but why
should I have to install a satellite dish?) but perhaps if we did I could press red to get the driver cam of whichever driver I wanted, along with their team radio? Anyway, it'd be nice to get that sort of feed over the web... I could easily imagine people paying a quid or two to drive with Schumacher or Alonso for the duration of the race, just for the novely of it the first time, watching the driver cam on their laptop with the race on the telly!
(I think there could be something in this - a two screen appraoch to watching televised events: one for the telly, one for the user switched interactive data feeds - yes, you too can play at beiong in the pits alongside the technical crew, looking at the data screens, trying to work out the strategy etc! Same with cricket, or tennis - check the stats out on the players, get a
HawkEye replay of every shot etc.
Now you can participate in a sporting event by doing the real time analysis yourself!
Anyway, back to the technology demonstrator element of F1 - just thing of the scope for testing realtime AJAX apps if F1 could make the data available realtime?:-)
So - if you know where there are any F1 race day live data feeds, please drop me a line...
Update: More here
Posted by ajh59 at March 13, 2006 10:41 PM