NBC Universal is running an unprecedented 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage on television and the Internet, most of it live online, letting fans track their favorite sports in a way not possible even if they’d gone to Beijing.
Excited by the prospects, I set my alarm for 4:45 a.m. on Sunday to catch cycling, handball, archery and rowing events on NBCOlympics.com as they happen half a world away in China — 12 hours ahead of New York.
Of course, I ended up hitting the snooze button on my alarm clock for another two hours. Fortunately, some of the events I missed were available later on-demand. And NBC’s enhanced video player brings up to four simultaneous feeds — live, on-demand or a combination — allowing me to keep up.
Although NBC is saving popular sports like gymnastics, swimming and track and field for its prime-time TV coverage, NBC’s online ambition is valiant, one the network has largely pulled off well thus far.
The video isn’t full-screen, but it is crisp, with little stuttering, even during Monday’s workday when Internet traffic tends to rise. You can even see the sweat soaking one of the tennis players.
But the Internet won’t be replacing television anytime soon. At most, it’s good for sneaking in some tennis at work or watching events that are not likely to get more than highlights on TV.
(Disclosure: The Associated Press has an agreement with NBC to distribute video links to the network’s content online.)
The Internet video is free. I have to watch a 30-second ad before the event, usually for NBC owner General Electric Co. I also need Microsoft Corp.’s Silverlight technology — also free and relatively simple to install, even on my Mac.
Most of the video is restricted to U.S. subscribers of an NBC broadband partner. Cablevision Systems Corp. is the only major…