Slashdot Mirror
US Cord Cutters Getting Snubbed From NBC's Olympic Coverage Online
Monoman writes "The Washington Post reports, 'The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics start tonight. But if you're among the 9 percent of U.S. households who have broadband but don't subscribe to paid television, it will be nearly impossible to (legally) watch the games online this year. ... That's because while NBC is streaming all of the events live online, full access to the livestream will only be available to paying cable subscribers. And thanks to a $4.38 billion exclusive deal NBC struck with the International Olympics Committee (IOC) in 2011 for the privilege of broadcasting the Olympic games in the U.S. through 2020, cord-cutters don't have a lot of options.' Is this a money play by Comcast/NBC to get some subscribers back? Should the FCC step in and require NBC to at least provide a stream of their OTA content?"
And why is it that you are owed free content?
Not with a bang, but with a beta.
Did you notice that there is a new javascript link saying they changed their plans on rolling out the beta? Or what are you fighting against now?
...and all online. There's just the minor issue of geolocation to circumvent.
i dont watch it, dont care.
the Athletes are awesome... buts its too political and commercial now.
and now the Olympics are being limited to certain media outlets....
It's not a typo if you understood the meaning!
Pretty much all HDTVs support receiving over-the-air TV stations using an antenna, and considering NBC is one of the largest broadcast networks in the US, it shouldn't be that hard to get NBC if you don't have cable.
That 9% is pretty used to having reduced access to licensed, live television content as a direct consequence of not paying a subscription for licensed, live television content.
For a while not, the Olympics has been nothing but a money making and redistribution system. When I was a kid, we had amateur athletes that worked hard for their few minutes of fame. The money for them came after their competitions, so it was a bit less corrupt. Sure, we had steroids back then and people were getting busted. At least they tried to give a sense of fair play back then.
Today's Olympics is like watching any other televised sport (NBA/NFL/Baseball). It's a sham to make money. Most participants do have some natural talent, but anything that makes TV is well.. treated differently. Athletes are "trained", "fed", given exceptional medical care, and pampered for the spotlight. Their sponsors abuse them to make money, media outlets do the same, and Governments use them for clout (see how much money we spent on _our_ athletes!).
I'm sure part of my bias is becoming older and more cynical. Not that much though, because we have an internet that lets us compare today to the 70s and see the difference. Pro Hockey players are what make the Olympic teams today, and Pro basket ball players, and Professional skaters are what's on the ice. The US claims to have done this because others do, which may or may not be true. Two wrongs won't bring back the original spirit of the games however.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
"Freedom" would be if anyone receiving NBC's broadcast signal had the right to retransmit it (over the Internet or otherwise).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Legality is overrated. Then again, so are the Olympics.
I've been a cord-cutter since 1992 and don't miss it, so why am I supposed to be upset that NBC is being as criminally stupid as usual?
Canada, despite having a population of only 30 million, has the second most athletes competing, and by far the best coverage of any developed nation.
If you're Usian or from the UK i'd recommend getting an unblock subscription and setting your country to Canada.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
This. OTA to USB tuner, Windows Media Center or lots of linux options for DVR. Hi-def, no subscription. I only use it for Super Bowl and Olympic parties!
NBC paid $4.38 billion.
There are 2,850 athletes.
That's about $1.5 million for every single athlete competing.
Isn't this sort of thing its reason for being?
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
That's silly, no reason to compel them. Might be a good idea from NBC's perspective to make the stream free, but they don't stream their entire lineup of shows, why should they be required to stream this one? This doesn't really affect 9% of the country in any case. Most cord-cutters can still watch this, because it's over-the-air. Just use an antenna!
We're still stick in the old world, even with all the nice shiny technology around us. NBC is in a world where they wish everyone watched Johnny Carson every night. Where politicians can't go on stage without flashing their wedding rings. Where they can, with impunity broadcast laughable stories from the Olympics. They're still stuck in that world. And if you love the Olympics, so are we too.
Newsfollow.com
Just like slash BETA the world wouldn't really be affected one way or the other if the Olympics just up and went away. The worst effects would be felt by the corporate sponsors who would be deprived of a way to market their garbage to teh sheeple consumers.
Let the Olympics die. The International Olympic Committee and a large percentage of the national committees are some of the most corrupt organizations in the world. Fuck 'em.
And if someone who doesn't subscribe to cable television can't see online video of the games then I consider that a GOOD thing. It leaves more bandwidth for the rest of us.
