F1 2024: IP upgrades and the almighty challenge of a record-breaking F1 calendar By George Bevir
Friday, March 8, 2024 - 09:45
Print This Story
With a record-breaking 24 races in the 2024 calendar, this year's Formula 1 championship is set to be the biggest yet. Formula 1 director of broadcast and media Dean Locke spoke with SVG Europe ahead of the season opener in Bahrain last weekend, and explained how he and his team have been preparing for the bumper season which begins long before any driver or constructor points are up for grabs.
Testing is a full event we've just been on air last week for three days, each eight hours long so it's really 24 races plus one, which is an almighty challenge. But we've set ourselves up well; if we'd done this years ago, I think we would have found it very difficult. But we've set ourselves up very well logistically and by being cuter with some of our geographical calendar changes.
We've had conversations with broadcast partners and one-stop technical solutions that work for everybody and help to reduce the number of people and kit on site and makes everything more reliable is something we're going to develop this year.
This year, Formula 1 has made efforts to adopt greater calendar regionalisation, with the aim of simplifying the logistics involved in racing in locations around the world and in a bid to make the season more sustainable.
Also, the remote operation that we've got at the Media and Technology Centre means we don't have to move so much kit and people between races, says Locke. We're able to rotate crew so that some at the Media and Technology Centre and some people on the road, which gives us flexibility we wouldn't have had a few of years ago.
Between the end of the 2022 season and the start of 2023, there were major upgrades to the F1 Media and Technology Centre at Biggin Hill, which is some 20-miles southeast of London with the building converted to a remote centre. During the past few months, those upgrades have continued with enhancements to connectivity and distribution paths, plus a new replay system - all of which is part of four-year transition to IP.
Whether that's working with Tata on some of our connectivity paths and redundancies around that, or satellite provision because we have multiple paths we have significant connectivity from the track to Biggin Hill and then distribution from Biggin Hill to broadcast partners and the likes of AWS and IT partners and our own platforms - so there have been upgrades to all of that, and it's also part of the IP transition.
Read more F1 2024: Explaining the action with more kid-friendly broadcasts and a boost to team radio
Locke explains that his team is right in the middle of that four-year transition. A lot of routing and gateways, a large selection of traditional SDI feeds are now gatewayed and routed are now IP, and now we have an IP-based replay system. We're also looking at things like vision mixers and cameras, but that will be the next stage. So, there was a lot of work but not as much as last year when we built a brand-new remote operation.
And the enhancements aren't limited to the technical setup, with a better work environment for Biggin Hill-based staff also part of the overhaul to make the facility fit for purpose .
We have a really good restaurant, social areas, much better offices, and the actual work environment is so much better; our first stab at remote when people are wearing ski jackets at three o'clock in the morning and looking at the bright sunshine in Melbourne was disheartening. But now, it is a really comfortable place to work. And the fact that we've just done three, eight-hour days and people were still smiling is great.
A one-stop shop: Supporting Formula 1 rights holders
Locke says there is a keenness from some Formula 1 broadcasters for the centralized provision of technical solutions. He explains:
We shouldn't all be doing our own thing. We've had conversations with some broadcast partners and they are very into that. So one-stop technical solutions that work for everybody and help to reduce the number of people and kit on site and makes everything more reliable is something we're going to develop this year.
This could potentially include things such as RF kit, camera equipment, connectivity, also data that might not be included in the world feed with efforts to avoid working on the same piece of analysis or graphical representation.
Read more F1 2024: Capturing the action with drones, new camera angles and AI
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
F1 2024: IP upgrades and the almighty challenge of a record-breaking F1 calendar By George Bevir 
