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Did NBC Alter the Olympics' Opening Ceremony?
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Aug 09, 2008 06:24 PM
from the for-those-with-the-stomach-for-pageantry dept.
from the for-those-with-the-stomach-for-pageantry dept.
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?"
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China Claims Score In Weather Manipulation 147 comments
hackingbear writes "Despite prior skepticism over effectiveness, China claims successful application of weather intervention to ensure a stunning Olympic opening ceremony, according to a report by the official Xinhua News Agency:
'We fired a total of 1,104 rain dispersal rockets from 21 sites in the city between 4 p.m. and 11:39 p.m. on Friday, which successfully intercepted a stretch of rain belt from moving towards the stadium,' said Guo Hu, head of the Beijing Municipal Meteorological Bureau (BMB).
While there wasn't a single drop of rain over the National Stadium — also known as the Bird's Nest — during the opening ceremony from 8:00pm-12:00am on August 8, the weather services said that Baoding City of Hebei Province, to the southwest of Beijing, received the biggest rainfall of 100 millimeters Friday night, and Beijing's Fangshan District recorded a rainfall of 25 millimeters."
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Olympic Opening Ceremony Fireworks Were (Partly) Faked 488 comments
A complete newb writes "London's Telegraph newspaper reports that some of the fireworks which appeared over Beijing during the television broadcast of the Olympic Opening Ceremony were actually computer generated. But — hold on — it's not necessarily as bad as you think. The faked fireworks were actually set-off at the stadium, but because of potential dangers in filming the display live from a helicopter, viewers at home were shown a pre-recorded, computer-generated shot." To me, the reasoning behind the faked display is no consolation or excuse — it seems hard to swallow that NBC was unaware of this televised deception. I'm glad that it was good-naturedly "revealed" this weekend (according to that Telegraph article), but it's disheartening that such a large crowd can watch (in person, and around the world) such a display and have no reason to realize they've been duped. What about when weightier events are at issue? There's also a slightly more detailed story at sky.com.
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This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Movie at 11.
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
Movie at 11.
Movie at about 12mid/11pm CT on NBC affilitates tonight... due to Olympic runover. You just never know when those taped sporting events will end.
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Re:This just in... (Score:5, Interesting)
What major network television outfit publicly linked the American Antrax attacks falsely to Iraq back in 2001 and waited until 2006 to very quiet acknowledge (but not explain the source of) its deceit?
Can boosting ratings, by feeding the American people false propaganda, be a treasonous offense?
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Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
You set up the question just so you could answer, didn't you?
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Re:This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
There..fixed that for ya.
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Re:This just in... (Score:5, Informative)
It is not even displayed in correct order when it's hosted in the USA.
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Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Last Post!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Last Post!!!!
Re:Last Post!!! (Score:5, Funny)
first post in UK, 29th post in USA!
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Re:Last Post!!! (Score:5, Funny)
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What web Broadcast? (Score:5, Funny)
If you are not Windows or Mac, there is no web broadcast.
Gets me thinking, how did a Slashdoter view the web broadcast... Is someone using Windows?
Re:What web Broadcast? (Score:5, Funny)
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Other countries? (Score:5, Funny)
Hi:
I thought only America was in the Olympics. When did they start letting other countries participate?
Re:Other countries? (Score:5, Funny)
The other countries are kinda like the Washington Generals, we just need them there so America can show of their skills.
Parent
Re:Other countries? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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olypics video tech (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:olypics video tech (Score:5, Informative)
There's no such thing as a television network that operates worldwide, so Olympic rights are sold on a country by country basis. Web video rights go to the TV network that owns the rights for the nation, and they have a right to lock other web videos out and responsiblity to keep their web videos within their borders. Sorry, no open media formats allowed, NBC had to go with something DRMed and they're already friendly with Microsoft, so it's no surprise NBCOlympics.com requires Sliverlight.
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Re:olypics video tech (Score:5, Insightful)
Two questions for you:
Why should the IOC do something that would devalue what it produces? The Olympics are run on a shoestring budget compared to other "profitable" sports.
Why don't you care about the Winter Olympics in 2010?
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AAAGGGHHH! (Score:5, Funny)
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dilemma (Score:5, Funny)
Now I don't know whether to boycott the Olympic Games because of China ignoring human rights or because it was converted to a festival of commerce. If it goes on like this, I may be soon able to boycott each day of Olympics for a different reason.
Re:dilemma (Score:5, Informative)
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!"
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Re:dilemma (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, I think you are right. I can probably find a separate reason to boycott each day of the Games even now. Doping, commercialization, the new swimsuit controversy, human rights, Tibet, Avery Brundage reaction to Munich attacks, bribes deciding who will host the games, Moscow and L.A. "half-games"... and of course also the Berlin propaganda games (remember, you broke the law first ;)
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What is more outrageous... (Score:5, Insightful)
Broadcast version not altered (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Broadcast version not altered (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, I just checked the online version... and it's totally mixed up and out of order. It's definitely not the correct order as seen in the broadcast version.
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Re:Broadcast version not altered (Score:5, Informative)
The order in the Wikipedia article (Chinese stroke count order) has been that way since August 1st.
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NBC Censors Olympics to Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
NBC has done an excellent job of insuring that Americans cannot watch the Olympics, the Opening Ceremony and other aspects of what is going on in China. They are the first to bitch and moan about China censorship and just look at what they're doing now! Typical media.
They don't have cable out here so watching anything on the Internet from NBC is just not possible. They have effectively censored millions of Americans from watching the Olympics.
What they do have has been cut up and altered to make room for all that advertising. And, just how many times do I have to hear "Ra Deem Team" from NBC. If I hear it again, I'm going to puke!
Now, there are plenty of NON-AMERICAN web sites with the streams and videos! China has some, Germany has one, and there are others. You get the point... AVOID NBC and you can watch for free!
Re:not a real issue (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:not a real issue (Score:5, Insightful)
I did, in fact, watch the entire broadcast. The countries were not broadcast in that order. You can find the order in which they actually marched in the wikipedia page. The issue here is that NBC appears to have altered the order of the events themselves. This is different from editing out bits to fit in commercials. The *story* has changed. Example:
1) You get out of your car and walk into a store.
2) You pull up to the store in your car
3) You leave your house and get into your car
4) You drive to the store
5) You leave the store with your purchase.
The correct order is 3,4,2,1,5, but the story told about what you did gives the impression that something very different happened.
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Re:not a real issue (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:not a real issue (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah but more entertaining & original.
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Re:not a real issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Except in this case it doesn't give the impression that something very different happened since aside from the first and last countries the order that nations appear in the parade has no significance. Still it's a pretty stupid thing to change.
More important to me is that they put ads over the performances in the opening ceremony so we really did not get to see the full performance how it was intended.
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Re:not a real issue (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:not a real issue (Score:5, Informative)
"make something up" like apply 3000 year old rules, accepted by all for ordering countries in Mandarin?
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Re:not a real issue (Score:5, Informative)
So no, they didn't make anything up.
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Re:not a real issue (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:not a real issue (Score:5, Funny)
Most Chinese dictionaries actually sort characters first by the radical and then by stoke count within each group of radicals.
Fool! Look at the government sanctioned sites! There are NO radicals in China!
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Re:not a real issue (Score:5, Funny)
No free radicals, you mean. Which is why Chinese always look so healthy and young.
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Re:not a real issue (Score:5, Informative)
French is one of the official languages. According to the Olympic Charter [olympic.org], "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.
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Re:not a real issue (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:kids today... (Score:5, Insightful)
Excuse me, are you serious? It's television , FFS! They edit, it's normal. Been going on since at least the 1950s.
This isn't the Dukes of Hazard or even Survivor. This is the Olympics. It's presented as news of the world's supposed ultimate sporting event.
Of course, the cynical among us will note that the psudo-intellectual wrappings of competition and the human condition are just dressing to sell the product. We know this really isn't news but entertainment and that the competition comes a distant third to politics and money. We can all sit around and posture about how we expect this kind of thing. But you don't get an award for being jaded.
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Re:kids today... (Score:5, Informative)
you don't get an award for being jaded.
Actually, you do. [wordpress.com]
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Re:I'm sure I'm the only one on the planet, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is more than a bunch of athletes my friend. Go back and watch the opening ceremonies, and tell me that country does not scare the fuck out of you. The level of discipline demonstrated by the performers, the sheer precision of it all... it all far exceeds anything the West could possibly pull off. And that's DAMNED scary.
China is living proof that, if not bound by troublesome concepts like fairness, freedom, and morality, you can achieve great things. That scares the bejesus out of me. The entire Olympic exercise, for China at least, is one of intimidation. Here's them flexing their muscle, showing the world that, at a moment's notice, they can throw away billions, not feel the pinch, mobilize hundreds of thousands of people without any messy bureaucracy, and completely transform the entire city nearly overnight (well, 6 years, that's damned short).
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Re:I'm sure I'm the only one on the planet, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing that really hit me was how quickly they were able to expand their airport to accommodate for the Olympics. They now have the world's largest airport terminal, built up in almost no time at all. My home town (Vancouver, Canada) took nearly 20 years to build a single runway, between budget cutbacks, protests by residents, regulatory red tape, etc etc. Meanwhile here's a country that can completely rebuild an airport, make it into the world's largest, and still have time to make it an architectural masterpiece, all in 6 years. It's breathtaking and scary.
who regards the west as...savages.
Not really, they regard the West as hypocrites. The state media likes to play up images like Abu Ghraib and the various things going on at Gitmo. It's not entirely baseless, and that's the sad part.
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Re:I'm sure I'm the only one on the planet, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just rather hard to get that kind of support going...
Damn right, especially these days, where the lack of the fear of communism has made driving these massive projects impossible. The problem is that the West requires consensus (or at least something resembling it) to do anything of that scale. China just has to have one guy snap his fingers.
Absolute power, when wielded by someone who knows how to use it, is very, very dangerous for his neighbours.
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Re:Not news. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Mr. Godwin please pick up the red courtesy phone. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:OMGWTF!?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh really? And for just how many movies do they alter the timeline of events? Maybe the cable companies have the ability to edit for time, but I doubt they get to rearrange the movie because it alters the story. Imagine if we could just alter the timeline of history so that whenever there is a dispute, an international incident, a war, it was shown to be the other guy who started it? Altering the sequence of events is changing the truth.
P.S. Hans shot first.
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Re:OMGWTF!?!?! (Score:5, Funny)
"Momento" sure made a lot more sense when it was shown on NBC!
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Re:Not the most disrespectful behaviour. (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't realize that the UK had such a big hand molding the games in ancient Greece. Thanks for clearing that up! I didn't know that!
-Just another stupid American
(tongue firmly in cheek, for the humor impaired)
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