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NBC's Olympics Online Player Reviewed (Verdict: A Necessary Evil)
Posted by Benny Goldman at 9:00 AM on August 9, 2008
The 2008 Olympics have already started, but those of us stuck here in America and not lucky enough to own Vista must deal with NBC's often delayed event broadcasts. Sure, if it's American basketball or track you're looking for, you can find everything you need without stepping away from your HDTV set. But if you've waited four years to watch table tennis or want to see how that Latvia-Angola rivalry plays out, you'll definitely have to use NBC's streaming online player. The Silverlight-based player runs well—even on a Mac—but it has a few rough spots when it comes to interface. If you want to make the best of your Olympic experience, here are the things you need to know.
Streaming Player vs. HDTV
When it comes to content, there is no comparison—the web player will stream 2,200 hours of live video, where most of the stuff on TV will be glorified clip roundups of assorted events. But quality is a much different story. The streamed video is blurry no matter what size you watch it in, and even the full-size player is only about 720x480, so standard def at best. Also, while it's understandable that NBC wouldn't provide announcers for a North Korea vs. Nigeria soccer game, there wasn't any commentary for a match between USA and Norway either. We find it almost impossible to believe that major sports like US men's basketball would go without someone calling the games, but based on what we've seen so far this may be the case.
Finding Content
Seeing the player for the first time may tempt you to bust out the Rosetta Stone. It's actually three players in one, starting with the standard player which is stuffed with ads, tabs, lists, menus and more. For this one, you're best off browsing by channel (#1 in the pic above), clicking the sport you're interested in and seeing what videos are offered. A button in the corner of the video section (#2) directs you to the enhanced player, which is the best way to watch—it's got a bigger video screen and is so frill and distraction-free even Frank Costanza would approve. In the enhanced player, you can watch highlights (#3) and live content with picture-in-picture (#4), and swap between the two seamlessly. Searching for content is hard to do in the enhanced player, so you're better off finding it elsewhere and switching over. Finally, a button on the left (#5) takes you to the "Live Video Control Room" which offers the most hyped way to watch the sports you crave—four-channel multicasting.
The Multi-Cast Experience
Gambling junkies and cubicle drones alike will love the multi-cast, which allows you to watch up to four events at once. For people trying to actually enjoy the sports, the largest video is still too small to see a score, and the other three are barely the size of postage stamps. Swapping between games is easy, but if you expand one to the full-sized player, you lose your other streams, and have to to add them all over again when you return to the multi-cast. Also, sifting through content is shaping up to be unbearable; you can scroll through about five games at a time, which is fine when there are only 16 available, but what will we do when there are hundreds of videos to sift through, by early next week?
The Final Word
NBC's done a fair job so far with their streaming player and by offering up an unprecedented amount of Olympic coverage. But by trying to make things easier, the network seems to have made them harder. It's decent for diehards of weird sports like fencing or those who need their content more live than Bill O'Reilly. But using it feels obtuse, like it's the bastard love child of Windows Vista and Symbian. However, Microsoft's Silverlight is not to blame—you can't even detect the difference from Flash. It's all about content management: At this point there are increasingly vast amounts of material, some live, some taped and mostly impossible to tell the difference, which may even be shockingly announcer-free. Maybe NBC will figure this stuff out when the games really get rolling, but for now it'll have to settle for a Bronze. [NBC Olympics]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
Michel
Posted August 10, 2008 1:20 PM
Yeah it's just EVIL as the free internet is no longer free...using a PowerPC based mac, I cannot watch any of the NBC video due to the apparent bonehead blunder (or intentional) by Microsucks to exclude a whole lot of internet users on something other than a computer running an Intel chip. Tell Bill to jump off a cliff. I don't care how much money he's giving away. Seriously, someone should be caned for pulling a stunt like this.
tom jenike
Posted August 11, 2008 2:38 PM
I have to agree. I find it hard to believe this was not intentional. Microsoft is about as crooked as as a creek, but they are not so incompetent that they would actually miss this.
Welcome to the free market baby.
Benny Goldman
Posted 10:01 AM 9/8/08
@Charles: Video quality isn't even the most important issue here. It's the fact that this thing is so hard to navigate, the multi-cast player is hidden, and you can't tell what's live and what isn't.
