NASCAR HotPass - Feedback Thread

[Earl Bonovich]

IF and ONLY IF you watched the Daytona 500 today, post in this thread.
(I want to see no commentary about NASCAR as a sport, or anything like that... I will delete them).

So did you use HOTPASS for the race.
What did you think of it.

(Yes, please do copy your posts from other threads)

[Lord Vader]

I think Hotpass is pretty cool, except for the incessant plugging of it by the commentators. I watched the race on the Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson channels until Stewart crashed then soon thereafter Johnson crashed. Then I switched to the Earnhardt channel when HE crashed! Three of the five driver channels ended up falling short due to their drivers crashing.

I watched all this on an HR10-250, so the dual live buffers helped, as I toggled between Stewart and Johnson. On an HDVR2 I had the FOX race itself. So, in effect, I had three tuners going. :)

Overall, I did like the Hotpass, but again, enough with the self-promotion! The guys on the Johnson channel were constantly plugging it. In fact, a few minutes into the race I got so annoyed I decided to count the number of time they referenced Hotpass and/or DirecTV. I stopped counting after a whopping 43 times in the first 20 minutes! Egads!!! :eek:

[quarrymen1]

watched it on all channels available i am a subscriber loved it its one of the coolest things dtv has done well worth the $80 ... i got a feeling a feeling i cant hide oh no!!!

[DCSholtis]

I watched it across all 5 Driver channels going between them and FOX. I agree with Lord Vader about the pimping of HotPass although Im sure that was just due to the free preview status this week. I think its cool I enjoyed it.

[BadgerChad]

Watched both the race on the local Fox channel (not in HD) and then the Hotpass channels. One interesting thing....I have the CE build right now (don't know if that makes a difference).

Our local Fox Affilate will not give D* the HD feed, basically because the manager doesn't feel like it for financial reasons. When I used the colored button options within HotPass to go to the Fox broadcast, suddenly I got it in HD. Using the info channel still showed it on my local affiliate (Ch 11) but for whatever reason in HD.

I had some trouble with the CE build, so had to do a RBR. Once I did that, I was back in SD on the Fox Channel (I do not use OTA). I went to Hotpass again, asked for the Fox Feed, and voila! Back in HD again for the rest of the race.

So my question, is HD built in with Hotpass?

BC

[capecodsooner]

Glad it was free.

NO HD?????

To much commentary conflicting with driver-spotter chat

Race needs to be in a larger PIP when "commercials" are running... and why are they running on a PPV?? Since they have to run it would be nice to keep the driver chatter available on a sub-channel.

Good for a first attempt though. But $80 for no HD? Hmmmmmmmmm.

[racemanva]

Didn't like Hotpass for the following reasons:

1) Hotpass isn't in HD and PQ in general was terrible in SD at least on my TV

2) You lose perspective and valuable commentary on the race in general because the commentators are only talking about the specific driver on that channel, example: Tony Stewart had just taken the lead in the race and Dale Jr's commentator(Chan 799) is talking about some damn song(the song playing in the background)Jr listens to before he gets in the car at the start of the race, isn't mentioning anything about the lead change. I guess that's all right I just prefer some commentary about the race.

3) During commercial breaks you lose in-car communications and you are listening to the Fox network commercials

What I liked:

1) At least they had 1 camera(in car camera) going during commercial breaks so you good keep track of the race

OVERALL:

It's not my cup of tea, haven't missed a race in 10 years or more and I prefer the overall race coverage on the network in HD versus coverage of a hand full of drivers with the screen chopped up into 3 small screens with terrible PQ.

Wouldn't pay for the subscription and really wouldn't even watch it for free as the last time I flipped it back to network was with over 140 laps to go.

[dfergie]

I watched for awhile with pip split screen, D* with little E on left and E* HD local on right...then watched Jr for awhile... liked the fact you could keep up with race during commercials.

[ProfLonghair]

I watched for about 5 minutes, Johnson I believe. They were playing some music he supposedly would have liked which made the experience a touch surreal. I'm not a NASCAR or racing fan (you wouldn't konw by the manner in which I drive past Team Rahal every day), but if I was, I'd probably use this.

[brownram]

in every commercial break directv had its own line up of commercials that it had dominate the drivers channels, no drivers audio allowed you had to watch and listen to the big screen commercial. i can understand the fox feed having commercials but if you pay for a channel it should be commercial free. i know someone will say it was a free preview but i think what you saw today will be business as usual next week. and if you pay $99.95 for the season pass or $29.95 for one weekend there should be no commercials

[jselinger24]

I loved it. Probably the coolest way to watch a race - besides being there. I watched Jimmie Johnson's channel for a while, then Dale Jr's for a little bit. I used Harvick's channel as well. After JJ crashed, I exclusively watched Jeff Gordon's channel - because he is the man. The coverage was great - but there are some bugs that need to be worked out - definitely. The camera men had problems staying with the cars - no doubt. Also, the announcers would talk over the crew chief, spotters and drivers. That should not be allowed. As a die-hard NASCAR fan - I want to hear chatter between driver and crew chief. The other issue was that some of the views were not centered - meaning you would only see portions of the cars/ track. All in all - this thing has a ton of potential. D* be smart and show Jeff Gordon and Dale, Jr. - a ton. They are the top two draws in the sport - with by far the biggest fan bases.

[Tony1097]

I watched FOX most of the race.. I flipped over for the Stewart and Johnson wrecks.. and the Red Flag. Waltrip seemed to really enjoy interacting with the hot pass watchers.

added note on the "49.50 Full Season" deal I saw.. they tried to charge me 2 payments, so I canceled it before it started. they should of taken my money while they had it, because I don't think this was worth $99.

[Harvick]

Tried to watch it but found myself bouncing back to Fox. Enjoyed it during commercials.

BTW my boy Kevin WON the Daytona500!:D

[RobertE]

As others have said. Not a great start, but not bad either.

Needs to have less commercial breaks. If they MUST have that many breaks put the race in the big window and the commercial in the little window.

More audio options. Driver/spotter only, commentator only, both D/S & C, or broadcast.

HD would be nice, but considering that the in car cams are not HD and the lack of bandwidth I can give them a pass this year.

Buddy of mine is a big Jr fan. So I relocated a TV and a rec so we had one on Jr and one on fox. Had to futz around with the Jr channel a little to get them to be pretty close to in sync. It was 4-5 seconds ahead of the Cleveland HD feed.

So overall, worth the $80. Room for improvement, but worth it.

[jrr4]

I subscribed to this for my wife when it was announced. I'm not sure about it. The picture quality on the driver channels was terrible compared to the HD fox coverage. Flipping between the fox coverage in Dolby Digital to the basic stereo was a problem with volume as well. Some of the production bugs mentioned above will imrove with time.

Bottom line - it's a neat supplement. If the channels were in HD - it may be the only way to watch.

[HD-holdout]

Pay for commercials that cut crew chief interviews off mid sentence??

Never.:mad: :mad:

[ilovehd]

I agree I liked it alot, but having to deal with the commercials is a pain. They either need to take them off or at least give you the option to stay with the driver audio. They also need to mute the commentators mic when their is team chat or give a serperate audo feed just for that.

BTW - I bought the package back in December for the early bird special, and am happy with it so far.

[RAD]

I started the race watching HotPass but gave up. The commentators talked too much, cutting off what little in car radio there was. Telemetry from Stewart's car not working. PQ poor.

What ticked me off right away was at the 1st set of pit stops, Fox went to a commercial so we heard that audio, we missed all the communications between the car and the crew about what they wanted to do.

I tried to cancel but D* says too bad, enjoy it for the rest of the year, since you're stuck.

[cnmsales]

I rather enjoyed it, especially with the communications from driver to pit and etc being played, good fun. It was a little hard to follow. It would have been better if they had one screen dedicated to the entire race and not the driver. It was hard to keep up with the race as a whole when watching the driver channel.

[mganga]

disappointing. as other have mentioned no HD and very little audio btwn. driver and crew which i thought was the whole point. i tried it for a while but found the normal HD broadcast on fox much more enjoyable.

