Bigpond-worth it?

[Kixx]

If this has been discussed before I apologise now.

I have recently moved to the city and now have access to broadband, and am seriously considering it. Just wondering how good the bigpond V8 stuff is. It sounds damn good, but just wondering if some people who actually have it and use it could tell me if it is worthwhile. Also wondering how it works. Like with the telemetry, can you look at it for anyone's car you choose?

Any info is much appreciated. It is a pretty big investment and I have to convince my house mates to go with bigpond, so I need some good reasons

[vortexo]

I watched the whole race yesterday on Bigpond. On Sundays you get the telecast *live* delayed by a minute or two - you only get in car cameras and they pick the cameras - you do not get any commentry only the in car radios = very interesting.

You do miss a lot of stuff but it makes up for it as they gave us Lowndes in car when the dual with Tander was on.

You get a dashboard and live timing with positions and gaps.
On Sat/Fri you get live Qual and Top 10 with the 10 commentry.
I have had it since it started and I am not sick of it yet.
They have a female *Sandra* running the thing and she is always open to suggestions and will reply.

And you get the podium presentation and the press conference.

[rdmdog]

I used it for the first time on Sunday, unfortunately Im not normally at home on Fri & Sat. I looked at it this way, special offers on with two months free, so it was essentially the same cose as the normal net spread over 12 months, and free installation. I guess you just need to convince them that its only a bit more expensive than phone line net, and if there is a chick in the house, you know how they love to talk on the phone, done deal.

Is it worth it, id say yes, however Id like to be able to recall info, I dont see why there was only two interviews with drivers, no replays of the earlier media conferences available over the weekend.

I was a little dissapointed about no live timing for the Warm-Up, (See other thread) I hope that we can get as much info as possable transmitted. I guess the radio and live timing might be a little confusing if you dont have a good working knowledge of racing, but the ammount of differing cars with in car cameras made the footage good

[Gaz170]

Depends, if you are going broadband anyway it's very nice to have. I was on Bigpond broadband before this started so tome it's a nice bonus.
Bigpondchoose which car the pictures & telemetry come from, the pictures broke up a lot near the end of yesterday's race, then they gave us the message that the bad weather had caused the helicopter to land, so that's fair enough I suppose.

You can view the highlights of the race and practise anytime you want once they are made available on-line (give it a day or 2 after the race).

The biggest problem I've had with bigpond has been problems with the initial installation. 1 computer they did 18 months ago ended up requiring a re-format after their first "technician" tried to install IE5 over the IE6 that was already there. Another computer I did a self install on had a dodgy cd, but I finally got someone on the phone and we managed to work around it.

Oh, and when I got cable on at my last home/office 5 years ago, the installer actually managed to kill my pabx! Sounds impossible? not if you drill throgh all the phone lines like he did!

But apart from thise problems, I do like the V8 stuff.
If you are really interested in broadband, maybe checkout a site like www.whirlpool.net.au

[Sol]

Worth the investment.

The service is getting better all the time, but PS2 live timing is also needed. I sat there yesterday with both going and didn't miss anything.

Pity those who want it but live in areas where Bigpond Broadband is not available or worse still, in NZ!

[vortexo]

I guess you need to find out if your computer will handle it with the video card etc before you sign up.
My son is an IT guru and he set mine up with no problems - and its a very modest computer - oh yeah santa bought me a very big monitor for christmas.

[smokinJ]

on my computer it was sketchy at best no live timing it still wasn't updated from carrera cup
and the dash said someone was doing 35kmh in neutral
had to strain to recognise who was on the screen at the time and the image changed every 3 to 4 seconds
gave up and watched it on telie
yes my computer is getting old but i could watch the 24hr Procar event get better vision at had on track cometary

[mixxer]

when they can reliably broadcast a whole weekend without dropouts then it will be worth it but as it stands now NO WAY Id save my money if I was you

[Spunky]

I have ADSL but since am yet to see the live timing etc as I have been at the races themselves. I look forward to seeing it when NZ is on.

[frederick]

If you do decide to go with Broadband then I would suggest you spend a little extra and get the 4 port modem option,
It has a built in router that removes the need to Log-in as all the details are stored in the router
It also has a firewall built-in that stops most of the nasties coming through (still a good idea to run AVG free antivirus and Spybot though)
The other advantage is that you can hook up a total of 4 computers and get a LAN happening (all they need is a 20 dollar network card installed in each machine)
Lastly, get the highest Bandwith you can afford 512/256 is a practical minimum.
Quite apart from the V8's the rest of your Internet experience will be a lot more satisfying as you can download video clips of Qualifying laps, crashes, or replays of other incidents

[Average Punter]

Just watched the press conference (and indoor podium presentation!) from EC. Try doing that without Big Pond! OK so it's quiet at work...

I think it's worth it as there are highlights available online all the time. Great when you are as good at programming videos as I am!