Does the Olympics Video Suck For You Too?
Admit it. These Olympics have been awesome so far. The mind-blowing opening ceremony. Michael Phelps. The breadth of games covered. All wrapped up in an HD bow. Too bad the online experience doesn’t even merit a bronze medal.
Let’s set aside the bone-headed decision to delay the web video coverage for popular events until after the already delayed West Coast coverage. Yes, that sucks. I’m talking more about the video player.
As we’ve written before, just getting the video from the games to your PC is an Olympic task. But all that effort is going to waste. I tried watching these Olympics online at different points throughout the weekend and just gave up to watch it on oldteevee. Here are some of the big issues:
1. Video presentation. This was supposed to be a big coming out party for Microsoft’s Silverlight. The quality is adequate, but the video doesn’t play full-screen and it fails to capture the energy and excitement, especially for events that don’t have a lot of close-ups (try watching field hockey). And the four simultaneous streams option shrinks the videos so small it’s pointless.
2. No commentary. Yeah, sure. Web video means that you can actually watch archery for the first time, but there are no announcers providing commentary, so I don’t know what’s going on. What’s happening? Why is it happening? Don’t know. This is especially bad in between matches like fencing. There is just a shot of an empty court (is that what they call it in fencing?). No indication as to what’s going on or what’s coming up.
"As Seen On" coverage from Day 2
3. Poor navigation. Events aren’t always labeled properly (men’s archery is listed as “Men’s Team Event”). In the “As Seen on TV” option, where you can watch the games as they were broadcast on oldteevee, there’s only one video from Day 2 (trap shooting), and six videos from Day 1. Yeah, preeeeeetty sure there were more than seven televised events over the weekend.
Unfortunately, NBC doesn’t have much incentive to change its behavior. The games have been exciting and a ratings monster for the network. NBCOlympics.com racked up 70 million pageviews on Friday, and 4.8 million people watched 3.1 million video streams on Saturday.
This could have been a golden moment for online video — too bad NBC just couldn’t stick the landing.
Sponsor Gallery
Recent
GigaOM Network
© 2008 The GigaOM Network. Powered by WordPress.com. Marketing consulting by ACS.
Since I’m not around to watch most of the live stuff anyway I just catch it using their online VOD service, http://www.nbc.com/olympicsonthego/
The installation was a little long.. but was ok, and the HD video is decent quality, looks good on my regular computer or the media center connected to my 45″ TV.
I subscribed to swimming, track & field, and the daily recap and it DL’s at night so I can watch it after I wake up… or get in late.
randomguy on August 10th, 2008 at 10:43 pm - Permalink
yea, i can’t take it anymore. i’ve tried firefox and IE both; when i try and start video my browser will either freeze for 2-4 minutes and miraculously comeback, or sometimes it will be permanently frozen, requiring a hard reset. i was able to see about half of the USA basketball game without commentary (REALLY???) until the browser totally froze up on me.
buster on August 10th, 2008 at 10:58 pm - Permalink
ugh, randomguy….nbcdirect? even worse.
buster on August 10th, 2008 at 11:00 pm - Permalink
I like the NBC online video as a companion to the TV coverage on NBC MSNBC,USA or CNBC and there is text based “live blog” style commentary for some events but as you said they could of done it so much better maybe by 2012 they will get it right .
Matt_ on August 11th, 2008 at 6:05 am - Permalink
I tweeted this moments before reading your post:
“is it just me or does the MS Silverlight player on NBCOlympics.com kinda suck? Stuttering playback + only fair picture quality”
Very disappointed.
Mark Schoneveld on August 11th, 2008 at 6:42 am - Permalink
Clearly NBC’s priority is protecting its’ investment and limiting distribution of videos, otherwise why would they bother with this proprietary software that doesn’t work.
Ron Hirsch on August 11th, 2008 at 6:46 am - Permalink
The video worked most of the time for me, but did crash once, and the buffering kinda blows, too, especially since they are encouraging you to switch between windows.
Chris Albrecht on August 11th, 2008 at 6:46 am - Permalink
@buster
like I said, the install was long.. but it works for me.
YMMV.
randomguy on August 11th, 2008 at 6:53 am - Permalink
I totally agree. What kind of media world do we live in when it’s easier for me to watch the opening ceremony I missed via Comcast’s VOD 48 hours later than on the Web???
