As I get older I get grumpier at laziness in the use of the English language. Meaningless phrases, bastardization of words and so on simply irritate me.

One of them is variations of “I have seen the future”. I mean, if you have seen it, it is already here and therefore is not the future? (Another is “Quantum leap”. Look up the word quantum sometime).

Anyway, over the weekend I did see what some may call was “the future” and by golly, our local production houses had better start getting their act together!

I refer to the internet broadcast of the Nurburgring 24 hour motor race. If you put the quality of picture against say the Catch Up TV offering of Channel 7, there is absolutely no contest. Even blown up on a 19” monitor the image was excellent and the audio perfectly in synch.

I didn’t watch the whole 24 hours, but a decent slab of probably 10 hours on and off and there were no dropouts at all! They even had commercials. The only flaw was that the commentary was in German but a running ticker kept you informed of the placings anyway.

An internet broadcast of studio shot stuff is challenging enough; an OB of that length and with a large number of cameras including choppers, interviewers, pit lane telemetry and even in car cameras would be a nightmare.

I dips me lid.

(And no, it wasn’t a redirected station broadcast).