Do Time Warner customers have access to watch the Olympics online? I know that TWC has *not* signed the deal with NBC for NBC Sports Live Extra for watching EPL games online or via mobile devices. Does that exclusion include the Olympics?
Are you hoping that the DRM is challenging enough to be amusing?
Considering that real-time programming, particularly sports, is why many people hold onto their CATV subscriptions to begin with, I'm not expecting a whole lot of overlap between those who cut their cord and whose who are particularly interested in live Olympic coverage.
1. Ignore the whole fiasco to start with
2. If it hurts their ratings because people can't get to the content, they'll learn...eventually
"FCC should"
Considering the inbreeding between the US agencies and the people they regulate, it's just not going to happen.
Regardless of which market is being discussed.
Meh.
From Bruce Peren's http://technocrat.net/ ...
You've reached a web site owned by Perens LLC. We are moving to new servers and thus the content you expected isn't online yet.
To reach Bruce Perens, email to bruce at perens dot com, or phone +1 510-4PERENS.
Hot topics as I write this: Why doesn't Bruce resurrect Technocrat.net now that Slashdot is owned by Dice.com and stinks more than the last two times I've shut down Technocrat.net due to lack of readership? And while we're at it, we need to replace Groklaw.
Think it would really work this time? You've got my email and phone.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
From what I saw last night, the US isn't doing much worth watching so far, so...
Freedom would also be if NBC had the right to murder said person in retribution.
Exactly. All this commenting about pith, when time is running out...it's like fish gasping for air for the last time.
I don't care about the olympics but I wish there was a way for cord-cutters in the US to still watch Formula 1 at home.
Did you read what that new link says?
It says they'll keep classic around "until we're confident that the new site is ready", thus implying they do plan to remove classic. It states that they "have work to do in four big areas", and accurately lists what people have been complaining about (the accuracy and non-contradictoriness of the list makes Soulskill's assertions that much of the feedback is contradictory look questionable, to say the least), but carefully refrains from actually saying that any particular improvements will happen before they roll out the beta and execute classic.
In short, once you run it through a corporatespeak filter, it says they didn't expect this much backlash, they're going to postpone the rollout (but not necessarily change it in any other way), and they're trying to pacify us by repeating back what we've said. And if you read between the lines, you might get the impression they're not going to give us this much warning next time...
They should be forced to stream their OTA content.
In fact, they should put WAPs all over the country streaming it wirelessly. To do this efficiently, they should use multicast packets Better yet, use broadcast packets.
It could be called "broadcast television".
I am a recent cord cutting. We use Roku, Chromecast, and an antenna. I don't miss cable at all.
With the right antenna, you can get hi-def.
I zapped my cable three years ago. I watched the opening ceremony (and only that) of the London Olympics via a VPN. I don't care enough about Sochi or winter Olympics to be interested in watching any of it.
I don't think it's important if the FCC forces NBC to run a live stream. If NBC thinks the cost of running a stream of the broadcast they're already doing exceeds the revenue they could generate from stream viewers watching the same commercials the network is already doing, that's their problem.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
#1--why watch NBC? CBC, BBC, and if you don't care about perfect English--the list gets a heck of a lot longer. But why even bother with streaming from a website--why not grab one of the usenet or torrent postings?
.x264-2HD
Winter.Olympics.2014.Team.Figure.Skating.Pairs.Short.Program.720p.HDTV
Winter.Olympics.2014.Ladies.Moguls.Qualification.1.720p.HDTV.x264-2HD
Winter.Olympics.2014.Mens.Slopestyle.Qualification.HDTV.x264-2HD
You get the point--if you are going to cut the cord--I'd hope you know how to get content before you made the move...
One last link: Instructions on watching live: http://deadspin.com/how-to-wat...
You could try streaming from a different country as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
And then, of course, all the special interest stuff is available online, including on the NBC and MSNBC sites. And you get to read and watch without all the talking head commentary.
That NBC has broadcast (ahem) their intentions loud and clear. It is now up to you (the person wishing to watch the Olympics) do decide what you are going to do about it.
When your choices are systematically taken away, yours options become much easier to make.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Every time I try to cancel my cable tv they tell me that it is cheaper to keep it. Thats right, its less expensive to get 50mb internet WITH tv than without, thanks to the deals they offer. This is via comcast in eastern mass. They must be doing it to inflate tv subscriber numbers or hide the rate of cord cutting.
