by mrandish | 2025-04-20 17:52:56+00:00
This looks cool. Nice job!

I've been using F1 Multiviewer which is free but the metadata and video feeds require an F1TV subscription which I have because I usually prefer the F1TV announcers. With F1 there's only one main broadcast video feed produced for on-track racing and it's mixed raw with no announcers. Then F1TV and various national TV networks add their own announcers downstream. In the US F1 is broadcast by ESPN who use the Sky TV announcers from the UK. F1TV, which is owned by F1, also produce their own separate announcer audio in English and offer it through online streaming along with a metadata feed - both live and for later replay. Metadata and video feeds are also available through other licensed outlets - and, of course, various unofficial, unlicensed sources.

F1 Multiviewer is a community created, fan supported app which only works with the F1TV video and metadata feeds via the official API (hence the need for an F1TV subscription). It has a bunch of different configurable data screens which are graphically well-presented. It's possible to create and save complex multi-screen views showing various data screens along with simultaneous in-car views from multiple drivers. https://multiviewer.app/showcase

It seems like a little timing variability is endemic to the F1 metadata feeds, even if just playing back after the race. Although the timing is close enough to be okay, the Multiviewer team regularly pushes updates trying to get it closer. I like to watch the main race video feed on my home theater projector screen while running Multiviewer on my laptop. So my main video source is the F1TV app on an Android streaming stick or the ESPN broadcast recording running on Comcast DVR but I use F1 Multiviewer on my laptop to view metadata, track map and a couple on-board cameras.

By manually adjusting, I can usually get Multiviewer on my laptop to sync up with the pre-recorded video stream playback on the TV to within about 5-ish seconds. I start with the main video feed in Multiviewer and use that to sync up with my recorded broadcast feed. Once the two main video feeds are synced, I use the Multiviewer command to sync all its windows to the main feed, and then minimize the main feed in Multiviewer. It works but is a bit fiddly, as just starting the feeds at the same time only gets me in the ballpark with the F1TV app or broadcast recording (usually within 30 secs). Then I do a back-and-forth cycle of skipping or pausing one or the other to sync it up, which takes maybe a minute. Fortunately, once in sync it doesn't seem to drift more than a few seconds over the course of a race which is good enough for me. The only annoying part is the bit of extra effort when pausing or rewinding to maintain sync on two different devices. I think people who just use Multiviewer on one device for all their feeds probably have it easier.

As the OP noted, once you understand F1 racing more than a casual viewer, seeing the timing gaps, track map, current tire, pit stop counts, etc becomes crucial to following the strategic chess match unfolding between teams. Unfortunately, due to screen space, the main broadcast graphics only show one of these data graphics at a time - and, too often, they are showing the wrong data vs what's happening at the moment on-track - or even what the announcers are saying since the video feed is produced separately from the announcers. To be fair, broadcasting an F1 race in real-time, is probably the single hardest regular live sports event to produce (and I know a fair bit about live sports broadcast production). With 20 cars and a couple dozen separate corners spread over a few miles, it's more akin to trying to show a half-dozen live NFL games simultaneously while never missing a key play. And, unlike most sports, once a race starts there are no commercial breaks or regularly scheduled timeouts for replays.

The F1 television production is quite spectacular for what they manage to do, like streaming 20 simultaneous HD video feeds from two (or more) onboard cameras from cars traveling up to 200 mph while twisting through dense urban environments. Just the RF engineering required to do that in one of 24 different cities around the world almost weekly makes it wildly impressive that it (usually) works pretty well. However, it's still maddening when it fails or isn't showing the relevant graphics, making some kind of over-the-top metadata with customizable display pretty essential for serious fans. Which may be somewhat unique to motorsports since a serious fan can enjoy an NFL game, basketball game or even chess match without a real-time, synced metadata feed beyond the usual broadcast graphics.