Daisy Whitney on August 11th, 2008 at 6:56 am - Permalink
Totally agree. I woke up early to watch the USA-China basketball game online, but was sorely disappointed to not hear any commentary (Bob Costas not available?) and no rewind. Tivo has spoiled me.
Alec McNayr on August 11th, 2008 at 8:13 am - Permalink
IMO, the video feeds a love/hate solution. I love the fact that I can watch my two favorite Olympic sports (archery and fencing) live or rewound when I have time. The lack of commentary was okay because I looked at it from the standpoint of…if I was there in person, I wouldn’t have a commentator either. I love the fact that there no commercials. What I hated about the enhanced player is the when you went from the 4 video feed to the enlarged screen back to the 4 video feed, the 3 feeds on the right appeared to be gone and I had to remember which feeds I was watching. Only to find out the feeds where still, they just weren’t showing up in boxes anymore. FWIW…I got working on both WinXP and Vista machines. My WinXP was built long before I joined Microsoft and SL installed just fine on IE 6.
David Jung on August 11th, 2008 at 8:29 am - Permalink
Overall, I’ve found the Olympics coverage online to be remarkable. Yes, there are lessons I’m sure NBC and Microsoft will take away from the experience, but it’s a huge improvement over what was possible for the 2004 games.
On Albrecht’s comments:
I’m sure quality and full-screen were higher level decisions and not limitations of the player. We disallow full-screen for our broadcasts as well, as all you have to do then is turn that full-screen feed into the input of another encoder and you’re rebroadcasting and saving NBC’s coverage. That and you lose the critical sight of advertising.
No commentary once again has to do with an NBC decision. Perhaps a little-known fact is that many of the events are fed to NYC where the commentary is added there. Not sure at which stage of the assembly line it goes to Web. Saves a lot of money for NBC and the viewer has no clue that the commentators are half-way around the world.
Poor navigation – This is subjective I think. I didn’t have a problem getting around but maybe less savvy users do. Hard to say. Another interesting fact is that the Olympics involves 2,900 hours of live coverage for NBC (a world record). It would take you 120 days to watch it all if you didn’t sleep. I would imagine indexing that online is no piece of cake either.
Anyhoo, I’m not jumping up to give Microsoft the Gold, but I’ve been pretty impressed so far.
Go USA!
Chris on August 11th, 2008 at 8:43 am - Permalink
Well, I will agree to the last comment. I am pretty impressed so far.
Video quality is the lack of commentary doesn’t bother me at all. Sometimes, TV analysts could be a pain when they don’t know jack about the sport they are commenting on…
Yes, they are lessons to be drawn from the experience. But this is a first, and for a first it’s great.
Yes, the toggle between the 4 feeds and the enlarged screen is to be worked on…and probably needs a real full screen option. But since the Silverlight 2 Beta 2 plug-in has issues with the FullScreen functionality on Firefox, I think it could be a reason why it’s not there this time.
My overall opinion. It’s neat.
Manuel on August 11th, 2008 at 9:33 am - Permalink
Sorry…missing some words in my first paragraph :|
Video quality is very good the lack of commentary doesn’t…
Manuel on August 11th, 2008 at 9:35 am - Permalink
First I discovered that attempting to access Olympic videos with a PPC Mac is useless. NBC presents you with a “not supported” message. So then I turned to a Windows PC, and after the Silverlight download and setup hassles I can only say it wasn’t worth the effort. I’m thoroughly disappointed. I’d even watch this stuff with advertising if only they provided a decent user experience. NBC and Microsoft, this is awful.
Curt on August 11th, 2008 at 9:38 am - Permalink
Video quality has been fine, though I’d prefer a fullscreen option. What has made it less useful for me is the inability to accurately rewind/rewatch plays. For example, in judo one perfect throw ends the match. So of course I want to rewind and see it again. However, the scrub bar/slider is 4+ hours. So try rewinding just 10 seconds - impossible. I’ll wait for DVD or just skip it. I set a TiVo Season Pass to grab all the wrestling - it’ll be a pain to also run through a large segment looking for just that sport and I’ll only see the big matches, but at least it’ll be on my TV and with an instant replay function.
Dave Zatz on August 11th, 2008 at 10:26 am - Permalink
[...] of course, it could just be that the online coverage is not very good, suffering from poor navigation, so-so quality, and a complete lack of commentary. (Others disagree [...]
