davejb
Dam
P
Paceman hand timing the start of NH is, as you say, often problematic as it can be difficult to judge when the first runner passes the starter - which is also how the RP told me their own timing people were supposed to do it. (It was evident at the time I was asking them about this that at least one of their people was doing it rather differently). Timing from video can be hard, as it is often impossible to see both sides of the track ( a bit like the finish line TV shots, the line often is rather a diagonal as the camera is offset from the line, and it's not unusual for the TV cameras to zoom in to the extent that neither rail is visible at the critical moment and you have to estimate the point the starter is being passed.
The problem with Timeform is that whilst they might be correcting the time for their ratings, the time they post on their website results page can be quite adrift and doesn't seem to be corrected with any great haste. There is no doubt that sometimes they are right and others wrong, I've also found times where HRB is right while RP and Timeform are wrong, hence the need to check all three against each other to flag up the races you need to double check for yourself.
It's easy to become quite critical of the inability to provide accurate timings, it is important to understand the limitations inherent in anybody's ability to be accurate - the technology isn't in place over the jumps, yet, to be as accurate as the they usually are on the flat )which has been much improved this past season compared to previously), but all data providers are rather let down by typos..... when a 2m chase is reported as taking over 5 minutes to run somebody ought to be saying 'hang on, that doesn't look right' before the page is published.
Ribble Valley made it look very easy, it was pretty impressive and it'll be interesting to see what he gets stepped up to from here.
Dave
The problem with Timeform is that whilst they might be correcting the time for their ratings, the time they post on their website results page can be quite adrift and doesn't seem to be corrected with any great haste. There is no doubt that sometimes they are right and others wrong, I've also found times where HRB is right while RP and Timeform are wrong, hence the need to check all three against each other to flag up the races you need to double check for yourself.
It's easy to become quite critical of the inability to provide accurate timings, it is important to understand the limitations inherent in anybody's ability to be accurate - the technology isn't in place over the jumps, yet, to be as accurate as the they usually are on the flat )which has been much improved this past season compared to previously), but all data providers are rather let down by typos..... when a 2m chase is reported as taking over 5 minutes to run somebody ought to be saying 'hang on, that doesn't look right' before the page is published.
Ribble Valley made it look very easy, it was pretty impressive and it'll be interesting to see what he gets stepped up to from here.
Dave