[vlj9r]

I started the race watching HotPass but gave up. The commentators talked too much, cutting off what little in car radio there was. Telemetry from Stewart's car not working. PQ poor.

What ticked me off right away was at the 1st set of pit stops, Fox went to a commercial so we heard that audio, we missed all the communications between the car and the crew about what they wanted to do.

I tried to cancel but D* says too bad, enjoy it for the rest of the year, since you're stuck.

I totally agree with you. I guess the commentators felt like they had to earn their paycheck. I too found it very annoying that we were forced to listen to commercials during the yellow flags. That is when most of the team communications take place. Glad I did not subscribe to it. My deciding factor to not subscribe was the lack of HD. In car communications without commercials can be heard on Nascar.com pit-pass.

[hocksta]

Ditto for me too..... until they get HD on all multi-pass programs... i am holding out

[BattleScott]

Pretty good for first time out. Needed more 'in-car', less mindless announcer chatter on the drivers channels. Would be great if you could put the main race feed on and select audio from a driver channel.

[Dbadone]

I watched FOX most of the race.. I flipped over for the Stewart and Johnson wrecks.. and the Red Flag. Waltrip seemed to really enjoy interacting with the hot pass watchers.

added note on the "49.50 Full Season" deal I saw.. they tried to charge me 2 payments, so I canceled it before it started. they should of taken my money while they had it, because I don't think this was worth $99.

Early bird special was 2 payments for $49.50. It was never only 1 payment for $49.50.
I loved it again as I posted in a previous thread, this is new and I'm sure they will work out the kinks and bugs.

My Complaints:
1. Commercial screen should be the smaller if there at all.
2. Team audio should be a choice by itself
3. Telemetry should be up all race
4. We should get to choose which camera to watch and switch between.

Overall I love it and it is well worth the price.

[saleen351]

What exactly did we get with this Hotpass?

The other 2 camera views don't really offer much. Think about it, lap 15 for Jr looks exactly the same as lap 35 as did 36, 37, etc.

The announcers were horrible, forget the constant plugs, there were times they didn't say anything for 15 seconds and they literally ran out of **** to talk about.

2 of the cars dropped out of the race so, kinda defeats the purpose of the channel when this happens.

Tony Stewart's telemetry didn't work.

The main fox feed is a 100000% better, with much better announcers who offer incite rather than what the crew chief's wife ate for lunch.

The leaders board is always on the main feed.

The main feed constantly shows various in car feeds.

The driver chit chat was worthless with people talking over one another, which they can't fix, they don't know when the driver will talk.

DTV is in huge trouble on this one and think about this, more NASCAR fans watch races in groups, how long will someone want to watch the jr channel before someone else gets pissed off about it.

Pack it up DTV it's a failure, move on..

[Tony1097]

Early bird special was 2 payments for $49.50. It was never only 1 payment for $49.50.
I loved it again as I posted in a previous thread, this is new and I'm sure they will work out the kinks and bugs.



4. We should get to choose which camera to watch and switch between.

Overall I love it and it is well worth the price.


true.. sorta.. on D*s site where you switch the programming.. for quite a while, they stated an error that said "49.50/Full Season" right next to the little box you could check if you wanted to order it. I told this to quite a few people who looked it up for themselves (this Message Board included) and saw it. it wasn't until days before where someone finally corrected it and added "2 payments"

and error.. true.. but if D* would of went with the whole "Customer is always right" saying.. they would of had my money :)

[pman_jim]

I watched the race pretty much on Jr's channel. Liked the fact that I could switch between Fox's audio and D*'s audo. D*'s announcers need to take a break at times, like when the team is speaking. The commercials were WAY irritating, good thing I had my laptop and could run NASCAR.com's pit-pass, could at least turn that audio on during the commercials (even though there was a nasty lag using that).

Overall it was an interesting way to watch the race, but I'm just glad I didn't pay for it.

[Yo1]

It was a clearer feed from Fox HD than from HotPass.Maybe if HotPass was in HD it might be worth it.What a finish though!!

[Warbird2]

Watched most of the race on FOX, checked out a few minutes on Hotpass here and there. It was just "OK" for me. PQ was terrible, and the announcers were too chatty during driver-crew communications, as others have mentioned.

I don't think I'd pay for it at this point.

[bjlc]

if you are paying big money for this, then D* needs to eliminate the commercials.. Sorry. but you are paying NOT TO SEE COMMERCIALS BUT FULL TIME IN CAR.. if you pay then you should get the full screen of what you paid for.. Not commercials.. its double dipping and D* knows it.. and isn't afraid to steal your money..

[RAD]

I'd also love to see the commercials gone but as mentioned you get the commercials on NFL-ST, MLBEI, NBALP, NHLCC, etc. since they are showing the FOX network feed in one of the windows. Now maybe if they elminated that and had just the SS feeds they could get rid of the commercials.

[mx6bfast]

I thought about getting it but have decided against it. I watched maybe 15 minutes total.

Reasons why:
1) Commercials - why should I see commercials for something I am paying to watch it during commercials.
2) Should be more driver/crew chief audio. Could've had this during commercial breaks.
3) Only watched Stewart and missed the telemetry. Now I see it wasn't working.
4) PQ looked like crap and would rather watch it in HD.
5) Too much talking from the announcers.
6) Audio difference in watching OTA and this channel was 10 decibles.

Can't imagine watching this without a dual buffer HD-DVR
I'll spend my $100 on something else.

[rgraham541]

I found the audio quality lacking and when trying to switch to FOX in the interactive mode it took me to the national feed (not local) which told me I was not subscribed so all I got was a black screen.

Great concept. Needs to be polished.

[toad57]

Having multiple DVRs I decided to record the Stewart and Earnhardt channels for later analysis - what a difference!

Mostly, the Stewart channel had multiple announcers simultaneously that seemed to want to spend most of their time talking... much of the crew audio was not available or talked over.

The Earnhardt channel seemed to have a single announcer at a time that spent less time jabbering and permitted more team audio to be heard - the guy would cease talking when the crew audio came on. The Earnhardt channel also did a much better job of going back and replaying highlights of pit stops or track situations.

Anyone know if there is a method for sending feedback to the HotPass producers?

[Dolly]

I watched some of the race and used the interactive even less. I didn't care for the interactive at all :( Racing needs a big screen and all those cut up views took away from the race rather than adding to it IMO. D won't be getting any money from me on this. But as I'm not a huge racing fan, I didn't expect D to get my money on this anyway :)

[Supervolcano]

So did you use HOTPASS for the race.
What did you think of it.
I watched mostly FOX coverage because the HotPass ... in a word ... stunk :D

Almost all of my reasons for the opinion have been said by others here, so no need to repeat them all.

One suggestion I didn't see which could address the issue of what happens when a driver gets knocked out is to create a list of "alternate drivers" before every race, like maybe 5 or 10 extras, so that when one driver gets knocked out, you switch to the "first alternate".

This way your still giving the customers "options" of who to watch instead of being stuck with the last man standing senario. If I'm paying for 5 in-car cameras, I expect to get 5 in-car cameras, even when one gets knocked out.

(Yes, please do copy your posts from other threads)
Not related to the likes/dislikes of hotpass, but relevant to today's broadcast that D* should take note of ... There were 2 issues with the event fully documented in 2 seperate threads that should be looked into by technicians.

Channel surfing like never before:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=80127

HotPass doesn't have extra black bars flaw:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=80126

I suggest if people want to continue discussing either of these issues, post in those appropriate threads, not here, so this thread stays on track (pun intended).

[redfiver]

My wife liked the Hotpass, she said she could actually get into watching NASCAR with a feature like this. This is HUGE news, as she's not normally a race watcher. But, she really enjoyed being able to hear the drivers crew and all that stuff. I enjoyed it as well, but the PQ was very poor. The commercials were annoying as well. If they have to have the audio on for the commercials, it would be great if they could make that window smaller so you can still see the race. And, HD. needs HD. it's broadcast in HD, make it HD.

This said, I do not want to sacrifice bandwidth for other HD stations just for NASCAR. While Hotpass seems pretty neat, I don't think that's a good long term strategy for DirecTV.