SitePoint Blogs » Olympics Online a Modest Hit for NBC on August 11th, 2008 at 10:53 am - Permalink
[...] been pretty happy with the NBC and the Silverlight Olympics experience. Though some of the criticisms are well founded, that’s more to do with failure in the actual application than it is [...]
The Universal Desktop mobile edition on August 11th, 2008 at 11:06 am - Permalink
I watched football (soccer) highlights on my PC after installing the Silverlight plugin for Firefox.
It worked fine the first time and then crashed when I tried to watch other videos. I had to close the player and reopen = sucks
I was also looking for the full-screen option for a while until I realized there was none = sucks
Cataloging all the video takes a long time - if you do it the old way.
NBC should have harnessed users by creating a YouTube like site where users could upload there own clips of NBC coverage.
NBC would be able to place ads beside the content because they already know it’s all olympics stuff. This would leave editing and rendering up to the masses, give us commentary and take advantage of the ugc culture.
NBC could also have their official channel on there as well.
Too bad. I was considering Silverlight for our re-designed site but this experience really turns me off.
David Mullings on August 11th, 2008 at 11:22 am - Permalink
My impression is overall very positive from the technology and player side. I very much like the interactive experience of the Silverlight player. I think the fade in/out buttons are cool and help keep the viewing experience uncluttered when you just want to watch. Finding the buttons seemed intiutive. The video quality is good….it beats the crap out of flash. Watching tennis in the “standard player” (which means standard resolution) or the large size was quite watchable. I tried watching the shooting, and the little clay pidgeons weren’t visible, but they are quick little guys anyway so i’m not surprised.
What I liked from the technology experience was offset by a navigation experience that should be improved. Finding a particular sport isn’t clearly obvious. The highlight player design was decent, though sparsely populated today (Monday). The streaming broadcast delays from TV and real-time are frustrating. Finally, it took me about 15 minutes to figure out how to go from the large video back to the standard view so I could watch other things. A persistent “back” button (sarcasm “on”) is an innovative idea (sarcasm “off”) that NBC should incorporate.
I watched from home during a light traffic time where I’ve got a Time Warner cable modem that is advertised to support 3Mb/s.
neal page on August 11th, 2008 at 12:32 pm - Permalink
[...] http://newteevee.com/2008/08/10/does-the-olympics-video-suck-for-you-too/ [...]
Hype Meets Reality: Silverlight Finally Reaches The Olympics on August 11th, 2008 at 12:46 pm - Permalink
Not true. Quality depends on how you encode your source video. Most people equate flash video quality to what they see on youTube, which is probably the crappiest quality I’ve ever seen. youTube uses the maximum amt of compression to keep file sizes low.
You can definitely have an flv that looks as good, if not better, than the wmv’s they’re using (and probably with a lower file size)
With the amount of bank NBC has, they should have just invested in a Flash media server. Could have streamed HD content that DOESN’T crash my browser. But alas, they (NBC) probably had no choice in the matter as Microsoft is a partner :(
MD on August 11th, 2008 at 1:59 pm - Permalink
Ok to clarify, VC-1 quality delivered in most Silverlight players has higher quality than the VP6 codec delivered in most Flash players. The codec is simply far superior. Besides, the “file size” doesn’t matter for live streaming…it’s the bandwidth from the encoder(s) and subsequent path to the user that counts. Bit for bit, VC-1 is better than VP6.
That said, the playing field is arguably leveled with H.264 based Flash video. This is still not widely deployed but I expect it will be within 24 months give the very rapid upgrade to Flash9 players which support H.264 (this must happen before the video source starts delivering H.264 to Flash servers).
We discuss such topics frequently at http://www.inlethd.com, and welcome comments and discussion.
neal page on August 11th, 2008 at 3:06 pm - Permalink
I have installed Silverlight on 3 computers (2 Windows, 1 Mac) without issues. I have probably spent about as much time watching videos online (Handball rules!!!!) as on broadcast TV and I have not had any complaints about the video or audio quality.
As for the lack of commentators, I can not imagine it is cost effective for NBC to hire people to offer commentary on every event. Heck, I watched almost an entire half of handbal before I realized there was no commentary.
