A thread for Tabcorp-owned Sky Racing, an Australian subscription TV and radio service for thoroughbred, harness and greyhound racing.
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Here’s my attempt at explaining the complex looking Sky Racing split screen which is shown between races:
Banner
Shows next race to jump with race number, meeting, distance, race name/sponsor, track condition and countdown to the jump.
Dividends
Shows winning dividends for the next race covered on Sky Racing 1. Green column is for fixed odds (in this case for WA TAB/S-TAB), with the three grey columns showing tote odds for the three Australian betting agencies (NSW, S-TAB and UTAB). Bottom row shows total betting pools:
Vision
Pretty self explanatory. Will show slo-mo replay of previous race before transitioning to next race.
Tips
Tips from various racing personalities as well as Sky’s own predictor:
Results or Field Info
Shows results from previous, or field information for next race. This cap shows results only.
Ticker
Shows next 4 races to jump on either Sky 1 (red) or Sky 2 (blue). Same ticker is used on both channels. Sometime the last 2 races are obscured with a TAB ad like this cap shows:
Misc Graphics
The banner and ticker stays on screen during the actual race…
…until the screen is cleared for an unobstructed finish.
The results are shown as soon as the winner is known and stays on until the split screen returns behind it:
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Good explanation. It is sometimes confusing how graphics appear right next to an unrelated race, but if you spend enough time watching it, it all starts to make sense.
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Sky racing 1 just aired an Audi ad back-to-back.
Does Sky still use that space for post race updates as well?
Kalgoorlie tomorrow, Race 7, number 1 Flow. 
Yes, they often use a yellow banner in the same spot to announce late scratchings, false starts or to denote which audio is playing when they’re using a 2 video split screen (which I’ll cover in another post later).
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This deal makes a lot more sense then the NFL RedZone one - NBA the largest sports market for TAB (and the broader betting industry), coverage is regular and the viewing time is decent for Australia.
Call me cynical, but this move to get these rights deals strikes me as a play to improve in-venue betting revenue and maybe attract back punters who have moved to other services.
It wil be interesting to see what else Tabcorp go after
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Some NBA games will clash with NFL RedZone it appears, if I am reading the schedule correctly. Will the TAB pub and club outlets have multiple screens showing the NBA, NFL and Sky Racing, in addition to the usual Fox Sports and maybe a music video channel, in house promos etc, on Monday mornings? The channels are mostly visual wallpaper except for Australian live sport, mostly.
I would hope they do. Or is this a deal only for existing venues taking the Sky Sports/Optus Sports channels for EPL?
Having a couple of drinks at Star Casino and I saw a couple of TVs with Sky Racing 1 & 2 both with HD watermark logos… Didn’t know they were in HD now…
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I first noticed it mid 2018 on Sky Racing 1. At the time Sky Racing 2 was still SD but it has since been upgraded too. AFAIK, Foxtel viewers still only get both 1 and 2 in SD, with Thoroughbred Central in HD. Venues and online streams are HD.
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Thanks, didn’t realise that venues were getting an alternate feed. I hadn’t noticed it on FOXTEL the Q.
Venues have always received channels from Sky’s own satellite transponder rather than using the channels on Foxtel’s platform. This is probably because originally Sky Racing on Foxtel was different to Sky Channel for venues. I think they’re all the same now but these new sports deals might prove me wrong.
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Surely at some point in the future, Foxtel viewers will be able to watch Sky Racing 1 & 2 in HD? It seems a bit poor that as we approach 2020, there are still sports channels on the platform only available to watch in SD when thoroughbred, harness and greyhound racing is content that would probably benefit from a decent quality HD picture!
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I wouldn’t be surprised if we see an interesting showdown between Tabcorp and Foxtel - Tabcorp are keen in get into other sports, but will possibly need delivery partners
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Might push them to get on Kayo once and for all!
I imagine there’d be a lot of country racing venues that could only supply an SD feed anyway, so probably wouldn’t have a whole lot of value if there were significant levels of upscaled content.
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I’ve never watched Sky over Foxtel, but I’ve seen some particularly poor feeds of it in pubs where it is clearly being fed over an analogue link to a TV and it is very hard to read all the text, so HD would help a lot.
If Sky have ambitions of branching out, then I wonder why it’s not available through Fetch?
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