What I'd really like, is a feature like this for Baseball games. Cameras/mics in the dugout, so you can see what the players are doing. Or, just being able to choose the view you want to watch the game at. You can use the camera behind home plate, or the outfield camera that looks over the pitcher's shoulder. Obviously you couldn't do this for ever game, but it would be great on the Sunday Evening game on ESPN and the FOX Saturday game. That would be a feature I'd pay for in an instant.

[mwt129]

I watched all but the last 2 laps on Jr.'s cannel. I could have done without the announcers throwing out stuff like "we" and "us" and "our guy" like they were part of Jr.'s team.

[RobertE]

You all do realize that the in car cameras are not HD right?

[Earl Bonovich]

I watched all but the last 2 laps on Jr.'s cannel. I could have done without the announcers throwing out stuff like "we" and "us" and "our guy" like they were part of Jr.'s team.

Actually that is one of the "concepts" of the driver channel.
I am not sure if it is true of the other teams, but from the "sounds of it" from the JR channel... JR's team had a say in who the announcers where for his broadcast.

[Groundhog45]

I just watched part of the race on Fox. Didn't use the Hot Pass.

GH

[stogie5150]

I watched the race and forgot about the HotPass free preview...:lol: :(

[Tony1097]

I watched the race and forgot about the HotPass free preview...:lol: :(

gee, what a coonass! (inside joke)

[tucker301]

I recorded Hotpass and watched the majority of the race on my local Fox affiliate in HD.
Watching the HP channel after seeing it in HD was not something I could bear for very long.

If there was an incident or some other point of interest, I'd flip to HP and rewind to see how it looked from my driver's perspective.

Overall, it wasn't that great, and I found myself wondering why I signed up for the entire year.

As others have mentioned, there are some things that should change in order for it to be worth the price.

Right now, NASCAR.com's trackpass is a better deal.
Watch the regular feed in HD and run trackpass on the laptop.


Larger screen should be driver screen, not commericals.
I paid for this, so why am I even seeing commercials at all?
During commericals, if they must stay, show car on track view, not the in-car.
No announcers or the option to toggle them off in lieu of team audio.
Should be in HD. SD was ugly.


Please improve the product and make me feel better about giving you that money. :mad:

[steveymac]

i loved hotpass... i can only hope some of the "kinks" are because it was new... i'm hoping it gets better as the season goes along... i wonder who the drivers will be next week..

[AdamL2388]

I live in Burlington, Ontario, Canada and watched almost all of the race on Nascar Hot Pass on my Cogeco receiver.

I love the idea of this package that Direct TV is doing. Most of the race there was a 3 way split screen on each channel (1 in-car, Fox Broadcast, a pit - race camera).

When Direct TV went to the FOX commercials it went into full screen mode and I never heard any commercials or announcers during it, but the audio feed between the driver and pit crew were really clear, and I heard it all on each channel. It showed the Driver on track mode on each channel when FOX went to commercials.

The Interactive feature has not been introduced in Canada yet for Hot Pass, and it is only a Direct TV exclusive.

I love the idea of the announcers throughout the race and interviews between pit crew people.

I think there is some need to improve with this package but Overall I would rate Direct TV new package a 9 out of 10 through Week 1 of the season. The one thing I like is this nascar pack is part of the Super Sports Pak available to Rogers / Cogeco subscribers on digital cable (Canada Only) for 26.99 per month which includes:

NHL Centre Ice
NASCAR Hot Pass
NBA League Pass
NFL Sunday Ticket
OHL Action Pack
MLB Extra Innings
NCAA F and B

What I am wondering tho is if Nascar Hot Pass in Canada is different from Nascar Hot Pass on Direct TV?

From what I read on this forum, people are really complaining about the commercials, but on mine it went to full screen mode without anncouncers and commercial audio, but with pit-crew and driver audio, plus we have no interactive feature with out Hot Pass.

Excellent Job Direct TV, and this coming from a Canadian subscriber!!!

BTW Drivers for Next Weeks race are as followed:

Driver #1 - Matt Keneth
Driver #2 - Juan Pablo Montoya
Driver #3 - Elliot Sadler
Driver #4 - Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Driver #5 - Wild Card Driver (T.B.A)

[21hawk]

Split screen the whole race, Fox HD and 799.

[Lord Vader]

Adam, my program guide is showing Jeff Gordon as one of the 5 drivers next week.

[AdamL2388]

Ya I forgot, One of the announcers on Hot Pass announced that there was 80 to 90% chance Gordon would be the WildCard Driver for next week's race.

[Lord Vader]

I never had it listed as the wild card driver. During the race today, I just checked on my guide for next Sunday and it listed Gordon.

[AdamL2388]

At the end of the Hot Pass today all the announcers on the channels announced the 4 drivers for next week, and said the 5th driver was a wildcard and had no idea whho it was going to be, but they were leaning towards Gordon.

I am just wondering if Nascar Hot Pass in Canada is different from Nascar Hot Pass on Direct TV, cause we have no interactive feature, and we do not hear any commercials or announcers when there is a break, it is a full screen mode of the featured car, and team audio between pit-crew and driver.

[Tom Robertson]

I loved it! Sure, a few quirks to work out and HD is a must as soon as bandwidth is available; but the whole concept is fantastic. I'm not a NASCAR fan, but this is tempting.

I'm really excited for how this could be used for NFL ST next season! Bring it on!

Cheers,
Tom

[WERA689]

I'm not a NASCAR fan to start with, but I thought that this might be interesting, so I tried it. I watched the Stewart channel for a while, until he crashed out. In all, I found the interface to be confusing, and the benefit to the race watcher to be totally obscure. I heard very little crew chatter, way too much commentator chatter (with almost no additional insight into what was happening), and generally disappointing coverage of the overall race. I preferred to watch the "overscene" on FOX in HD, as I found virtually NOTHING worth ANY extra payment in the HotPass coverage.
In fact, at one point, just as Stewart was starting his charge to the front, he was heard to say "I think I found something", but nothing was offered by anyone as to what that might have been. What good is that?

[weaver6]

I watched a little of the race on the driver's channels. The lack of HD and the commercials make me glad I didn't subscribe to this package. Commercials are not justified at this price level.

[djousma]

I was not impressed. I guess if I would have had two tv's going at once, it would be ok, one on fox, the other on a driver channel. For me, the HD on Fox was a bigger reason to stay on fox. I probably would not buy hotpass.

Dave

[cadet502]

We watched some of it split screen on Fox (OTA) and a driver channel. Then went to Fox full time and switch to the driver channel during commercials. (with the sound muted)

Main TV is on an HR10, so we didn't get to play with the interactive, I toyed with it on another tv before the race started. Next week I might bring the D11 downstairs and hook it up to another input on the TV to play some more. If this was available as HD only in MPEG4, it would be enough to push me to an upgrade.

In car cameras have never been HD, but I saw an announcement that when ESPN/ABC starts coverage in July, they will have HD in car cameras. Here's hoping they can find a way to use them in Hotpass, at least it should improve the PQ even if Hotpass is still SD.

[Thunder7]

I really liked the HOTPASS. A great new addition for NASCAR fans:

LIKES:
1. The fact that you can see the race at all during commercials. Commercials are a way of life, all those that said there should be none becuase they are paying for it are out of touch. You pay for DirecTV in general and there are commercials all over, even in NFL Sunday Ticket ($200), MLB, NHL, NCAA Tourney...just a way of life. Plus, I would expect if DirecTV had their own broadcast (not using the cameras via FOX -- who owns and works all the cameras being used, they are just tied into the feeds in order to select from) the price would likely be 3x more.

2. The ability to see and listen to the national broadcast without switching channels. This was great, before I bought it I was really wondering if I'd spend more time watching the actual broadcast or the HOTPASS channel. I didnt do my research to see the broadcast was on the same screen. I spent probably about 80% of my time on the driver channel (primarly Stewart), and 20% on the FOX guys (usually when something was going on with another driver i liked they were talking about). Having this on the same screen is also why there are commercials.