SCott Stroz on August 11th, 2008 at 4:58 pm - Permalink
@Neal - the penetration of the Flash Player version that supports H.264 is over 80% which is much higher than Silverlight penetration so your point is moot:
http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html
Logically, H.264 Flash would have been the better choice to deliver this video in terms of quality, existing market penetration, and smooth upgrade experience.
Darren on August 11th, 2008 at 5:38 pm - Permalink
Seems like a violation of anti-trust laws. So many countries are covering it live, but block it to meet these monopoly requirements.
Online viewers of the NBC website get no track, no gymnastics, and no swimming, unless you count the highlights, which are delayed and then delayed again.
Ok so archery is really fun to watch, as is judo (not really). Its like the online coverage is an afterthought because they can’t destroy it like the opening ceremonies (or what I like to call the commercial bonanza with limited Olympic interruptions), where 6 minutes of ceremony was interrupted by 3 minutes of commercials. I watched it live on a German das erste feed and even though my german is terrible, it was live and uncut, so you got the same kind of experience most of the rest of the world got.
NBC FTL
Mercator on August 11th, 2008 at 6:47 pm - Permalink
silverlight and the video quality are a complete joke. you would that company that makes billions would have the bandwidth and technology to provide live steaming video that doesnt suck. have i gone through a timewarp to1996 with a dial up modem at 56K?
aric on August 11th, 2008 at 10:27 pm - Permalink
[...] of course, it could just be that the online coverage is not very good, suffering from poor navigation, so-so quality, and a complete lack of commentary. (Others disagree [...]
World IT News › Olympics Online a Modest Hit for NBC on August 11th, 2008 at 10:40 pm - Permalink
I’ve been very impressed with the Silverlight video quality. It is by far the best live streaming I’ve ever seen done on the web. I’ve found myself watching 2-4 hours of it each night the last few days (on a Mac with FireFox) and had no issues with stability.
The live streams look like they are ~650kbits, which means you do need a network connection at least that size to support them without buffering. If you have a decent cable model or DSL line it works great.
David on August 11th, 2008 at 11:55 pm - Permalink
Well I for one think it sucks!
Linux user here and of course I can’t use it. I could but not interested in WINEing it. I did bring a XP machine up with FIrefox and it was bad there too, slideshow.
All in all I’m not impressed with the online or the TV. Seems to me that the enhanced Olympics channel should have had on demand streams of other events then maybe more people could watch more sports, but I will try for torrents later.
Todd Moser on August 12th, 2008 at 6:13 am - Permalink
i’m an american student studying abroad in south africa. i can’t find video of lots of american stuff because nbc won’t allow me to access their videos. they’re only available within the us. which blows.
their coverage of the olympics is less than exciting… mostly because I CAN’T EVEN WATCH MY OWN TEAM!!!
in africa on August 12th, 2008 at 6:43 am - Permalink
Regardless of the video / audio quality, and issues regarding the actual content, Microsoft has succeeded in getting users to install Silverlight. For them this Olympics will undoubtedly go down as a unmitigated success.
MBridge
http://www.MBridge.com
MBridge on August 12th, 2008 at 7:30 pm - Permalink
[...] are off to a good, but not amazing start on the Internet. Over the first three days, NBC’s online coverage drew an average of 4.7 million viewers per day, with the numbers steadily rising over the weekend. [...]
World IT News » Blog Archive » Olympics: Only 0.2% of Viewers Exclusively Watch Online on August 13th, 2008 at 1:29 am - Permalink
[...] of course, it could just be that the online coverage is not very good, suffering from poor navigation, so-so quality, and a complete lack of commentary. (Others disagree [...]
World IT News » Blog Archive » Olympics Online a Modest Hit for NBC on August 13th, 2008 at 1:30 am - Permalink
Actually, up until today I had nothing but praise for the player despite not going full screen. I was getting excellent picture quality and watching full soccer games, which are 10 times better without the inane rubbish of the average commentator. BUT, today I can’t even get the player to load a single video, what’s up?
Cromwell on August 13th, 2008 at 12:03 pm - Permalink
It’s interesting to read through this. My overall impression of the live video is that it’s great.. I understand from watching Microsoft’s Channel 9 video on the making of the site, that there is a hard limit on quality that you can get that works everywhere across the nation and the live stream size was as HD as possible making that work.
