Cheapest way to watch Sky's F1 Coverage

audigex

After having a pretty good deal on my Sky subscription, it's now expired and I'm currently paying £80 a month for Sky TV, but I only really watch Formula 1, and that works out at £960/year £48 per race!

For that money, I could watch the free coverage on Channel 4, and actually go and see a couple of the other races live... so I feel like it's a little excessive.

So on the assumption that Freeview + Netflix is more than enough for all my other TV needs, what's the cheapest (legal) way for me to get access to Sky's F1 coverage?

I'm thinking a Now TV box could be the way forward: at £7 for a one day or £11 for a 7 day (so I can watch Qualifying etc) it's significantly cheaper even if I don't mix and match with C4 coverage. I normally watch F1 slightly delayed anyway due to family commitments at the weekend, so having to wait for it to become available isn't a problem. Does anyone know how long that normally takes?

Any other handy options? Preferably where I can record the race and qualifying too, rather than just watch live.

Roger1

Do you want Sky or do you want F1?

You could watch a European satellite station such as RTL for free. That one is German language. If you want English, turn the sound down and listen to BBC Radio Five Live on the radio.

Not quite ideal as the services are not synchronised, but it suits this Murdoch-free household.

warwicktiger

http://www.time4tv.com/2011/02/sky-sports-2.php#

lee111s

There are ways and means. Depends if you want to watch it legally or not.

audigex

I want F1, but I also want to pay my way - I'm not a huge fan of Sky's news coverage and Murdoch in general, but I'm happy to pay for content and Sky's F1 coverage is pretty good

Basically, I just want to legally watch F1, in HD, without paying £45+ for the whole Sky Family+Sports malarky. If I have to pay for sports to get F1, I can deal with that, but I've got no need for Sky Atlantic, News, Kids, Music, Sky 1 etc etc. I'll grab a Freesat box at some point for watching Council Telly, and the rest I couldn't care less about

almillar

It used to be part of the £10 per month HD pack, but you can't get that any more (I'm still on it) - so if you want to do it the 'normal' way, you're looking at paying a standard sub, plus what the cheapest sport pack is that will include F1, plus, I think, paying another ~£10 for HD. You can record it all and watch at you leisure, skipping ads etc. If you want to save some money, how about cancelling the sport pack off-season - you'll go roughly Dec, Jan, Feb without paying for sport.
I don't know how F1 is delivered on the Now TV boxes. The older ones are only 720p, and even with the new ones, I don't know what quality the stream will be in.

VisionMan

Still 720p, with an in-built DTT tuner. So the standard (and cheaper) Now TV box would suit. And a sub to the Now sports pack would definitely work out cheaper than the OPs current SKY sub price point.

audigex

I watch F1 in 720p anyway, so that's not a problem (Sky boxes have a choice of 720p or 1080i). Sky Q will have 4k, but there's no way in hell I'm paying that sort of money for it.

you can't get that any more (I'm still on it) - so if you want to do it the 'normal' way, you're looking at paying a standard sub, plus what the cheapest sport pack is that will include F1, plus, I think, paying another ~£10 for HD.

The standard sub plus Sports works out at £29, but has no HD even as an option. To get HD I'd need the Family Pack plus Sports plus HD, which is £44 or £45. Both are with a 40% discount when I said I was leaving.

So yeah it's looking like Now TV is the best way to do it: it looks to be more expensive if you want multiple packages, but cheaper if you just want sports, plus the fact I can just buy it for days/weeks I want. Great for people like me who just want a specific few channels

So yeah, looks like I'll go with this Now TV thing, thanks!

Bigphil1474

audigex, the cheapest way is through Now TV, combining their sports package with the C4 live racing. As F1 is on for about 9 months, getting 9x monthly sports passes works out at about £300 a year, but you get half the races live on C4, so get weekly passes for races that aren't live on C4 - that's what I do, and it works out about £120 ish for the year. The 24 hour passes are usually no good, as qualifying on the Saturday, and the end of the race on the Sunday are usually more than 24 hours apart.
I watch Now TV streaming for entertainment and movies as well at the moment, and it's good enough quality if your broadband is a decent speed. I've found watching it through my PS4 is better than watching it through my TV's app, and the Now TV box is slightly better than both (don't know why). If you haven't got a Now TV box, there seems to plenty of deals around for getting free passes which will pay back the cost of the box anyway.

kingrulzuk

audigex wrote: »

After having a pretty good deal on my Sky subscription, it's now expired and I'm currently paying £80 a month for Sky TV, but I only really watch Formula 1, and that works out at £960/year £48 per race!

For that money, I could watch the free coverage on Channel 4, and actually go and see a couple of the other races live... so I feel like it's a little excessive.

So on the assumption that Freeview + Netflix is more than enough for all my other TV needs, what's the cheapest (legal) way for me to get access to Sky's F1 coverage?

I'm thinking a Now TV box could be the way forward: at £7 for a one day or £11 for a 7 day (so I can watch Qualifying etc) it's significantly cheaper even if I don't mix and match with C4 coverage. I normally watch F1 slightly delayed anyway due to family commitments at the weekend, so having to wait for it to become available isn't a problem. Does anyone know how long that normally takes?

Any other handy options? Preferably where I can record the race and qualifying too, rather than just watch live.

Are you serious :eek:


I watched the F1 free yesterday on http://www.tvcatchup.com/
and I don't pay for the internet

Bigphil1474

The F1 race on Sunday was live on Channel 4 so would be free for anyone. Only Sky show all the races live, C4 has less than half of them live, the rest are highlights only. Good luck watching Sky F1 channel on tvcatchup.com