3. The various views. Very cool. I really liked seeing what the driver sees and some of the competition going on with the other cars with the wider shot. Very cool.

DISLIKES:
1. The announcers speaking over the in-car communications. I too agree that we need a audio setting to listen to ONLY driver in-car (even though Stewart didnt really say much during his part of the race).

2. The way some of the announcers are such "homers". Meaning they are like "our car", "our driver", got kind of irritating. Especially on Juniors channel.

3. Needs to have HD availalbe. I didnt try to use my HD on this one, but it should be available.

So basically, like it alot, but the announcers need to adjust a bit.

[Thunder7]

Watched most of the race on FOX, checked out a few minutes on Hotpass here and there. It was just "OK" for me. PQ was terrible, and the announcers were too chatty during driver-crew communications, as others have mentioned.

I don't think I'd pay for it at this point.

BIG MONEY? :lol: 36 races for $80 = $2.23 a race. (or for those that will do the $99 = $2.75).

Hell, that is only a beer a race.

I guess I dont understand, ah well. ;)

:rolleyes:

[nick1817]

Hurt my eyes. I swapped there only during commercials. Wouldn't pay for it.

[normandmargie]

One of the things I noticed is that often when I switched back to the FOX broadcast during a commercial on Hotpass (mainly ones for D*), FOX was actually showing the race. Seeing commercials on a sports subscription is bad enough, but do you think we actually saw MORE commercials than the free broadcast? Anybody else notice this?

[jfalkingham]

You all do realize that the in car cameras are not HD right?

on ESPN for the Busch race they were. Big difference.


I'm kinda pissed I paid for this service, the commercials really get me going, almost as much as watching my guy push Harvick to victory only to be taken out in the mess. :nono:

[jfalkingham]

One of the things I noticed is that often when I switched back to the FOX broadcast during a commercial on Hotpass (mainly ones for D*), FOX was actually showing the race. Seeing commercials on a sports subscription is bad enough, but do you think we actually saw MORE commercials than the free broadcast? Anybody else notice this?

YES!

DTV had commercials just for the Driver channels. That is ridiculous. I noticed on Harvick and Jr's channel that they had specific commercials for them, while FOX was showing the race. Nice move DTV...

[Lord Vader]

Swanni's column today stated that DirecTV confirmed Hotpass will be HD in 2008. This is due to the expansion of HD on the two new birds.

[Thunder7]

Swanni's column today stated that DirecTV confirmed Hotpass will be HD in 2008. This is due to the expansion of HD on the two new birds.

Good to hear, but can see that those with primarly HD will wait until then. I would, but I only have 1 HD TV and it isnt my primary.

[Thunder7]

YES!

DTV had commercials just for the Driver channels. That is ridiculous. I noticed on Harvick and Jr's channel that they had specific commercials for them, while FOX was showing the race. Nice move DTV...

I didnt notice this, but it may have been due to being the FREE VIEW. I'll have to follow up after this weekends to see if that does occur and report back next week.

[jselinger24]

I never had it listed as the wild card driver. During the race today, I just checked on my guide for next Sunday and it listed Gordon.

Lord Vader - he is the wild card because he is real picky about incar cameras. Personnaly, I could live with the roof camera - but it is up to Jeff, D*, and NASCAR - I guess.

[nick1817]

You all do realize that the in car cameras are not HD right?

Question then....Why were the in camera shots from the Fox feed 100 times clearer?

[redtaco]

I have most of the same complaints you guys have already mentioned. I was pretty surprised to see commercials come up on the driver channels for sure! If we have to have them (for some nascar contractual reasons I suspect) then at least they could make the race in the bigger window so we could see what was going on. As a longtime nascar fan I figured I would miss stuff just watching driver channels so I brought a 40 inch lcd into my living room for watching the race on FOX in HD and used my 42 plasma for switching between driver channels. I first tried listening to the driver channel audio primarily and just using the race on the other tv for watching muted but I realized I wasn't getting enough race info, just my driver info. So I ended up mostly using the race audio and only listening in on the driver audio when they pitted. I really wanted more incar audio but I do know that they don't talk a lot at the superspeedways so you'd primarily hear spotters except during cautions. Of course that is when we had to watch commercials. I've had nascar trackpass for incar audio before (limited drivers in the past) and I enjoy hearing whats going on with the crew communications. If you've ever been to a race you know how much listening to that stuff adds to the enjoyment and understanding of the race.

What were the interactive features we had? If its just changing the audio between the driver and the race then its pretty lame. Channel 794 was useless to me. I can keep track of 5 driver channels without going back to see who is on which channel. I never got any info from Directv after ordering except who was going to be on this week. Interactive??

I had my hands pretty full using the two tvs with FOX and Hotpass and my computer on the free Leaderboard thing from sprint on nascar.com. I had one remote in each hand to keep changing the audio up and down. Without the ability to watch both the FOX HD and the driver channels at the same time I would have been lost jumping back and forth.

I wish the driver channels were HD but thats something they can work out in the future. They did have some technical issues with the telemetry and sizing in the windows. When they'd show out the front of Tony's car we only saw pavement and really dark. Of course I tried Raceview from nascar.com during the twin 150s and it wouldn't even work for me (they had a lot of issues) so Directv at least had Hotpass working!

Overall I'd give Hotpass a 5 and I'm a huge Nascar fan. I hope they make some improvements as we go thru the season.

[Tom Robertson]

One thing I remember is that there is no-preseason in NASCAR. And on top of that, the first race of the season is the Super Bowl of the sport. Talk about backwards. :) Just noticing and kidding. :)

So NASCAR and DIRECTV has had very little time to practice behind the curtain before launching on the biggest stage for the sport. (I suspect they might have run one or two at the end of last season, but that isn't likely enough.)

So this will all get much smoother and much better. I'm pleased at how well they pulled it off this first time. Plenty of time to practice before the NFL version comes out. :)

Cheers,
Tom

[wyoungmann]

If I remember correctly, there were never any commercials on OnDemand's
Nascar In-Car. There were also no announcers, just the switched feeds of the driver cams with team/driver communications. The only thing you would hear in addition to that was the sound of the car accelerating and shifting.
As far as Hotpass goes, the commercials and the size of the driver screen during the breaks need to be seriously addressed if this is going to work.

[Tom Robertson]

Come on guys, lets keep this civil, please. And on topic.

:backtotop

[brownram]

Come on guys, lets keep this civil, please. And on topic.

:backtotop tibber i apologize that some people example lord vader cant stay on topic but after putting up with this kind of crap for years i will post a reply to any negative post about Jeff

[Earl Bonovich]

I have deleted some of these recent posts.
Please... if you want to talk about NASCAR as the sport (aka competitive pieces)... take it over to the Sports Forum.

Let's leave this thread about the new service/feature from DirecTV

[La Push Commercial Codman]

Consider, in watching the race, I found it a lesser value watching DirecTV Nascar Hot Pass, I perferred watching the race in HI DEFINITION, and found it a wasted time. To my knowledge, DirecTV will loose revenue on this Nascar Hot Pass. If it was successful, then DirecTV would make money. 20% satified, no way. Dish Network read there scope. DirecTV did not read there scope. If DirecTV, thought they would make some money on this, No they didn't.. I saw the race, and felt that, I had 99% of my viewing in hi definition, and I will not waste my bucks....

Sincerely Tom..
Dish Network for RV 1998..
DirecTV NFL FOOTBALL FAN 2006...
XM SATELLITE RADIO 2002...
SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO 2003..

[cpkramers]

I'd say it's a cool thing, but like others have said, the commentators need to shut up for the most part. I tuned in to hear team radio etc, and that's hard to hear over the announcers. The commercial breaks annoyed me, I won't pay for it if there's commercials. And the picture quality was hard to take switching back and forth from HD.

So... less talk, no commercials, add HD and I'd likely buy it.

[La Push Commercial Codman]

I felt to myself, as noting Kevin Harvick of BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA the winner. FRONT PASS AT WWW.BAKERSFIELD.COM, check it out.. I was one of those 8%, who had no use out of DirecTV free Nascar Hot Pass, except enjoying Daytona 500 race in 1080 Hi Definition for the first time. I rather spend my bucks on Football, instead of other junk goods...