The other thing I gleaned from their video was it was a creative directional plan not to go full screen because the stretched video doesn’t look good at differing aspect ratios and screen sizes and they wanted the best possible exhibition and live playback all the time. Video needs to look like video not like smeary youtube stuff.
As far as Flash goes, it sounds like there is a lot of sour grapes from Adobe folks who are commenting here.
The previous comments about VC-1 doing technically better streaming over the net than H.264 is correct. In lower and varied bandwitdth conditions (a national broadcast to the outer reaches of the internet) the video should be looking better even at lower bitrates. I believe it too, I have seen comparisons.. VC-1 is a SMPTE standard (not a Microsoft thing) and it’s a codec you’ll find in all HD dvd players (including Blu-Ray).
As far as not support PPC Macs, how long has it been since Apple has produced a PowerPC based Mac.. Geeze your machines must be around if not over 5 years old.. Apple even announced Snow Leopard so it’s obvious they are even leaving PowerPC machines behind. Silverlight 1 was supported, but like many other 3rd party developers for the Mac. Most are going Intel only. Mostly because even though there is a “Universal Binary” you still have to develop and tweak on a PowerPC Mac to get reasonable peformance.
There is also a big lack of PowerPC Macs still in use out there and on the internet (according to Internet access statistics that are pretty common), the number of intel macs surfing has well over shadowed the left over PPC macs… Do Apple a favor, and yourself BUY A NEW MAC… It will be faster and probably more capable of things like internet HD video at reasonable performance..
I am happy with it, and it looks great in a window on my 1920×1200 monitor or full screen if I change my resolution to something lower it looks like great fullscreen HD to me..
Don Burnett on August 13th, 2008 at 7:25 pm - Permalink
I was hot about no PPC for a bit. After a count to 100 I figured app developers are busy doing PPC –> Intel. So why would M$ do the reverse for 1st D&P show in a while?
Yes, the PPC G4 & G5 can handle the load
monster plugin number-munching puts on a
processor. Microsoft gets no benefit doing
Velocity Engine at the same time they are fussing with Intel SSE (same but different design) instruction set. Something like that
24″ iMac (Intel) anyone?
duddits on August 13th, 2008 at 10:54 pm - Permalink
I’m lost.
The videos play at like 3x the proper playback speed, anyone have any ideas what the problem is? Tried in IE and Firefox.
What a debacle
Mike on August 14th, 2008 at 4:55 pm - Permalink
[...] recent stats from the Wall Street Journal, reveal that NBC’s online coverage drew an average of 4.7 million viewers per day, however, 0.2% of all viewers exclusively used the [...]
TV vs. net | SocialMedia404 on August 15th, 2008 at 3:17 am - Permalink
NBC gets 65% on coverage of online Olympics.
Some events OK
Many events POOR
I’m a Track Fan. Would like to see more of all events. Prelims, qualitfying, semis, and Finals.
Just put a camera inside stadium at finish line and show all. Dont’ need any stinkin’ commentary.
If event (especially those with USA entries) aren’t shown on television, THEN SHOW IT ONLINE.
OR AT LEAST ALLOW SOME ELSE TO SHOW IT ! ! !
spurrunner
spurrunner on August 15th, 2008 at 4:43 am - Permalink
[...] hadn’t constrained its precious content. And experiences may vary, but we have certainly had enough trouble with the NBC/Silverlight player to drive us back to TV. It’s more of a question of what could [...]
Zucker: Tape Delays = Bottled Excitement « NewTeeVee on August 15th, 2008 at 12:40 pm - Permalink
[...] are off to a good, but not amazing start on the Internet. Over the first three days, NBC’s online coverage drew an average of 4.7 million viewers per day, with the numbers steadily rising over the weekend. [...]
World IT News » Blog Archive » Weekly Wrapup, 11-15 August 2008 on August 16th, 2008 at 5:55 am - Permalink
[...] Olympics are off to a good, but not amazing start on the Internet. Over the first three days, NBC’s online coverage drew an average of 4.7 million viewers per day, with the numbers steadily rising over the weekend. [...]
Weekly Wrapup, 11-15 August 2008 | The Kevin Pipe on August 16th, 2008 at 6:00 am - Permalink
[...] Olympics are off to a good, but not amazing start on the Internet. Over the first three days, NBC’s online coverage drew an average of 4.7 million viewers per day, with the numbers steadily rising over the weekend. [...]