One of the biggest draws of satellite/cable TV is the multitude of sports related channels available. If you "cut the cord" without first checking what you'd be missing, I guess your momma never told you to "look before you leap".
This is pretty much non-news. I hear there are places where you can go to watch sports. They even have snacks and refreshments available, too!
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
I use to live in a town that was 70 miles away from the nearest NBC station. You can't easily pick up content from that far away.
As a cord cutter speaking ... don't make the coverage any better. Keep putting up a fight to try to convince cord cutters to come back. I'd bet more people will ditch you than will come back. In fact I'd bet more people access your online videos without paying for cable or satellite because the typical viewer can't figure it out or be hassled with the hoops they need to jump through.
So maintain course, make no compromises, and hasten your own demise. Good riddance.
Winners tell stories while losers yell deal.
That's what it comes down to: Do my taxes directly fund the Olympics, the American athletes, or any other reasonable aspect? If they do, I want to be able to see them for a reasonable service fee without commercials or have access to the NBC stream, free of charge, but with commercials.
If I don't get that, then I'll probably find another means. Likely a streamed Canadian channel which provides the additional benefit of non-asinine hosts, generally cordial and likeable interviews, and no one screaming "USA USA USA!"
Will soon be hosted at AltSlashdot.org or a site linked through that domain.
It will be for the Nerds, by the Nerds, focusing on the Stuff That Really Matters: The community that makes the comments the best part of Slashdot.
The name will change to avoid any trademark problems.
Some have suggested encouraging Bruce Perens to resurrect Technocrat.net for the third time. With all due respect to Bruce, the problem with that is he has shown he is not a reliable host. He has twice deleted that site without warning and without providing access to the archives. I don't think we want to get burned a third time.
Cable companys don't like people who don't pay for their shitty service ... more at 11
(if you're a subscriber)
I doubt most of the people complaining about the beta are people who would really care if facebook broke their crap, on account of we probably mostly don't actually use facebook. I haven't used facebook since it basically *was* a beta (back when it was new and exciting, and notably, only for college kids), for anything other than liking some random crap in exchange for a contest entry.
I was going to ask people to boycott the Olympics, but then I recalled that I can't because I'm boycotting the Slashdot comment system.
Ezekiel 23:20
Try watching your favorite NFL team out-of-market. The only legal recourse is to buy a DirecTV package and even on just one screen that'll run you ~$100/mo plus the NFL package which is ~$3-400. So, you're looking at $1200 if all you want is to see the 10 or so Steelers games that aren't nationally broadcast in a year; assuming you don't live around Pittsburgh.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I'm basing this post off of my previous experience watching the summer olympics online. I don't expect it will be any different this time around, but perhaps NBC will surprise me.
Two years ago, as I am now, I'm "borrowing" my sister's login and password for her paid TV subscription. Why doesn't NBC allow non-subscribers to buy online streaming access? I would pay some amount of money (maybe $30?) to get access to the online coverage and they aren't letting me. I can't think of a reason why they don't make this an option...
That is, I would pay for it if the online coverage wasn't terrible in several different ways. First, spoilers are EVERYWHERE on the website and cannot be avoided. Unless I stay up until 3am to watch an event live there's no way I can watch the event the following day without inadvertently seeing the results on the website while trying to get to the recorded stream. Sometimes the spoiler is even part of the video itself ("Watch Bode Miller win gold!")!
Second, many or most of the broadcasts online are commentator free. Even IF you know all the ins and outs of curling rules, commentators are very helpful in conveying exactly what it is that you're watching (e.g. who is the player or team being shown? What is the significance of this match in the tournament? Who are they playing next? etc.). The prime-time TV broadcasts that are heavily edited to show the most interesting bits are completely unavailable online.
Third, high profile medal events cannot be watched until the DAY AFTER the prime-time TV broadcast has occurred unless you stay up until 3am to watch it live. Not only do you then have to impossibly dodge the spoilers on the website, but also radio, TV, co-worker conversations, etc. the following day.
ORLY? Let me put on my wizard robe and hat!
Last year when i got FIOS i cut the cord. I was all smug about not having a paid tv service. This year, they offered me a package that includes tv and faster internet for less than my internet only package. I don't know why it works this way, but it's $10 a month cheaper to have a tv subscription. I still can't watch tv because i don't have a tv that supports this card thingy. I didn't get the set top box option. However, i was pleasantly surprised when i found i could use my login to get access to olympic streams.
