Which Race TV channel to get full coverage

[rockrat]

Hi, as a non sky tv user, who just has freesat at home I am keen to see if there's a way to get to see all the major races thought 2012, preferably on the tv but over the internet if I have to. Of course itv3 will do a few of the majors, but not every race.
I often use steep hill tv website to get a few clips, hopefully in English, but really I would
Iike to see full coverage of each race if poss.

Can you guys advise on how to do this without hopefully needing a sky subscription hitch I can't afford

 

[rich p]

Most of the racing is on Eurosport. If you can't get that at the price you want to pay you can get it online for about £25 pa I believe. I've no idea of the quality of transmission though.

 

[cyberknight]

This is a handy link to whats on ...

http://www.athleticsontv.org.uk/

 

[Nearly there]

I prefer Eurosports coverage in HD of course they show loads of tours ITV4s quite good too

 

[normgow]

I watch cyclo cross on www.sports-livez.com/channel/ch-3.php

Sometimes ch-6 is better reception. Good for learning or improving your Flemish too.
As for road classics and tours I always watch German Eurosport which you should be able to receive in UK. The commentary sometimes leaves a bit to be desired but then what I've seen of British Eurosport maybe it's not so bad after all. You can always turn off the sound and listen to the commentary on French radio where even if you don't understand everything at least you are getting someone who knows what he's talking about.

 

[oldroadman]

If you have a freesat dish it might be worth talking to your local sattelite TV specialist, a different decoder may be able to pick up european domestic channels from Belgium, Italy, Spain, France, etc.

 

[ColinJ]

Most of the racing is on Eurosport. If you can't get that at the price you want to pay you can get it online for about £25 pa I believe. I've no idea of the quality of transmission though.

I have used an analogue satellite system for over 10 years to watch Eurosport but the analogue signal is getting switched off in April 2012 so I've just treated myself to a Eurosport Player subscription. I've been trying it out today and am fairly pleased with it. The picture quality is pretty good in the embedded player. Full-screen, it is not too bad, but some compression artifacts are visible. The on-demand service is a joke because the recordings only feature background sound and no commentary! No recording facility is provided but (allegedly!) the technology exists to do that so you can catch up later with commentary included.

There is a special offer on until January 4th - see here. (£24.99 for a year (£10 off), British Eurosport 1 and 2, plus the International service which sometimes differs from the British one).

PS It seems to take about 1.8 Mb/s to power the player.

 

[Doseone]

I have Freesat and unfortunately the news is not good. You just get what ever little cycling content ITV4 puts out. I love their Tour coverage though.

I don't know what the options are for getting channels via your tv that are not normally broadcast on Freesat. If anyone finds out I'd love to know.

Otherwise it's internet.

 

[Pauln]

I have used Eurosport player on the PC and on the iPhone. The quality was very good.

 

[smutchin]

+1 for Eurosport. I really like David Harmon's enthusiastic knowledgable commentary. However, as much as I admired Sean Kelly as a rider.....I prefer it when they get Big Maggie as the expert.

I like Sean Kelly's commentary, except for two things - he's very waffly (why use one word when 100 will do?) and he's a low speaker with a strong Irish accent. Until you get tuned into his voice, it can be hard to understand what he's saying. But he does make some very apposite insights, amid all the verbiage.

d.

 

[theloafer]

http://road.cc/content/news/50033-itv4-will-show-tour-de-france-until-2015

 

[fossyant]

You could always do the search on the internet and find some live feeds - cyclingfans is one site.