Weekly Wrapup, 11-15 August 2008 - BuzzYA! on August 16th, 2008 at 6:00 am - Permalink
[...] are off to a good, but not amazing start on the Internet. Over the first three days, NBC’s online coverage drew an average of 4.7 million viewers per day, with the numbers steadily rising over the weekend. [...]
Weekly Wrapup, 11-15 August 2008 | Blogging on August 16th, 2008 at 6:19 am - Permalink
[...] Olympics are off to a good, but not amazing start on the Internet. Over the first three days, NBC’s online coverage drew an average of 4.7 million viewers per day, with the numbers steadily rising over the weekend. [...]
Weekly Wrapup, 11-15 August 2008 | GroupHelp.NET on August 16th, 2008 at 6:19 am - Permalink
“I’m sure quality and full-screen were higher level decisions and not limitations of the player. We disallow full-screen for our broadcasts as well, as all you have to do then is turn that full-screen feed into the input of another encoder and you’re rebroadcasting and saving NBC’s coverage. That and you lose the critical sight of advertising.”
That’s not a very good reason. First, who would actually do that? Second, they could just use an encoder that captures part of the screen. Or better yet, just capture the raw video stream.
And the only time I’d want to capture a video stream is if fullscreen playback isn’t allowed. That includes videos which are encoded letterboxed so I have to watch them with a black border all around on my 16×10 screen. The advertising issue is a good point, but you could use embedded advertising like Hulu.
Or simply let it scale. The South Park online videos don’t allow fullscreen either, but I can put my browser into fullscreen mode and then click expand video and it almost fills up the screen. Why should the video be limited to only 1/4 of my screen size while the browser window doesn’t even take up the full screen?
Matt on August 16th, 2008 at 9:27 am - Permalink
This is the WORST olympics coverage ever. I cannot believe they did not show the 100m mens track finals live. I heard it from a friend on my way home from work. HORRIBLE!!!! NBC please understand Michael Phelps is not the only athlete in the olympics. Props to him for the 7 seven medals but the other thousands of athletes have worked hard too. As a matter of fact I am blocking NBC from my Satellite stations. THEY REALLY SUCK!!!
Dre on August 16th, 2008 at 4:11 pm - Permalink
[...] into an extortion racket, holding the Olympics hostage with all of us paying the ransom.” NewTeeVee’s Chris Albrecht added, “This could have been a golden moment for online video — too bad NBC just couldn’t stick [...]
How Do You Rate NBC’s Olympics? - GigaOM on August 17th, 2008 at 4:59 pm - Permalink
There are several workarounds to force the player to “full screen” even on a big monitor. I have a blog article listing them: (www.alancobb.com/blog). As others have said, the lack of full screen in the stock site is NOT a technical issue with Silverlight. In fact you can change just two lines of CSS styling with a bookmarklet or personal style sheet and easily go full screen. The higher bitrate videos look great at 1600×1200.
Alan Cobb on August 18th, 2008 at 12:55 pm - Permalink
Aaah….when I clicked on this linkthrough I was just new the crux would center around Silverlight and Microsoft. People need to get over this company already and just fucking enjoy technology.
I swear these people won’t be happy until NBC released it with fairplayDRM in .MOV only through iTunes…so they feel elegant. GTF over yourselved already. Seriously….Compared to Real and shitty interent broadcasts of Sydney and Athens this is practically heaven.
Dave on August 18th, 2008 at 1:26 pm - Permalink
[...] watch the olympics, you have to go to NBColympics.com where NBC forces you to install a special video player called Silverlight. After you do that, you can watch the Olympics in mediocre quality, without [...]
NBC’s anti-olympics attitude « The 8th Circle on August 18th, 2008 at 5:19 pm - Permalink
NBC’s “America is got talent” is LIVE after the Olympics!, WTF.
they don’t broadcast live Olympic events when all the talents are over in Beijing Olympic.
peter on August 18th, 2008 at 5:41 pm - Permalink
[...] Die sind ja mit Fernsehen übers Internet und am PC bestens bedient, könnte man meinen. Zu dumm, dass fast ebenso viele auch eine entsprechende Bildqualität wollen - auch ein Ergebnis der BITKOM-Studie. Wieder spielt Olympia es vor: Web-TV kann Ansprüche ab einem gewissen Level einfach nicht bedienen. Zeitversetzt war schön, aber die ruckelnde Streams haben so manchen Zuschauer genervt. [...]
Wir Zuschauer sind einfach anspruchsvoller geworden » Interactive TV Award on August 19th, 2008 at 3:49 am - Permalink
[...] we noted last week, sports video online has had a strong year already. And the Olympics, while flawed, have at least opened the concept of watching sports online to a broader audience, which will now [...]
Sports Content Continues its Digital Push « NewTeeVee on August 19th, 2008 at 9:30 am - Permalink
Now you can watch Michael Phelps’s winning lap at the Olympics, anywhere, anytime, on your mobile phone (Windows Mobile or Symbian). Skyfire, the free internet browser for mobile phones, streams you videos of Olympics coverage provided by NBC (and also on Youtube, Break.com, etc.) For a limited time only, Skyfire is available- at the beta code, type: “Michael8”. Catch The Games on your mobile for free at http://www.skyfire.com/sign-up
Lex_newtee on August 19th, 2008 at 3:53 pm - Permalink
[...] Blog and in other blogs, plus I have read other commentary ranging from moderately good to downright bad at times. And while complaints varied early on, in the past week I feel like those who stuck with [...]
Real World Video Compression » Watching the Olympics Online on August 20th, 2008 at 1:28 pm - Permalink
Online is frustrating since you can’t fast forward like a DVR. You can jump ahead but you have no idea what you missed and then it takes a while for the video to pop up. Still in its infancy but better than nothing.
jtb917 on August 20th, 2008 at 2:25 pm - Permalink
[...] on both new and oldteevee (except in San Francisco). On the other hand, between tape delays and a crummy online video experience, it’s also been pretty [...]
5 Ways to Fix the Next Olympics Online « NewTeeVee on August 20th, 2008 at 9:04 pm - Permalink
Sweet great Archery write up!
Obviously this is a popular blog with great data so well done on your seo success..
Martial-Arts-Lessons on August 21st, 2008 at 1:54 am - Permalink
Yeh, so I’ve installed in a vain attempt to watch the Argentina v. USA basketball game and I wouldnt mind watching sans commentary or even lower quality, if the video went beyond the first GE ad. Tried firefox first and realized that MS may have a built-in incompatibility, so I tried IE and the same deal. As it stands it seems like ploy to have me sit through 4 GE ads… bait and switch indeed.
Fresco on August 22nd, 2008 at 7:54 am - Permalink
[...] a cobertura das Olimpíadas baseada em Silverlight feita pela NBC agradou muita gente. Embora algumas críticas tenham fundamento, isto tem mais a ver com a aplicação atual do que com a tecnologia em si Via: ZDNet Receba [...]
Silverlight: Cobertura das Olimpíadas é um Sucesso » Downloads Hard Team on August 23rd, 2008 at 8:19 am - Permalink
[...] served a total of 75.5 million streams during the games despite all the uproar about Silverlight, tape delays and a bad UI. The site clocked a total of 9.9 million hours of online video coverage. That’s impressive, [...]
Final Tally: Olympics Web and P2P Numbers « NewTeeVee on August 28th, 2008 at 5:01 am - Permalink
[...] served a total of 75.5 million streams during the games despite all the uproar about Silverlight, tape delays and a bad UI. The site clocked a total of 9.9 million hours of online video coverage. That’s impressive, even [...]
BroadDev - Unified Communications, Virtualization, Security, and Web 2.0 » Did a Small Company in China Outperform Cisco in Delivering Live Video? on August 28th, 2008 at 8:25 pm - Permalink
[...] Olympics are off to a good, but not amazing start on the Internet. Over the first three days, NBC’s online coverage drew an average of 4.7 million viewers per day, with the numbers steadily rising over the weekend. [...]
Olympics Online: Only 0.2% of Viewers Exclusively Watch Online | thekevinpipe.com on November 14th, 2008 at 9:04 am - Permalink
[...] given the success Silverlight enjoyed during the very high-profile Olympic games. People groused (myself included) about the time-delayed content and installing a plug-in, but the video itself performed quite [...]
MLB to Silverlight: You’re Out! « NewTeeVee on November 17th, 2008 at 2:50 pm - Permalink