I would pay to have BBC coverage of the Olympics in the States.
NBC couldn't pay me to watch their coverage.
(Cord cutter since 1995).
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done shall not interrupt the one who is doing it.
Then go already. Beta is a fact. Get over it.
Talk - action = nothing.
Fortunately for me, I decided 2 things a few years ago:
1) There is nothing worth watching on Cable/Satellite, and nothing on broadcast TV that justifies the endless advertising torture perpetrated against its viewing audience.
2) The Olympics has long since forgotten why it exists, and is now nothing more than a shell game.
I can now feel sympathy and sorrow for those who are still chained to the Olympics addiction. Once you view television and the Olympics from the correct perspective, you can laugh at moves like the one perpetrated by NBC.
The reaction to these changes demostrates the issues "nerds" have with change.
I suddenly feel sory for GNOME Designers.
Look cord cutters don't get many things including many live sporting events (College Football, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB), the local news channels etc..
They wanted to cut their cords knew fully well that not everything they wanted was available online.
I pay for cable tv so I get the olympics, I don't pay for netflix, so I don't get every episode of Friends on demand. Oh well. It's not like I can force netflix to stream to me every episode of Friends on demand because it's not fair, or I didn't realize that I could get them to provide me with free services even when I don't pay for them.
Should step in and stop the monopolistic abuse.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Am I missing something? Doesn't NBC broadcast OTA? Can't all these people being snubbed just use an antenna to watch the olympics?
What gives you the idea its free?
Taxes are used to subsidize the companies and content. Commercials are provided during the programming, which provide revenue. ( this is how broadcast TV, and radio, worked for decades. I assume you are too young to remember a time before cable and content monopolies so this concept may be a bit beyond your understanding )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Who Care.
Seriously, why do we even care about watching the olympics live, just check the result at the end, just as well. The Olympics are the biggest yet most boring sport events that happen in the world.
Talk - action = nothing.
Slashdot is a conversation site. The talk IS the action.
Here's some more of it: FUCK BETA.
Breakfast served all day!
Honestly the modern Olympics is shameful enterprise all around. Nations and cities compete with each other to get the games by playing who can saddle their local tax payers with crippling debt in order to build giant venues that more often then not have no real use after the games.
The local residents get to pay, and suffer major interruption so a handful of real estate developers and international media conglomerates can rake it in. In some cities that have won the games many of those local tax payers probably could barely afford to attend.
If that is not bad enough we have seen scandal after scandal, the IOC proving itself to be completely corrupt.
Oh and then there is little matter of the hugely negative environmental impact of not only all that construction but all that jet travel. Just think of the habitat destruction and how carbon intensive the entire production is.
Honestly anyone supporting the Olympics ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Not only are we used to this: it's a feature, not a bug.
Very little that stems from the IOC is a net constructive influence on human society, although if you're a major urban center looking for a good pretext to cull some undesirables, nothing beats it ... if you can afford the price.
I think the use of the word audience sums up Dice's perception of /. They want to take /. from a smaller audience to a larger audience. /. is a community, not an audience. You've got a 6 digit UID, do you remember any prior changes being motivated by increasing the /. 'audience'?
The reaction to these changes demostrates the issues "nerds" have with change.
Change is neither inherently bad, nor is it inherently good. The problems people have been raising with the Beta are many and are legitimate concerns: tone-deaf forcing upon the users, reduced information density and poor use of space, loss of features, more development emphasis on articles (a top-down feature) rather than the comment system (a community-driven feature), etc. Dismissing these concerns as just a "fear of change" is intellectually dishonest and insulting.
I suddenly feel sory for GNOME Designers.
Don't. They are terrible for very similar reasons. A high-handed notion that their "cleaner" design trumps the need for any features that they removed that others might have actually used to work more efficiently. Plus, both cases had an existing community that did not like the changes and were ignored in favor of hopefully appealing to newer users.
Kind of like Spike TV (designed from the beginning to target 18-35 single males) trying their damnedest to get women to stop watching the network, so they could sell ads to the right people. As my sig says, it's because it's the advertisers who are viewed as the "real" customers. We're just the product, and product doesn't get much of a say in how it's used.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Do you honestly think a "cord cutter" is going to spend any cycles contemplating "plugging back in" just to watch the winter Olympics?
Puhleeez.
