Is F1TV ran by AI bots?
In the comparison chart for F1TV you have three tiers. The most expensive, called Premium, says that it offers F1 live in 4K UHD/HDR:
Four days ago I subscribed to that tier. My streaming box is an Apple TV 4K, the latest model from 2022 and my TV set is an LG OLED C2, which obviously has both HDR and Dolby Vision, as does the Apple TV 4K. Now, the Apple TV 4K comes configured the wrong way from factory, which is to detect the TVs capabilities and set the signal sent to the TV to 4K Dolby Vision if you have a TV that supports it. If your TV is a Samsung, which doesn't have Dolby Vision, it sets it to 4K HDR.
That's absolutely wrong, because it basically converts everything to Dolby Vision or HDR, not respecting the original dynamic range in the stream. When it converts HDR to Dolby Vision it's not terrible, but when it does so with plain old SDR content, it looks bad. So the correct way to set it up is to set the format to 4K SDR, with YCbCr 4:4:4 and set it to match content for both range and frame rate. That way, if you're watching something in SDR, it will keep SDR, if the content is HDR, it will switch to HDR, and the same if it's Dolby Vision. This ensures that you're watching anything in the way the editor and color grading artist intended.
Well, when I started playing videos in the F1TV app, and HDR wasn't triggered, I sent a message via the contact form on the help page, basically telling them that I had subscribed to the Premium tier, but I wasn't seeing any videos in HDR, even the newest ones from this season. The next day I got an email, part of which said this:
I understand that your enquiry is about your F1TV Premium. I will be happy to help you sort this out.
To do this, we are going to need some further details from you. Please ensure you send the correct information so there is no delay in helping. Please provide the following:
Full Name:
Date of Birth:
Once we have this information, Sebastian, we will aim to respond back within 24hrs.
I don't know why would they need my full name and DOB, but I replied right away with that. The next day I get another email with this:
Thank you for reaching out. I want to make sure I fully understand your inquiry so I can assist you properly. Could you please clarify the details of your subscription issue or question? I’m here to help and will do my best to resolve it for you!
Once we have this information, we will aim to respond back within 24hrs.
At this point, I'm thinking these people are not very bright and I'm starting to get fed up. Since it was a contact form, I don't have the text of my original message to them, but it was a simple issue, basically you promise HDR and I'm not seeing HDR. So I replied this to them, this time in even more detail than my first message, to make it perfectly clear:
Sorry, was my email not clear? I was asking about HDR. I purchased the premium subscription because it said it shows the streams in 4K HDR. My Apple TV 4K (2022) is set to SDR but to switch to HDR or Dolby Vision if I play any movie, TV show or video encoded that way. But when I play anything on the F1 TV app in the Apple TV 4K, it doesn't trigger HDR. It doesn't look bad, but my TV set shows me in the info panel if it's HDR or Dolby Vision, and in this case it's not showing HDR.
I looked this up online, and someone had posted on Reddit about it, saying that he had seen streams in HDR about two weeks ago, with some people replying they had seen that as well. I replied that I in my case I wasn't seeing HDR being triggered in any stream, and someone replied that it was just for live events. Well, right now I'm watching the live stream from Australia (practice 1) and there's no HDR either. The comparison chart for the different tiers say that the Premium one has 4K HDR for live events:
(Here I inserted the same screenshot as above)
So if the Premium tier doesn't have HDR, I'd rather have the Pro tier so I can still watch the races live, even if it's not 4K. But the Premium Tier says clear that it has 4K HDR and I have a supported device with a TV set that supports HDR just fine. So what's the story here? If I'm not going to get HDR then I want a partial refund and switch to the Pro tier. I don't need multiview or to stream in more than one device.
So the next day they reply with this:
We understand you have a concern regarding F1TV Premium and the HDR feature. To assist you further, please provide us with the following:
- Screenshot or ideally a screen recording of the error:
Once we have this information we aim to respond within 24 hours.
When I read this I started fuming. Because as you can see in my last message to them, I was abundantly clear on what the problem was. Perhaps it wouldn't be super clear to someone who doesn't know anything about TV or streaming services, formats and all that, but these people are supposed to know. What screenshot are they talking about??? I told them very clearly that this is not a computer issue, or even phone or tablet, it's streaming box and TV set. What am I supposed to do? Take a photo of the TV set info panel not showing HDR? I already told them it doesn't! Do I have to prove that to them?
But something here tells me, when considering the blatant negligence of this people, but also the language, that they may have quite possibly the crappiest AI bot replying to these emails, because you can't possibly be this stupid. It's just excessive. But if they have AI bots, shame on them because the F1 world has more than enough money to employ real people. And if these are actual people, I'm sure they subcontracted to some random company in who knows where that offers some kind of package to provide customer support for companies, and those are the typical call centers that when you call about anything, they drive you crazy with fake politeness and then they end up being totally useless and you have to ask for a supervisor.
At this point, I'm so fed up that I will lower my subscription to the mid tier so I can still watch the races live, even if it's not 4K HDR, and that's even if they are in HDR, which as far as I can tell, they're not, unless they only have HDR for the main races.
But these people need to work a lot on their customer service.
Posted Mar 14, 2025, 8:07 PM UTC