The Olympic Live Stream: Observations, Recommendations, Predictions

lpress writes "The Tour de France and the Olympics were live streamed on the Web. The BBC streamed 2,500 hours of live coverage of the Olympics and NBC streamed the entire Tour de France and 302 events from all 32 Olympic sports. I watched both events as a fan and as an observer of the online content and the network performance. I blogged detailed descriptions of my experience and summarized it in 12 observations and recommendations. The summary concludes with predictions about the way live events will be covered in the future — coverage of these events was an early step in a major shakeup of the way live events are produced, distributed and viewed."

Comments

NBC wouldn't take my money!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wanted to stream part of the Olympics, but NBC wouldn't take my money! They demanded that I pay Comcast $65 or more to have "free" access to the streaming. I am a comcast subscriber, but not at that level.

They wouldn't let me pay to stream ... so I found .... "other alternatives."

Damn you NBC! Offer a way to pay $10-$20 to stream the content for non-cable subscribers - please.

BTW, Calling Comcast on Monday to completely drop CATV service. OTA/ATSC provides more channels here than the $30/month plan.

Re:NBC wouldn't take my money!!!!!!!!

[interkin3tic]

I paid $10 to watch the games. To a VPN provider who had servers in the UK, so I watched it on BBC. Beforehand, yeah, I would have paid $10 for access. After seeing how the BBC covered the games though, and hearing how NBC covered them, I don't think I would give NBC money for their chattering over future olympic games.

Impressive TDF live coverage

[FranTaylor]

Live coverage of 100 mile cycling events is tough logistics.

The cameraman rides on the back of a motorcycle. The signal beams from his camera to a hovering helicopter, and then to a satellite.

It's very impressive that they can get and maintain quality streams under these circumstances. Well trained people and excellent equipment all around.

The 60+ mph downhill runs must also be a crazy experience for the motorcycle driver, with a passenger on the back.

Re:Impressive TDF live coverage

[thesupraman]

Yes, and unfortunately Larry Press does not seem to understand much about how this is done.

NBC does NOT produce the TdF coverage, it is producted by the French, and NBC is one of many many
broadcasters present there who add a bit of their own flavour to that coverage and use it. NBC has a couple
of roving reporters doing non-live content, and one or two live cameras at the finish on a good day.

The olympics is the same, the event is primarily producted by a host broadcaster, and the public broadcasters
take that production, add their own flavour, and broadcast that.

As to his idea that they have 'deleted their archive', that is somewhat laughable - removing it from public access
is very very different from deleting it, something I can assure him has not happened. They are not required
ot provide endless public access to such things.

He seems to think he understands much more about television and large event production than he really does.

The internet streaming is a very very small part of the whole process, although of course an increasingly important
small part.

I find it especially laughable when he claims "NBC did their best to control leaks of Olympic material. For example,
WiFi hotspots were not allowed in the stands and they did their best to stop social media leaks. "
Does he really think the NBS was responsible the Olympics venue planning and operation?

The license fee thing...

[Ashe Tyrael]

Being a license fee payer, this years olympic coverage from the BBC was actually good enough for me to consider the license fee to be 100% justified. The lack of ads alone was awesome.

The debate about the license fee tends to rage back and forth on a regular basis over here. We genuinely do get a metric ton of generally good quality tv, ad-free and with free streaming. And a lot of tat too. Although it's interesting to note that the UK really came late to the Pay-per-view party. Convincing people that paid a license fee/monthly fee for their cable or sat package that they have to pay again? The main selling points they used over here were the "when you want" nature of the beast, for movies and such, and for sporting events, likening it to buying a ticket. They worked very hard not to remind people that you'd already paid them for the priviledge.

Guess I'll always sneakily love the BBC as being one of the last holdouts against the paywalling of culture, or the slow posioning of it by 1000 ads for things I never knew I could be irritated by.