As a cord cutter, I could care less.
Good Riddance. Us cord-cutters miss out on a lot of things. Ice skating, curling, and copious amounts of commercials will not be mourned here.
So Comcast should give you a cable box (or card) - which subscribers don't get for free - send an installer to hook it up, even if you aren't wired for cable, do the internal paperwork to turn on the box and then when the Olympics is over, back it all out. All for a one-time fee. Sure. Gonna happen.
The fools are shooting themselves in the foot:
Here's an idea: Lets get the entire next generation disinterested in the Olympics by making it impossible to see it over their preferred method unless they bug their parents for cable bill info! Lets remind those kids who is in-charge.
This will also exclude some Americans and totally exclude all those fit country people so they won't join the games out of spite. Now the US won't participate as well or be interested as much. And we know how well America watches international sports they do poorly in. Soccer anyone?
This media event is unrelated to the ancient games except by name. It's about 20 years before irrelevance.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
Is this a money play by Comcast/NBC to get some subscribers back?
Obviously.
Should the FCC step in and require NBC to at least provide a stream of their OTA content?
No, but the IOC should, if they want the games to be a thing Americans still watch in 15-20 years. The FCC already failed when they allowed the anti-competitive Comcast/NBC merger in the first place.
0 1 - just my two bits
and their whole family... I can't stress the importance of the freedom to murder the male children of your victims to prevent any possible retaliation. Bloodfeuds are really messy and you really want the freedom to clean things up before they get out of hand.
Some basic algebra:
talk - action = nothing
talk = nothing + action
talk = action (i.e. talk is equivalent to action)
If you wanted to say that talk is useless or something you should have said something like:
talk - action = -action
Getting basic cable for 1 month is going to be cheaper than $100
Over-the-air broadcast?
Why do we keep using the term "cord cutter" for someone who cancels TV service but keeps their Internet? For most people in the US, the ISP and the TV provider are the same company. And there's only one option, for both. No competition. So very few people are sticking it to the man.
Please, just call these people what they are: TV unsubscribers. Ok, maybe that doesn't have the same ring to it. We can work on it. But "cord cutter" implies a far more drastic thing than what is happening.
NO. You are already being "given" (in exchange for advertising that you can easily, and legally, skip with a DVR) the broadcasts OTA. (and you can already easily use a Tivo & iPad app, or Slingbox, etc., to get your own recordings to your phone/tablet)
Why should someone run expensive servers for stuff they paid for, if they think they won't make money from it?
Pay someone to build a repeater, and license the content. If you couldn't access it before the cable converter giveaway, you lost nothing and deserve nothing.
Just watch the OTA content. Even just a simple wire is often enough of an antenna.
And then the comments revert to duck beta, then go away, and no one really cares except for dice. So let it be.
Every time I try to cancel my cable tv they tell me that it is cheaper to keep it.
Well what did you expect them to say. Tell them you are cancelling both services and you'll find that suddenly the price becomes more flexible.
Ummm. Beta was the result of planning by a larger institution. In this case it happens to be a commercial institution. How do you expect a government agency to do better? Like all those government websites are so cool. :P
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Words to remember. If you are getting something for free, you are not the customer. You are the product.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Maybe its banned in the USA. You are the only suggestion to mention cbc, which one would think would be popular and is completely free. Or americans don't want to watch pro canada propaganda during a patriotic time.
can some american confirm if you can watch cbc stream? its about .5mbps
http://olympics.cbc.ca/videos/...
Except they are saying its live right now but its not as I watched it at 8am. Which is false advertising.
-
You can get NBC for free over good old fashioned (actually in HD digital now) over the air free TV.
Greed is the root of all evil.
You assume that nothing = 0.
As a cord-cutter, I simply decided I have no interest in watching anything that I'm getting snubbed from. I'm too busy anyway, it's a great excuse not to be watching TV. If it eventually shows up on Netflix, I might eventually watch it (but in the case of the Olympics, probably not). Otherwise, I don't care and it might as well not be happening. I didn't watch the Super Bowl, and I won't be watching the Olympics, and frankly, despite years of religiously thinking I always needed to watch major events like these, I don't miss either in the slightest. (Or the Grammys/Oscars, etc.)