Sincerely TOM...

[saleen351]

Comes down to value, what am I willing to spend on this for a year. The answer, zero, I see zero benefit with Hotpass, I think the main broadcast offers so much more.

Again if I could over lay my drivers info on the main broadcast it would be great then.

[Proc]

My 2 cents..echoes many others...

--Announcers were more like cheerleaders. Less of that and more about the driver and team.

--The standard def feed looked awful on my widescreen HDTV. It looked fine on my older 27-inch standard def Sony WEGA and on a 13-inch Samsung.

--The lack of interactivity with the H20 is inexcuseable. I put on my coat and went to the cold garage where I have a D10 and the afforementioned 13-inch TV. The older, standard def D10 receiver was fully interactive.

Bottom line?

Less fluff talk from the announcers.

Get the H20 interactive!

[La Push Commercial Codman]

Comes down to value, what am I willing to spend on this for a year. The answer, zero, I see zero benefit with Hotpass, I think the main broadcast offers so much more.

Again if I could over lay my drivers info on the main broadcast it would be great then.

I think the main broadcast as you pointed out was better then The Howdy Doody show. Your right. DirecTV numbers look small maybe. Somebody, will post there percentage of applicants, non DBSTALK applicants.. I have no reason to even spend money, even if they consider Nascar HotPass in hi definition.. Your good point..:D

[normandmargie]

I'll be definitely checking this forum after next week's race to see if anyone reports changes that will make me want to purchase HotPass, particularly if the overabundance of D* commercials were because of the free preview. If those were to decrease significantly, I'd consider the purchase.

I did enjoy the fact that I could tune to my favorite driver's channel at any time and immediately know his status and exactly where he was in the field. I also liked hearing the spotter chat (boring to some, but fascinating to me) and especially dialogue between driver and crew chief. I will say that some announcers were much, much better than others at shutting up as soon as the radio came to life.

I also thought they were pretty good about getting replacement drivers on camera very quickly. When Johnson crashed, Gordon's car was on that channel, and after Jr's crash, Truex took his place on camera. Didn't seem like it took that long, either.

[kellen34]

I got the HOT PASS for the season. Like it a lot. Had to get a new receiver though because my old samsung didn't have the ability to get to the main menu.

[rbean]

value per race for season is about right, was disapointed in it, don't believe we got what was advertised. I think ads are misleading as far as team communications go, also telemetry wasn't there for most of the drivers very often Commericals come on when the real team talk is going on and you have to listen to commerical. Unless big changes are made it won't last past this year because folks don't look at as just $3 or $4 a race.
My suggs. would be more team com., put the larger screen on the driver, smaller for commercial. and of course put it in HD.
scale 1-10, ten being can't live without it, 2

am running 130 and had to do a rbr to get all of interactive, didn' want to because I was trying to run 130 to look for issues with rbr but that' how it goes

[wmschultz]

I didn't count on using the HotPass as my main viewing zone. I did this week only because I don't have my system all set up.

But...Here are my views and they are pretty similar as all have said.

1. Commercials need to be minimized and have the audio option like the Fox feed does during the race.
2. The announcers need to shut up.
3. I'm not a huge JR fan but I looked at his channel, they had all of the stuff going on that channel that Stewart's channel was lacking.
4. I liked how they stayed with the TEAM when a driver wrecked out. 48 went to 24, 20 went to 11. Kind of cool.
5. I don't know what kind of f'dup crop they were doing with the FOX broadcast, but it looked like CRAP! Just give the 4:3 view and don't do anything with the 16:9 view if you are going to CROP it.
6. Have I mentioned that the announcers need to SHUT UP!
7. Having the announcers for channel 795 talk to the announcers of 796 or whatever needs to stop.

Earl or anyone, if you have a contact email address I really would like to let my feelings be known to corporate.

[tonyd79]

I found the audio quality lacking and when trying to switch to FOX in the interactive mode it took me to the national feed (not local) which told me I was not subscribed so all I got was a black screen.

Great concept. Needs to be polished.

Mine in Baltimore market took me to WTTG (Washington, DC), a station I don't get via satellite.

[saleen351]

As one guy pointed out, when Tony took the lead if you weren't on his or the fox feed, all you got was talk of the crew chiefs wife's lunch....

by this thread, DTV would be wise to fix it and offer a free preview again or I fear their season is lost with this service and I see them never making up ground.

[kateco]

I really preferred the old "IN-CAR"... in spite of the fact that you had to switch back to the broadcast for cautions. One of the things I loved about it was that there were NO announcers making inane comments, just the sound of the car and the track, and no one talking except the driver, the spotter and the crew chief... pure racing!!

I understand there are interactive features, but because I subscribe thru ExpressVu in Canada, and not directly thru DirecTV, I doubt that I'll ever get to use them. I have no idea how the DVRs compare, and when I tried the directional keys yesterday, it just changed channels. Any canucks know anything about it?? :confused:

[Blitz68]

I am not a Nascar fan but thought I would check it out.

The race itself looked stunning in HD, then I switched to the driver channels and watching in SD was dissappointing.

I think if you are a total diehard for a certain driver it might be cool. But for me if I had to watch the whole race I would just stick with the beautiful HD picutre.

[ez2logon]

I bounced between the Fox feed and various drivers, similar to the way I use the redzone and mix channels for Sunday Ticket.

Got complaints on the picture quality when I put Hotpass on the main screen. Will be glad to see high definition asap. Also really want driver-spotter audio as a separate option. I switch between Fox audio and driver; really don't need the rah-rah feed.

I signed up early-bird and once I get my own technical issues resolved, I'm gonna like it a lot.

[AdamL2388]

*** Direct TV have announced that they will be having HD cameras for the drivers by the 2008 season on HotPass ***

People, Please Give HotPass a chance, and let them work out the problems and kinks in it. There is still 36 weeks left in season and lots of time for improvements. Overall I loved HotPass at Daytona and the idea of having the announcers and 3 way split screen is beautiful. I believe that in the upcomming weeks it will improve and they will work out all the kinks in it and by 2008 with HD getting added on to this pack, I think it will be an Ultimate Fan Experience to watch a Nextel Cup Race on HotPass.

Hell this pack is free for me on my Cogeco receiver in Canada so Im not complaing!!!

For 26.99 a month I receive:

NHL CI, NFL ST, MLB EI, NBA LP, and bonus packages with them are OHL Action Pak, Nascar HotPass, and NCAA F and B

[Tom_Oliver]

First off I’m a huge NASCAR fan, and have had the cable In-Demand package for the last few years. Normally I would watch almost the entire race from the in-car channel (usually with Dale Earnhardt Jr) and DVR the network feed and watch that later in the week. I actually had DirecTV installed just for HotPass, since there is no way I could go without my in-car channels.

Yesterday, since it was the Daytona 500 and I had company over, I switched a lot between the network feed and the HotPass channels. I DVR’d Dale Earnhardt Jr’s channel so I could watch the whole thing later. During the race I found a lot of things I didn’t like about HotPass, which have mostly been covered. However, when I watched Dale Earnhardt Jr’s channel exclusively last night I liked it much, much more.

The announcers on Dale Earnhardt Jr’s channel were excellent, and it was pretty cool that one of them (Phil Parsons) threw the green flag to start the race, and they covered it on Dale Earnhardt Jr’s channel by having a camera just on him with his audio. One thing we never got on cable was interviews with the pit crew before and after pits stops, and I thought that was great. They also had exclusive interviews with Dale Earnhardt Jr, but I kind of prefer they just leave him alone during the race. I thought they did a real good job of balancing reporting and letting Dale Earnhardt Jr’s communication heard. If they did talk over it they would repeat what was said. I didn’t like the homer (we/us) stuff either, but it wasn’t that horrible.

I also enjoyed having three different TV screens, instead of just one, and all of the different angles on the pit stops (like the overhead shot for example.) I totally agree with others about wanting to see HD support, and the quality being poor. Glad to hear they will have it next year, but it would be nice if we could get it sometime this year. BTW, the in-car shots are in HD format, not SD like some have mentioned in this thread. It's new to this year, so they could support it if they wanted to.