Benny Goldman
rochec
Posted 10:00 AM 9/8/08
@tenio:
Oh god I love Hulu. I'm still praying they will make a Hulu app for the iPhone, but the stupid NBC/Apple feud will probably deprive us of what would be the best app ever.
rochec
rochec
Posted 9:58 AM 9/8/08
People who politicize the Olympics are fucking retarded.
rochec
tenio
Posted 9:58 AM 9/8/08
it is taking FOREVER to load in FF3
I hate how they all have these unique players,
I wish ABC (i dont watch NBC tv online) would just move all their content to HULU. It's player is amazing and works great. These stupid unique systems stink!
tenio
mkppk
Posted 9:53 AM 9/8/08
Microsoft, please don't resize my browser.. thats so web 1.3
mkppk
dssstrkl
Posted 9:53 AM 9/8/08
@chamychan: A threat to anyone who tries to breathe there. I'm not referring to anything other than internal Chinese policies. That's hardly propaganda.
dssstrkl
diggabyte
Posted 9:49 AM 9/8/08
Says my Intel Hackintosh:
"Microsoft Silverlight Cannot Be Installed On A PowerPC"
Pfff... typical. Thanks Microsoft. That's exactly why installed OS X on my desktop instead of your shit operating system in the first place =)
diggabyte
chamychan
Posted 9:48 AM 9/8/08
@dssstrkl:
wow the propaganda of NBC sure work fast. we get it..."china could be a threat..." blah blah blah
chamychan
dssstrkl
Posted 9:42 AM 9/8/08
Sorry, but fuck the olympics. The Chinese government are as evil as ever, Beijing is a toxic soup (but we can't say that out loud because the truth offends the Chinese people, or something), and the IOC has been an enemy of culture for decades. The Olympics ruins cities, is horrible for human rights and does nothing for fostering good international relations.
dssstrkl
SeattleTed
Posted 9:35 AM 9/8/08
Hopefully the Notre Dame Butkissin Channel will pay attention to what is streamed by popularity so we no longer will have to SUFFER through 2 weeks of gymnastics, water dancing (whatever its called) etc.
No announcers is fine with me. The John Tesh threat is far too great at these feel-good events.
SeattleTed
Charles
Posted 9:27 AM 9/8/08
@Benny Goldman: I'm comparing to prior experiences I've had with streaming online video (especially live video), and in that case it is a cut above the rest. I don't see what purpose it serves to compare the service to a standard that doesn't even exist; namely, live streaming of tens of thousands of hours of media in HD.
Charles
Benny Goldman
Posted 9:20 AM 9/8/08
@Charles: You don't have to love something just because it's there. I'm basing it on the experience, not the fact that it exists. If we did things that way, I'd have to say that AT&T and Time Warner are flawless because I've made calls and watched cable before.
Benny Goldman
Charles
Posted 9:16 AM 9/8/08
Are you kidding? First off, they are putting every event online, streaming live, for free. That alone is unbelievable. Secondly, have you ever streamed anything online? It's awful quality, takes years to buffer, and is choppy even once it's loaded. You can't seriously say 'well we're giving it a bronze because it's not HD quality.' What sort of absurd expectations did you have?
Charles
NerdHunter
Posted 10:17 AM 9/8/08
And for everyone in Canada we do have this:
[www.cbc.ca]
Not the best, but it works.
NerdHunter
unleashed
Posted 10:15 AM 9/8/08
It works great! Running on a mac, behind Hotspot Shield as I'm sure this is probably blocked for Canadians.
unleashed
rochec
Posted 10:06 AM 9/8/08
Oh and it works very well on Mac. The player won't work with Webkit, just crashes if anyone is using that, but works fine with FF.
And the quality is pretty damn good for streaming, but compared to HD, yes, it's poor.
rochec
BiZarRroBALlmeR
Posted 10:05 AM 9/8/08
Just downloaded silverLight, we'll see how this thing works
BiZarRroBALlmeR
johnnyabnormal
Posted 10:51 AM 9/8/08
The player is for Mac, intel only.
