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Did NBC Alter the Olympics' Opening Ceremony?
techmuse writes "Viewing the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony online at NBC's Olympics website, you can see that the order in which the countries were presented was very different from the actual order of the countries in the ceremony, as listed at Wikipedia. NBC skipped roughly 100 countries ahead, then jumped back and forth, apparently delaying the appearance of the United States in its home market until later in the broadcast. (In fact, the US team was shown on the infield before they were shown marching!) NBC did not acknowledge this in its broadcast. Is NBC altering the reality of the broadcast to boost ratings? Was this true only online, or also in the live broadcast?"
I looked yesterday for where I could watch Olypics videos. Looks like I needed to instal some plugin from Microsoft that only works with "approved" browsers. Silverlight?
I don't even mind if I'm bombarded with ads to see video. I would even pay for certain footage of one person I know competing in Beijing and some of the events. But a Microsoft player? No thanks.
If you had RTFA, you would know that's not the issue raised by the submitter. The question isn't how the countries were ordered, it is whether NBC's broadcast actually showed the countries in that order.
It's even more commercial if you watch it on NBC. I swear if one of the athletes so much as coughs they go to commercial. "Fuck seeing the games, here are more inspiring ads from our sponsors!"
"make something up" like apply 3000 year old rules, accepted by all for ordering countries in Mandarin?
So no, they didn't make anything up.
I just did a quick check of the recording of the live broadcast that I made. In every spot I checked, the order given on the Wikipedia pages matches the one in the broadcast. So, at least in the case of the broadcasted version, the ordering matches up.
What's keeping you from just picking a provider from the list that they give you? I just picked the first one in the list (AT&T Broadband) and it let me in and watch the online version of the parade of nations.
Guess, take a breath. Yes, NBC altered the video. They do the same thing when you see movies. They take your beloved movie and ALTER IT!!!!!! They do this to squish down time and show more things.
Now, before we freak out shit out and panic that they are hiding something from you, realize that this stuff is filmed by more cameras then you can even begin to contemplate AND is filled with people from all around the world to serve as witnesses. What does this mean? It is really frigging unlikely that NBC is hiding "the truth" from you. Far more likely, they are trying to shrink a 4+ hour opening ceremony into something that will better fit their schedule.
Worrying that they some how were altering the live feed is so dumb and inane that I can't even respond. People, take a frigging collective deep breath.
They always use the name collating system native to the hosting nation to create an ascending list.
Actually, editing is not an Olympic broadcasting tradition; it's an NBC Olympic broadcasting tradition. Most Olympic networks show as much as they can live, and only show events tape-delayed when there are two events worth watching at the same time (or they're showing recaps when it's night time where the Olympics are).
NBC, on the other hand, instead of showing one of the most exciting opening ceremonies ever, decided to show The Today Show and, in my area, local news (apparently some loser got arrested for a domestic assault!).
Sadly, this is not news either. Which is why most Americans who live on the Canadian border watch the Olympics on CBC.
French is one of the official languages. According to the Olympic Charter, "The official languages of the IOC are French and English." But the convention apparently is to introduce countries in alphabetical order in the language of the host country.
I don't care why you're posting AC
Most Chinese dictionaries actually sort characters first by the radical and then by stoke count within each group of radicals. I'm curious why they used just the stroke count ordering for the Olympics.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Honesty, not wanting to steal something I did not pay for and US Laws. Unauthorized access to NBC systems. I hope you read the terms of their service? There are recent precedents....
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
I did, in fact, watch the entire broadcast. The countries were not broadcast in that order.
I watched the entire broadcast (TiVo'd it) and was so impressed, I stayed up until 4am and watched it all over again. While I don't have the countries memorized in the order they appeared, but from what I do remember, it seems about the same as on the Wikipedia article. The US came in about 2/3 of the way down the list in the broadcast and they're #139 of 204 in Wikipedia (or roughly 2/3 of the way down the list).
I did notice that a number of small countries got very short screen times and seemed "clipped", so I guess they edited out some content to shorten up the whole thing.
Since you asked, it was in 1969. However it wasn't until 1992 that a clearly superior team from another country was allowed to win.
They then won again in 1993, and the 1994 World Series was canceled when it looked like a foreign team was going to win for the third time in a row and the US teams refused to play unless the rules were changed in their favour.
Now you know.
you don't get an award for being jaded.
Actually, you do.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Olympic Events have always been rearranged when on a Tape delay, I expect it, and why not ?
It is not even displayed in correct order when it's hosted in the USA.
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
viewing the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony online at NBC's Olympics website, you can see that the order in which the countries were presented was very different from the actual order of the countries in the ceremony, as listed at Wikipedia. NBC skipped roughly 100 countries ahead, then jumped back and forth, apparently delaying the appearance of the United States in its home market until later in the broadcast. (In fact, the US team was shown on the infield before they were shown marching!) NBC did not acknowledge this in its broadcast. Is NBC altering the reality of the broadcast to boost ratings? Was this true only online, or also in the live broadcast?"
emphasis mine
To sum up NBC's 12 hour tape-delayed broadcast was in order, while the online version was shown out of order either due to NBC wanting it like that or, more likely, whoever put the parade online didn't pay attention as he/she was supposed to.
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Nice revisionist history. The players went on strike because the owners wanted a salary cap. It had nothing to do with the Montreal Expos. Though it is true that the strike pretty much destroyed the Expos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Major_League_Baseball_strike