One thing I enjoyed on the cable package was that I could really tell what his car was doing even before Dale Earnhardt Jr would talk to his crew, because I could hear the car audio much, much better. I do sim racing (have even raced with Dale Earnhardt Jr online), so I can tell what the problems are and I really missed that. I think they should crank up the audio, at least for a few laps, so we can really hear what is going on. Parsons would also know what the handling issues are from listening to that and he could probably explain it to the fans who don’t understand that stuff. Course this would be more important on the non-plate tracks probably.

Now for the stuff I didn’t like:

Commercials. These really need to go or at minimum the screens need to be switched so the in-car channel is the large channel, and we must be able to hear the driver communications. This is more than just an annoyance, but critical to the success of the whole package. One of the major reasons I read for DirecTV doing this entire thing, was because the guy who put it together learned that following a driver for a whole race was very compelling, but you can’t do that and listen to commercials. The reason is because the network will always cut to commercial just before the cars are going to pit and after the cars have finished pitting, and that is exactly when all of the major important communication occurs. Almost all other meaningful communication happens when the cars are under yellow, and the network is on break. This is a major reason, I believe, why most people didn’t “get” the whole in-car experience. We missed all of that and it is critical. Without it, we are simply left with “car high, car low, clear”. Dale Earnhardt Jr in particular never talks under green, unless he’s really pissed off, and sometimes he is absolutely hilarious under caution. This stuff will sell the package.

Mix channel. Shouldn’t this show all the in-car channels at once like the other DirecTV mix channels? I was majority disappointed with that. As it is, I don’t even see the point of that channel.

Interactive menu. When I switched between channels it always defaulted to the network audio feed and not the driver feed. This should be reversed, or remember how I had it originally. Sometimes the menu didn’t work at all until I changed the channel and came back.

Music the driver likes. Who cares? No one wants to hear this.

All and all, a good first day effort that will either sink or swim based on what they do with it going forward.

[bluedogok]

I had the race on my 52" HDTV the whole time and played around with the Hot Pass on the 26" SDTV next to it, I only listened to the audio on the Stewart channel for a few minutes and switched back to the receiver. I can see why it would be a popular add-on for teh the die-hard Nascar fan.

It isn't worth it to me since there are many other series that I watch over Nascar, if they had something similar for F1, MotoGP, ALMS/LMES, Champ Car/IRL, WRC, I would consider it.....of course those in HD would be a good start.....and in the case of WRC being on TV would be nice. It gets a little tiresome watching it on the computer.

[drboogie]

I was truly looking forward to seeing the free preview of the Hot Pass. There were many times before the season that I thought about taking advantage of the special early bird offer, but I never did because it was a new product and I didn't know if it would be worth it. So, when I saw that DTV was offering the Daytona for free, I was excited. It took less than the first 10 laps for that excitement to dwindle. The SD picture was horrible ... I have a 65" DLP HDTV ... many time SD does look bad on that big of a TV, but the Hot Pass picture was unwatchable. I did flip between the FOX HD coverage and the Hot Pass a few times during the race just to see if anything changed. Overall, I thought it was a flop for two main reasons.

1) The picture quality, as I already mentioned.

2) The announcers talked over much of the radio chatter, so you didn't get to hear much of it anyway. I attend 2 NASCAR races per year and always watch the race with a scanner. When I listen to one of my favorite driver channels, I want to hear the conversation when it happens and not have it talked over by announcers. Even if the driver / spotter / crew chief are silent for long stretches, I'd rather hear the silence than have the chatter interrupted when they do talk to each other. That's how it is when you listen to a driver channel at the race.

I am so relieved that I kept away from the temptation to buy this package before the season. If I had purchased it, I would be asking for a refund.

[saleen351]

Could a driver during caution laps do some advertising? Could Tony Stewart be cruising along and say, you know guys I was at home depot the other day and saw chain saws are 50% thru Monday!

[MetroNY]

Michael Cheater Waltrip? Jimmy Crybaby Johnson? How great was that when Busch took out Stewart? Double Pleasure! Anyway, No High Def? Def not worth the money - even with it free I stayed with Fox and turned the volume down. I'd rather hear the sounds from the track live and have the capacity to switch to the announcers when some breaking news is happening. How about a separate audio feed channel instead?

[morgantown]

The commentary on Fox was 100 times better than the audio on the driver channel. That said...

As far as the poll: I watched Lil E and listened to Fox the vast majority. Maybe next year I'll sign up... Good concept, quite understandable they have kinks that need to be worked out for the first broadcast. Still, the main reason I watch NASCAR especially this time of year is football withdrawal, not necessarily NFLST withdrawal.

One thing that ought to be seriously considered (if it is/was not already) is to have the driver's audio automatically mute the announcer. If you are going to watch a driver -- you likely would rather hear him and his spotter gabbing than the announcer.

[AdamL2388]

Nascar And Direct Tv Have Announced That HD Cameras Will Be Available For The 2008 Hotpass Season!!!

[jamieh1]

One thing I found interesting, I recorded the HARVICK channel and while Harvick is in Victory Lane, I switched over to the FOX audio, they went to commercial but a raw feed stayed on, they played Mark Martins incar audio, you hear him talking about NASCAR SCREWING HIM.
If you got it recorded play it back and switch to Fox audio.


The Jimmie Johnson channel sucked, Hermie Sadler and the other guy sucked, the Earnhardth channel was good, theu kept the cars audio on, you could here the engine the whole time.

It would be better to have a 3rd channel just for crew audio.

[jselinger24]

Honestly - HotPass is structured towards the hard core NASCAR fan, like myself. I am a huge Jeff Gordon fan and have been since '96. I know when I go and see a race live I primarily follow Jeff around the track lap by lap. If Jeff is not in the front pack - I will from time to time check on the leaders. Most people who have a favorite driver do the same. That is what, IMO, NASCAR HotPass is geared towards. I switched from Fox to Junior's Channel to Jimmie Johnson's channel and back again during the 500. After Jimmie Johnson crashed and Jeff was given that channel - I never switched again. I kept on that channel exclusively. As I said in a previous post - it's the best thing next to being at the race - for the hard core Jeff Gordon fan, Junior fan, Stewart fan, etc ... etc. IMO, D* needs to offer 10 driver channels so Dale, Jr. and Jeff Gordon are always featured. Yes - there are bugsm but speaking as a hard core NASCAR-Jeff Gordon fan - this package is sweet! (HD - next year will only make it better.)

[jamieh1]

Everyone go to Directv.com and send a feed back, maybe if enough send in thoughts they will change it.

I think everyone should tell them to add a 3rd audio feed for crew only, no FOX, no DTV announcers on that channel.

Im sending mine now.

[Tom Robertson]

Honestly - HotPass is structured towards the hard core NASCAR fan, like myself. I am a huge Jeff Gordon fan and have been since '96. I know when I go and see a race live I primarily follow Jeff around the track lap by lap. If Jeff is not in the front pack - I will from time to time check on the leaders. Most people who have a favorite driver do the same. That is what, IMO, NASCAR HotPass is geared towards. I switched from Fox to Junior's Channel to Jimmie Johnson's channel and back again during the 500. After Jimmie Johnson crashed and Jeff was given that channel - I never switched again. I kept on that channel exclusively. As I said in a previous post - it's the best thing next to being at the race - for the hard core Jeff Gordon fan, Junior fan, Stewart fan, etc ... etc. IMO, D* needs to offer 10 driver channels so Dale, Jr. and Jeff Gordon are always featured. Yes - there are bugsm but speaking as a hard core NASCAR-Jeff Gordon fan - this package is sweet! (HD - next year will only make it better.)

You are exactly right. That is how the press announcement at CES was positioned. Most NASCAR fans follow one car, every race. So I'm glad you're pleased. That was what they were looking for.