If I'm curious about the ads from the Super Bowl, I can watch them on YouTube, if I don't get bludgeoned with them over and over for the next year anyway. (So far I don't care enough to even look, but isn't it sad that the commercial advertisements are like 10x more interesting than the actual event? Oh wait, the ads ARE the event, the whole reason they want you to watch, like with all television, it's just the Super Bowl is the only place that's made blatantly obvious...)
The digital signals don't reach this far (the analog used to), and no cable company serves the area. The only choice is satellite, and both of them are steadily raising prices.
Internet I have. Obviously. Over fiber-optic cable from the local Public Utility District.
Seriously. You can get some coverage OTA. No worries. If that's not compelling, it's not our job to pay NBC more. It's theirs to make the best of the material they signed a deal on.
Seems to me, writing an exclusive means they can deliver. What they are doing is trying to make the most money, not actually delivering the games.
And that's fair, but not my or your problem. And it's up to them to present value to the Olympics. If we don't watch, the games get less relevant, and at the end of the day, NBC didn't deliver.
Besides, the Russian stand on homophobia really doesn't add a lot of value there either. Tons of people aren't going to pay up, but they would watch and support athletes who worked hard to participate.
I'll gladly watch the games and view the ADS they deliver OTA. If they can't do that, they don't have me as a product to sell and I recommend you do the same.
Blogging because I can...
You assume that nothing = 0.
Hmmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I am not a crackpot.
I remember when this happened. The argument was that some countries raised athletes specifically to compete in the Olympics (like the USSR) who would if there was professional events would be considered professional by all means and measures but because the state sponsored them and kept them from competing professionally, they were considered amateur.
anyways, that was the Olympics they had the dream team basketball where the US took all the best players from the NBA teams and put them on the court together as the US Olympic team.
If you ask me, I would say that almost all of the Olympic games are meaningless after the 1936 Berlin games. But it is especially so today as it seems to be a means to inject trivial politics into our living rooms. I guess it is good that Jamaica qualified for the bobsleigh this year. They didn't make the cut the last two games.
I think he was referring to a $100 fee to access the online content without having to get cable.
I've found four rather critical vulnerabilities in your new beta site.
I'm trying to decide whether to use them myself, or sell them and watch someone else wipe out the entirety of Slashdot.
You'd think a site for geeks would know better than to use insecure javascript.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
They got year contracts. Also if you are outside of US, you cannot become a subscriber.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
One of the smaller cable companies should offer this as a service. You pay a small monthly fee to the cable company in order to be just enough of a customer to get access to legal streaming sites like discovery.com and NBC.com, without paying for actual cable TV service. It costs the cable provider nothing (other than basic accounting costs) and it gets them additional revenue from customers all over the country.
If you couldn't access it before the cable converter giveaway, you lost nothing and deserve nothing.
I used to be able to get 12-18 stations over the air on analog (a few network repeats from different affiliates on there). I live 45 miles from one broadcasting area, 24 miles from another. There are no big mountains or anything like that involved here. But there are some hills, and this is the Plains.
I get zero stations now after the digital cutover. I could probably get some by erecting a really tall mast out back (25 feet or so up). But building laws require that if you erect a tower or anything else like that, it has to be short enough that if it falls over in any direction, it stays on your property. Hardly anyone has a lot that large for their home, and if they do they are using pay TV already.
... is not to pay any attention at all to them.
Not only are there things much more deserving of your attention at the best of times when there are no scandals around "The Olympics" (as if), to support the IOC, their choice of country, their tacit approval of human rights violations in Russia, China, and elsewhere, the clusterf*** of corruption, bribery, waste, and wanton nationalistic tendencies is simply morally wrong and stupid. I feel sorry for some of the athletes who are being used as pawns, but they chose this.
If you have too much time on your hand, there are tons and tons of things you can do with it. If you really want to simply consume content, there is tons and tons of that stuff out there in the form of music, books, movies, tv shows, youtube, etc. -- much of it really quite a lot better than "The Olympics".
The FCC is toothless anyway. No need to involve those folk in folly like this. Well, maybe they need bribes too.
If you're that close and over flat terrain, you likely don't need something 25 feet up. You probably just need something in the attic or, possibly, attached to the side of the house, and the FCC overrides local government laws and HOA requirements for those. Search for "OTARD" on your favorite search engine. Feel free to contact me via the contact info on my website if you want more information on that or on local station availability or antenna recommendations.
And I should care why? I haven't given a rat fart about live sporting events in 15 years. The Olympics even more so.
My idea of entertainment and inspiration does not involve a week solid of constant displays of national, political, corporate, and marketing douche-baggery.
Maybe the people will wake up to the fact that they don't need this crap.
I've made somewhat of a hobby of OTA TV, so maybe the problem is your antenna. It's possible that your local station transitioned to a UHF band and your antenna isn't appropriate anymore. You can check http://www.tvfool.com/index.ph... to see what you should be able to get.
70 miles is pushing it, but a large, directional antenna up in the air should be able to pull in your stations. I'm 31 miles from my NBC affiliate and my roof antenna pulls it in reliably. (I do have a UHF pre-amp on the antenna.) I even split my signal 4 ways to the 1 TV and 3 TV tuners in the house.
Maybe the stations are all UHF now and your antenna isn't? Really 24 miles is nothing in terms of broadcast.
So don't watch the games.
If a supplier sets their price, it's up to the customer to evaluate if the product is worth the money. I dumped my television altogether a decade ago and don't miss it at all (I do pay the ridiculous german fee for my radios though, since I value listening to the radio). Sportsbars and friend's houses are better options for watching sports anyway.
And what is the difference between OTA broadcast, and IP4 multicast streaming over adsl ?
Nothing.
But stupid bald 60year old execs and lawyers know jack.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
6 live streams in AU
http://tenplay.com.au/sport/so...
No restrictions.
The IOC awarded broadcast rights to the 2014 Winter Olympics to Network Ten for AUD$20 million;
Only double what bigbrother costed. HA
NBC got ripped.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Get a usb stick of ebay to watch tv.
You cheap ass.
And you can hack the drivers to turn the stick into a SDR to receive all signals in raw from 54mhz to 1.2ghz and apply your own A-D converters and descramblers to listen to any signals of any type.
Go look it up!
SDR usb tv stick
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
If you leave near a place that has Aereo you should try it. Aereo lets you watch local over the air broadcasts online.
I used to subscribe to Cable TV and Cable Internet.
My supplier (Rogers) managed to piss me off. So badly, in fact, with required service (6 years ago). That I told them to cancel. Indeed, they had strung "temporary" wires over my property -- for two years.
They were warned. No easement to string that wire.
I took shears and removed the wire A real "cable cutting".
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
The coverage of the Olympics is awful. Please stop with the political crap. I want to see the best athletes compete, and am willing to wade through the ads because they pay for my viewing. NBC seems to be obsessed with gays, terrorists, cold war ideology, Putin as idiot, etc. Leave that to the politicos on your bozo station MSNBC. Many are critical of the Olympics for the political overtones. Those overtones are 90% the covering press.
I got AT&T Uverse 3 years ago (no contract), and I got Time Warner this year (no contract). If you are outside the US, then you are dealing with someone other than NBC and American cable companies.
You're right. I'm sorry. What was nothing again? -infinity or something?
Er... wow.
I think the clue is in the word 'beta'. The whole point of this exercise is for users to help Slashdot iron out the kinks in the new design. As far as I'm aware, they are not forcing people to use the Beta site, and you can still use the 'classic' site in the meantime.
From an aesthetic viewpoint, it certainly doesn't look that bad - if it were faux-MySpace, I might be able to understand the anger. As it is, if you're really *that* opposed to change of Slashdot's look, either pitch ideas for a design that improves on how the site currently works, or help identify the problems with the proposed redesign. Clogging up the site with this neo-Luddite whinging will most likely get you nowhere, and if you decide to go elsewhere I suspect you won't be missed.
-MT.
And why is it that you are owed free content?
It's not about not having free access - it's not about having access period. I would have gladly paid for an online-only access, but there is no such option. I've tried signing up for a TV service with Comcast (which owns NBC) - not only I have to pay something like $70/month for huge package of channels I would never watch, but the only way to buy it is to sign up for installation of equipment for TV I do not own, and I would only get access when such equipment arrives - there is no option to sign up for online access and not have their cable equipment shoven down my throat.
P.S. I looked into using a Canadian VPN service, but had trouble getting www.cbc.ca olympic coverage to show up correctly on Linux. Now I am planning to watch Olympics on eTVnet - a Russian-language site in Canada, which, unlike NBC, is happy to take my money to provide me with access to content I want to watch.
0 is simply a lack of anything. It can potentially be filled later. Nothing is a deeper void, anything you try to throw into nothing leaves nothing.
He'll just have to stop subtracting action from talk to get out of the hole.
So if I have nothing. And then I get 3 apples. I still have 0 apples because the 3 apples were consumed by the void and can never leave? What do you call this kind of math again?
The type that abuses symbol manipulation almost as badly as you did.
Sure, it's cutsie and all but it makes no real point.
Let's say you are in France or Germany or even Canada for that matter. You can get the coverage from the local TV, but the problem is that there are so many events that no station follows all of them and they prefer the local athletes and those get the most coverage. So if you are interested in your own, you want the coverage specific to your own country. That is why you want to deal with NBC, you might be willing to pay even premium for the coverage of the event, but they don't sell.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
I abused symbol manipulation?!
I am the one who used it correctly.
You are the one who abused algebraic symbols by saying this:
Talk - action = nothing.
Sure, it's cutsie and all but it makes no real point.
I could say the same about your original post
My point is that you shouldn't try to turn math into a political tool unless you know how to do math.
That's true, but if you live in a foreign country and want to watch American TV, you are pretty much in the same boat whether this TV show is the olympics or not.
Actually, Netflix is not tied to Comcast. Hulu is not tied. Yes, you got geographical restrictions, but they are easily worked around with a VPN. But here it is different. They will not even take your money. The only way to pay for it is to be Cable subscriber. That's just bad.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
With a 30 minute timer, replete with ads--and my head just exploded. If the Olympics are the world's games, all bidders should be forced to make content available to everyone, especially since the ads have already paid for it. What a travesty that in 2014 we can't freely watch the Olympics online. By allowing any blockage of games, the IOC is violating the following items within its own list of stated roles:
4. Cooperate with the competent public or private organisations and authorities in the endeavor to place sport at the service of humanity and thereby to promote peace
5. Take action in order to strengthen the unity, to protect the independence of the Olympic Movement, and to preserve the autonomy of sport;
6. Act against any form of discrimination affecting the Olympic Movement
15. Encourage and support initiatives blending sport with culture and education
Of course, how much should we expect from an organization that so freely issues DMCA take downs to non-licensed videographers and photographers of events; The IOC does after all play the role model for the brand of censorship which it would like others to follow.
You attempted to take shorthand english (BTW, a popular slogan in punk's heyday) and treat it as a mathematical equation. So yeah, abused.
My math is probably better than yours since my hint that 'nothing' might mean an additive version of epsilon went way over your head.
Your literalism is not my problem.
It's what I say to refer to people from the USA because the widely accepted term 'American' is ambiguous. It's like referring to people from France as nothing but Europeans, and consequently making that term inaccurate in popular speech for everyone else in Europe. There's around 35 countries in the America's; all residents of which are 'Americans'.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Between 1970 and 1988 the IOC itself phased out a requirement of amateurism.
But each sport and their ruling body still has its own definition of who qualifies - amateur or professional. Boxing and wrestling being the most obvious. Soccer allows limited professionals (and unlimited under-23 professionals), IIRC.
For most of the non-team sports, it's not a big deal, unless there's a massive professional men's pommel horse circuit that I'm missing out on...
Clearly at the Winter Olympics, "action sports" athletes are professionals, as are likely all the Curling teams -- at least in that they're sponsored and play in club leagues.
I don't see a problem if the world's fastest man or greatest bobsledder is also an NFL player. But that's just my opinion, and other ones are similarly valid.
I do live in a relatively flat area, but I had no trouble at almost 50 miles with an indoor antenna and a good amplifier. The indoor antenna was actually a broken outdoor antenna, hiding inside behind some furniture - facing an outward wall. Worked great. You might still have options.
You attempted to take shorthand english (BTW, a popular slogan in punk's heyday) and treat it as a mathematical equation. So yeah, abused.
I really don't give a shit if the nonsense you spouted was unoriginal
My math is probably better than yours since my hint that 'nothing' might mean an additive version of epsilon went way over your head.
Nothing you have said thus far makes me thing your math is better than mine.
Your literalism is not my problem.
Your shitty non-literal math is not my problem.
I'd LOVE to pay for content. I'd love to pay NBC some money to see the Olympic events streamed online. But they won't take my money.
What I won't do is pay for 200 channels that I have no interest in so I can get the one or two that I want.
In fact, "channels" are obsolete. I don't want all the other crap that comes with a channel, I just want the particular shows or content I want.
But I would stoop to paying for the whole Olympics, even if I can't buy individual events.
PLEASE let me pay for the content I want!