Beyaches.
johnnyabnormal
rochec
Posted 10:48 AM 9/8/08
@Charles:
Also on the left side where it says 'All Sports', there is a 'Live' graphic next to the sport when it is being shown live. Pretty easy to find out what is on considering how much content there is.
rochec
Charles
Posted 10:36 AM 9/8/08
@Benny Goldman: If you go to nbcolympics.com there is a Video button in the navigation bar at the top. The first thing you see are the current live programs, and below that shows all the events coming up live. And when you're watching a video, the multi-cast ("live video control room") button is the top one in the bar on the left.
I'm sorry, I know that this is based on your experience, but every problem you're having is completely unfounded.
Charles
jagowar
Posted 10:36 AM 9/8/08
i am overall very impressed with silverlight. first to the non hd content complaining. LIVE TV is a much harder thing to do that archived content (to those talking about how good hulu is). NBC's stuff is actually quite impressive quality for live tv.
And the interface is a bit obtuse but I think its more an issue of how much stuff there is on and going to be. But just keep that tv schedule page bookmarked and they have a really nice interface there.
jagowar
tidybowl
Posted 10:28 AM 9/8/08
@dssstrkl:
I don't know about your other comments - but the Olympics certainly didn't wreck Salt Lake after hosting the winter games in 2002.
It was a huge boon for the city, excellent opportunity for people to volunteer (I wish I could have taken 3-4 weeks off of work to volunteer and get the whole SLC2002 clothing set) - plus now we've got a bobsled run (among other things) that you can pay to ride down.
Of course, I left Salt Lake in the summer of 2003 - so maybe it's gone all downhill since then.
tidybowl
bjacobel
Posted 10:26 AM 9/8/08
At least it doesn't run on Java. Blargh.
Seriously, though, I'm quite impressed by Silverlight. At first, when Bungie.net asked me to install it, I figured it was just M$ spyware, but it renders and downloads pretty well, when the server's not overtaxed (which I imagine NBC's olympics server will be).
bjacobel
sluzzuls
Posted 11:13 AM 9/8/08
the "related video" tab is stupid as usual.
click one of the related videos and you lose the rest. and, of course, being the awesome powerness of silverlight (as w/flash)... no back button.
give us a QUEUE!!
sluzzuls
rohan1
Posted 10:57 AM 9/8/08
The BBC coverage is very good here in the UK :D
rohan1
SwapMeet
Posted 11:28 AM 9/8/08
@dssstrkl:
As a person posting on a gadget and electronics blog, it's very hypocritical of you to bash on China. Yah, they suck at human rights and blah blah blah, but if it upsets you that much, don't buy any Chinese products, which at this point includes pretty much anything covered on Gizmodo.
SwapMeet
homerjay
Posted 12:05 PM 9/8/08
@dssstrkl: Take a seat, hippie. You're not convincing anyone.
homerjay
thomusvoo
Posted 12:05 PM 9/8/08
streaming takes forever
ahahahah
you guys need new comps and faster internet.
thomusvoo
DaffyDuck
Posted 12:47 PM 9/8/08
I'm a huge Apple fanboy but I gotta say great job Microsoft and NBC with this.
DaffyDuck
Michael Belisle
Posted 1:37 PM 9/8/08
@diggabyte: "Microsoft Silverlight [2] Cannot Be Installed On A PowerPC"
I concur, which means no Olympics for me unless I want to watch the Olympics on the company dime. I wish they used something like Hulu's flash interface. (Which is an odd thing for me to say, since I normally hate flash.)
Michael Belisle
PsycheE
Posted 1:25 PM 9/8/08
I am getting godlike quality and stream; perhaps due to the zip code/provider?.
PsycheE
darkweb
Posted 12:22 PM 9/8/08
The player ui design is not the best in the world but I don't see how you can complain about quality. Silverlight allows much better quality videos and at a size smaller than flash video. This looks great and live streaming of this quality/magnitude is unheard of.
darkweb
BrettQ
Posted 9:45 AM 9/8/08
The OnDemand client using Windows Media Center seems to be pretty terrible. It seems like I can click on one thing before it locks up for a good 30-45 seconds.
BrettQ
Posted 11:59 AM 9/8/08
@chamychan:
Never heard dssstrkl, say anything about China "being a threat" he stated major facts that any country or intelligent being will agree upon, China has poor human rights, they are polluting their country quicker than us, and their government censors out anti-chinese sentiment even more than our own government. The part about the olympics being a bad thing may be personal bias, but the rest is easy to see.
Pyre