Cheers,
Tom

[AdamL2388]

Honestly - HotPass is structured towards the hard core NASCAR fan, like myself. I am a huge Jeff Gordon fan and have been since '96. I know when I go and see a race live I primarily follow Jeff around the track lap by lap. If Jeff is not in the front pack - I will from time to time check on the leaders. Most people who have a favorite driver do the same. That is what, IMO, NASCAR HotPass is geared towards. I switched from Fox to Junior's Channel to Jimmie Johnson's channel and back again during the 500. After Jimmie Johnson crashed and Jeff was given that channel - I never switched again. I kept on that channel exclusively. As I said in a previous post - it's the best thing next to being at the race - for the hard core Jeff Gordon fan, Junior fan, Stewart fan, etc ... etc. IMO, D* needs to offer 10 driver channels so Dale, Jr. and Jeff Gordon are always featured. Yes - there are bugsm but speaking as a hard core NASCAR-Jeff Gordon fan - this package is sweet! (HD - next year will only make it better.)

I am also a huge Jeff Gordon fan, as well I like to watch Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart. I mainly follow those three drivers every week around the track, and this new pack is absolutly incredible for me, this is well worth my money. I watched The In-Car pack that they have had the past years and I believe that with this new pack, it is revamped and a lot better than "In-Car" and it truly gives hardcore fans of Nascar an Ultimate in-home experience. I love it and I just hope that HotPass doesn't come off the air due to people complaining and totally dissing it on the 1st week of the season.

Man, this is becoming as popular as the cheating scandal last week that almost ruined The Super Bowl of Nascar "Daytona 500", and this just might ruin HotPass, for hardcore fans like me.

[jkimrey]

Gordon fan here also. Has it been confirmed that Gordon will be on one of the channels this coming Sunday?

Did anyone catch when the announcer on the Johnson channel (after he crashed and they started following Gordon) tried to talk to Gordon during the red flag?

Gordon radio'd to the crew chief asking who the #* it was. They weren't happy about that. :)

Honestly - HotPass is structured towards the hard core NASCAR fan, like myself. I am a huge Jeff Gordon fan and have been since '96. I know when I go and see a race live I primarily follow Jeff around the track lap by lap. If Jeff is not in the front pack - I will from time to time check on the leaders. Most people who have a favorite driver do the same. That is what, IMO, NASCAR HotPass is geared towards. I switched from Fox to Junior's Channel to Jimmie Johnson's channel and back again during the 500. After Jimmie Johnson crashed and Jeff was given that channel - I never switched again. I kept on that channel exclusively. As I said in a previous post - it's the best thing next to being at the race - for the hard core Jeff Gordon fan, Junior fan, Stewart fan, etc ... etc. IMO, D* needs to offer 10 driver channels so Dale, Jr. and Jeff Gordon are always featured. Yes - there are bugsm but speaking as a hard core NASCAR-Jeff Gordon fan - this package is sweet! (HD - next year will only make it better.)

[jselinger24]

Gordon fan here also. Has it been confirmed that Gordon will be on one of the channels this coming Sunday?

Did anyone catch when the announcer on the Johnson channel (after he crashed and they started following Gordon) tried to talk to Gordon during the red flag?

Gordon radio'd to the crew chief asking who the #* it was. They weren't happy about that. :)

jkimrey here is what DirecTV's schedule says for next week at Fontana:

Sunday, February 25, 2007Race/Venue Time (ET) Channel
Auto Club 500 - NASCAR HotPass Driver Mix 3:41 pm 794
Elliot Sadler #19 3:41 pm 795
Jeff Gordon #24 3:41 pm 796
Juan Montoya #42 3:41 pm 797
Matt Kenseth #17 3:41 pm 798
Dale Earnhardt Jr. #8 3:41 pm 799
National Broadcast 3:41 pm FOX

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPageIF.jsp?assetId=P4110016

I missed Jeff asking who wanted to talk to him because I had a bunch of people over but was it not hilarious when he got the water guy to clean his windshield? Never would have seen that on Fox.

[saleen351]

Hardcore fans or not, most people watch football and nascar in groups and if I'm watching a race at a friends house, damm if I'm going to watch the driver channel... Unless you roll out 2 tvs, this thing is dead on the table and they are not targeting the hard core fans, because that makes no financial sense.

[jkimrey]

Cool. Thanks for the schedule.

Yeah, the water guy was very funny. He (the water guy) looked scared to death, but he did swipe the windshield as he was running away. LOL.

jkimrey here is what DirecTV's schedule says for next week at Fontana:

Sunday, February 25, 2007Race/Venue Time (ET) Channel
Auto Club 500 - NASCAR HotPass Driver Mix 3:41 pm 794
Elliot Sadler #19 3:41 pm 795
Jeff Gordon #24 3:41 pm 796
Juan Montoya #42 3:41 pm 797
Matt Kenseth #17 3:41 pm 798
Dale Earnhardt Jr. #8 3:41 pm 799
National Broadcast 3:41 pm FOX

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPageIF.jsp?assetId=P4110016

I missed Jeff asking who wanted to talk to him because I had a bunch of people over but was it not hilarious when he got the water guy to clean his windshield? Never would have seen that on Fox.

[JackB]

JEERS to the DirecTV HotPass.

Commentators talking over the crew communications, personal conversations and opinions, forcing commercials on us after paying $100, and the production truly sucked.

They claimed this was the perfect way for a fan to get close to his driver, you can bet for $100 for 5 channels there better be no commercials, let alone reducing the car screen to be forced to watch something enlarged we paid to avoid.

Another example of a sport trying to get to the big time all the while it's participants in delivering the event are fleecing it's fans. If you can't do it right, don't do it, period.

Better start tweaking, DirecTV.

I read this on Jayski's site and I couldn't agree more, my biggest regret is I subscribed before I knew there woud be a free preview.

[jamieh1]

I got a response from Directv, I forwarded the issues from this forum and they said it was new and they were working on it, the commercials are required by NASCAR and all there sport packages have commercials.


I think Ill keep the package since Ive already paid for it, but if it does not improve I will not get it next season.

[1999cobra]

Hot Pass SUCKED ... can't get any plainer than that and I watched flipping back and forth ... If the camera's were in HD that would have made a difference and I may have decided to purchase it - But the in car camera's looked like they had a film of Vaseline over the lenses.

The incedious gabbing of the retarded announcers was boring, as well as having to be subjected to the regular Fox commercials while watching a cut out box, I needed a pair of binoculars to see on the TV - It was a bomb. Plus they promo'ed it as if you would hear talking back and forth between the drivers and pit crew and I think I heard all of about two VERY brief conversations...

Hot Pass STAY WAY AWAY:nono2:

[boston area dtv]

I agree with Cobra.

Overall I was disappointed in the use of the technology.

I would have preferred to have heard a lot more in car audio between the crew chief and the driver.

The announcers needed to shut up. Sooo much babbling going on.

As for HD guess the technology quite ready for that so I didnt mind.(would they have had to install two cameras one for HD and one for SD?)

[Lord Vader]

With the field of vision inside the car being so small, and with few things to look at inside the car, how much of a difference would an HD inside camera be? Not much, if you ask me.

[BKrause269]

Last year I had Comcast and In-Car. I switched to DirecTV when they announced HotPass. We have three TV set side by side. The middle one is showing the broadcast race and the two on the side are showing driver channels. I have subscribed for the whole year through the early bird special.
I was disappointed!! Hopefully it will get better as they get the problems worked out.

1. I thought I would be able to choose the cameras I wanted to see and switch back and forth.
2. How come I had to pay for commercials? With In-Demand there weren't any commercials!!
3. I wish they would expand on what In-Demand did and allow the viewers (paying) vote for what drivers they wanted!!

Hopefully it will get better as the year progresses.

Bob
Southwest Michigan

[1999cobra]

With the field of vision inside the car being so small, and with few things to look at inside the car, how much of a difference would an HD inside camera be? Not much, if you ask me.

Well my opinion - A HUGE DIFFERENCE especially when they look out onto the track in front of the car...

