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Did NBC Alter the Olympics' Opening Ceremony?
Posted by
timothy
on Saturday August 09, @07:24PM
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."
[+]
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.
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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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Last Post!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Last Post!!!!
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Re:Last Post!!! (Score:5, Funny)
first post in UK, 29th post in USA!
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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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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.
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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)
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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.
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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!
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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, 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: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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