Some thoughts of Nbcolympics
Nbcolympics
As Bill Gates announced at CES back in January, all video at the NBC Olympics site requires Silverlight, Microsoft’s rich web application and video streaming technology that competes with Adobe’s market-dominant Flash. Microsoft’s been pushing Silverlight pretty hard lately, and if a lot of consumers don’t have a reason to install it yet, the Beijing Games in August should be a good a reason as any. 3
Powered by Wavexpress’ TVTonic Internet video service and client, NBC Olympics on the Go will allow owners of Media-Center-capable Windows Vista PCs (that’s Home Premium and Ultimate) to download “up-to-HD” coverage on a sport-by-sport basis. Users can chose from a number of channels in Wavexpress’ TVTonic client that NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Games will be categorized into, and the NBC Olympics on the Go client will be able to access event coverage roughly 12 hours after an event ends. Ars Technica confirmed with Wavexpress that users will not be able to keep downloaded coverage indefinitely, though videos will remain playable at least for the duration of the games. 2
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Still, requiring users to both download software and then identify their location—particularly when many are expected to log on at the office—could prove to be a deterrent for many Web users, who have often demonstrated an aversion to downloads, plug-ins and registration when it comes to Web video. For example, the Web video hub Joost, which requires a heavy software download process, has struggled to build a user base, while the NBC Universal and News Corp. joint venture Hulu has been praised for its ease of use. 6
During his CES 2008 keynote, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft Silverlight will drive the online video for the site. As announced before, NBC will stream 2,200 hours of live coverage — as many as 30 simultaneous live feeds — and make more than 3,000 hours available on demand. “Events like this in the broadcast format… are not as satisfying.” In a video, Bob Costas showed a quick preview of the Silverlight service with Olympics video, which showed a quad split of four screens of video playing at once. Costas called it the “most comprehensive and ambitious” live broadband production ever. 1
Providing summer Olympics coverage in a downloadable format like this is a natural evolution for NBC. For the 2004 Olympics, all the buzz was about the sheer amount of coverage NBC would be broadcasting (over 1,200 hours in total), as well as the introduction of over 300 hours of HD coverage from NBC and its affiliates. With NBC Olympics on the Go, consumers will have a convenient new option for bringing Olympics video footage with them, though the coverage will be sandboxed to PCs—and then just the ones running compatible versions of Vista. 5
NBC began its online coverage of the Olympic Games in 1996 during the Atlanta Olympics. That Internet presence was dramatically increased in 2000 during NBC’s Sydney Games coverage and again in Salt Lake in 2002 where the NBC web site became one of the web’s most trafficked and critically acclaimed sports Internet sites. 7
Thus, a fairly large area of the Northeast, including much of Long Island and Brooklyn, will be denied access to the live Olympics streaming. However, through trial and error, those Cablevision subscribers can fudge their location and get through to the video coverage (for example, a Cablevision subscriber could input a Manhattan zip code and then select Time Warner as their provider). 4
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