[mdmcvay]

i tried it but didn't listen to the audio. It was about 5-10 seconds faster that my FOX feed. I was watching the Jr channel on my laptop and I was seeing stuff happen before everyone else. I would like it to have an option for incar audio only. Because the Sirius channels have announcer talking also and the communications get cut off too. During commercials they needed to flip flop and have the commercial in a smaller screen. HD would be nice. FOX has HD in car cameras or so I saw it announced that they were doing it. They were in 4:3 with the fox hd pillars. ESPN shows their's in 16:9. My wish is that they would have the trucks and busch cars included in the package too. I think I would pay for it then.

[Revenoor]

This might have been a grave mistake by D*, making Hot Pass free for the 500. I switched back and forth a few times and did some PIP with Fox OTA. I am certainly not interested in viewing this even if it remains free. A poll at work Monday was 8 of 8 that did some Hot Pass viewing would not watch again.

[Tom_Oliver]

Well then it will die. Kind of a funny statement since they weren't there for cable. I wonder if agreeing to air the commercials is how DirecTV got the package.

the commercials are required by NASCAR and all there sport packages have commercials.

I think Ill keep the package since Ive already paid for it, but if it does not improve I will not get it next season.

[iceman2a]

I switched back and forth between Fox and some of the driver's channels, mostly out of curiosity! I thought, like many people to hear a lot more "driver/team" audio and less comentary! I would not pay for it, but if D* tweaks it, I can see it beeing worth the money for "hardcore" NASCAR fans!

[jselinger24]

Okay ... here is a response I received from Eric Shanks (himself). The in-car answer is a result of a question I asked regarding Jeff Gordon. All die-hard #24 fans know he usually only runs with an in-car twice a year (both times he drives the Pepsi car). All other responses given by Mr. Shanks are more general.

Eric Shanks wrote:


Jim,
We think the coverage is not really complete without an in-car camera. But as you say, it’s a work in progress and we will see where the discussions take us.
We are getting some negative comments in the message boards and through email that our announcers talked over the team radio too much and we will fix that.
People are also complaining about the fact that we had to run the Fox commercials. But we still kept HotPass up in a small window so people could follow their driver.
We’ll keep working on it and improving it.

Thanks again for your support.

Eric

[jselinger24]

Updated schedule for next week:

Sunday, February 25, 2007Race/Venue Time (ET) Channel
Auto Club 500 - NASCAR HotPass Driver Mix 3:41 pm 794
Elliot Sadler #19 3:41 pm 795
Jeff Burton #31 3:41 pm 796
Juan Montoya #42 3:41 pm 797
Matt Kenseth #17 3:41 pm 798
Dale Earnhardt Jr. #8 3:41 pm 799
National Broadcast 3:41 pm FOX

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPageIF.jsp?assetId=P4110016

[jmettee]

I am a diehard fan & found Trackpass to be very disappointing, mainly due the 2 common reasons:

1) Commercials: Like HBO & PPV movies, I would expect that something like this that I pay extra for would be commercial free.

2) Team audio: all of their advertising (especially the 'Junior wins @ Richmond & does the winning burnout' commercial). They made it sound like the driver channels would have ONLY driver/crew audio. The ads for Trackpass @ directv.com say "Feel like you're part of the crew and in the car with additional camera angles and exclusive audio" & the image ad says "Live team audio. What I found is a lack of this & mostly announcer jibber over the team audio.

IF YOU LOOK IN THE FAQ IT DOES SAY THAT THE SERVICE IS NOT COMMERCIAL FREE. It also mentions that the broadcast included 2 announcers with exclusive team audio.....sharing the same channel. So this would have answered all of the questions & complaints above.

As for getting the bugs worked out for the channel....they were probably working out the major issues during practice in January. They could have also used Free Previews for both the Shootout & Twin 150's to work out the live-broadcast issues & also provide users with 3 previews to see any improvements or changes. This way, by the 500, they could have had all 5 channels working 100%.

I can see why they offered the early-bird special before the free preview....to get money before people found out how poor the product was when it rolled out.

J

[DCSholtis]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/19/sports/othersports/19sandomir.html?ref=othersports

Some aspects of Hot Pass need help, as Hill acknowledged. The blathering of the announcers must be toned down to allow fans to hear the conversations among the drivers, crew chiefs and spotters. The quality of those primitive transmissions is not very high (they sounded CB-level).

•

DirecTV must also let the raw, astonishing roar of the cars come through better and more often. Hot Pass’s intimacy would be enhanced by cutting to the drivers more often — even dimly lit shots of guys turning their wheels, as they cope with cars that are tight or loose, are valuable. Some of the better shots were of Stewart, Johnson and Earnhardt after they crashed.

“All we did today was an on-air rehearsal,” said Hill, who hopes to eventually have cameras show drivers’ feet moving from the gas to the brake and to have channels for each driver

[Dtv-dishlitehd]

Okay here is my assessment and I preface by saying I go to 3-6 races a year and am dying for a simlar experience.

First off, I am not subscribing and paying money in order to be shown commercials!!! Direct-tv needs to do 2 things in this regard. If they can't use the TV feed without having commercials then dump the TV feed. (I am not paying to watch what I can for free.) If they need the commercials to support the program then they need to reduce the commercial to the smallest box they can. I am paying to watch the race not the commercials because as I stated if I wanted commercials I can get that for free.

Now to the suggestions on how to make the coverage tighter. First off either offer telemetry all race or dump it. To me the best advice I would have is for them to work on having a full open mic on the driver crew chief and spotter like you get at the track. Sorry but as a fan I enjoy the "front quarter, outside, outside and clear" that is the Nascar experience at the track that I thought Directtv was trying to bring the fan. I like the fact of highlighting the driver and having a crew calling the race but they need to have the in car audio be the primary feed for the fan. If they want to do a 3 second delay so that they are not talking over the communication then that would be fine.

I think Direct-tv should take the advice that less can be more, IE my ultimate package would be 1-2 pictures with the main being the footage of the driver on track (with telemetry) and the second (smaller) being the in car footage. Then they would have the commentators calling the race and the open mic communication of the race team. Probably works best with 3 second delay so as communication comes on they shut up and gve it to you in its entirety.

I guess my biggest thing is if I wanted commercials and commentators talking over the driver communication I would just watch the TV broadcast but when I pay for the experience I want a Nascar experience and not the standard TV broadcast with a few new wrinkles. Plus HD broadcast is a definate need for next year.

PS. I was an early-bird subscriber and I have already called and cancelled and gotten a full refund on the package! If the first CSR does not do this for you then ask for a manager on duty. If they mention the package has already started remind them that the first week was free to all so no the pay service has not started and to credit you or transfer you to retention.

[Bobman]

I am surprised that some even liked it. Over at TCF 99.9% hated it.

[jkimrey]

Yeah, that's no good - replacing Gordon with Burton.

I know this is only the second week, but as popular as Gordon is, I'm surprised they haven't shown him yet. Wonder if there's more there than meets the eye??

Updated schedule for next week:

Sunday, February 25, 2007Race/Venue Time (ET) Channel
Auto Club 500 - NASCAR HotPass Driver Mix 3:41 pm 794
Elliot Sadler #19 3:41 pm 795
Jeff Burton #31 3:41 pm 796
Juan Montoya #42 3:41 pm 797
Matt Kenseth #17 3:41 pm 798
Dale Earnhardt Jr. #8 3:41 pm 799
National Broadcast 3:41 pm FOX

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPageIF.jsp?assetId=P4110016

[Lord Vader]

Jeff probably won't like the way his hair looks. :p

[saleen351]

I would think they will offer a free preview again, maybe even this week. Think about it, the reviews are really really bad, so if you didn't already purchase it, why would you buy it now even if they fix it, you'll never know..

BTW what is TCF??

[Lord Vader]

Originally posted by saleen351
BTW what is TCF??

Tivo Community Forum, DBSTalk's sister forum.

[jasonblair]

I was shocked that there were commercials. And commentary. I thought it was going to be video from the car and radio traffic between the driver, spotter, and crew chief only.

[MetroNY]

Pay that money to hear Baby Jeffy Gordon crying and complaining the whole race? Marble Mouth Waltrip on Fox is bad enough. The Mute button is a fantastic feature! :lol: