2008 Beijing Olympics as a Media Test-Bed 134
CNN is reporting that NBC is using the 2008 Olympics in Beijing as a test-bed to understand how people are using different media platforms. "NBC has scheduled 3,600 hours of Olympics programming on its main network, along with Telemundo, USA, Oxygen, MSNBC, CNBC and Bravo. That's the equivalent of eight days of programming packed into each day. In addition, the company is planning to make 2,200 hours of streaming video available on NBCOlympics.com. Consumers may also get video on demand via their computer and Olympics content through their mobile phones."
The Olymp-whats? (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with this test is: who's actually going to watch the Olympics?
If they're using the Olymipcs as a test bed to see how people view media, then somebody in that department needs to be fired. You can't test a wide range of media on content that nobody's going to view in the first place (at least not enough to make it a real "test" of various media strengths).
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A surprising number of people do watch them. I don't know why- most of the sports on the list would draw record lows on ESPN8. But throw in the every 4 years thing and some flags, and all of a sudden a large number of people care.
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Re:The Olymp-whats? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a member of a Curling Club [circlecitycurling.com] , you insensitive clod!
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Curling's a winter sport, dude. Come back in two years.
When's women's beach volleyball on?
Re:The Olymp-whats? (Score:4, Insightful)
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In a bunch of sports that nobody cares about. Like I said- throw in some flags, and for some reason people watch.
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Have you ever been to a country that cares about their country and nationalism? Watch European football, live, then you'll understand.
It's like a war... but without a death toll. Oh wait... [timesonline.co.uk].
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I went to a hockey game the other night, and a fight broke out.
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You mean that there are countries that don't have crowds of apathetic people who dream of living in other countries?
Can I care about my country without enjoying sports competitions? I'm sure it is a spectrum, some of us don't care about televised sporting competitions (or sporting competitions in general), though I am sure my bicycle is better because of sporting competitions, and maybe we are all better on a whole becaus
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Even more than that, it is a pure humanist celebration. Even though two countries hate each other, they compete together fairly under the same rules, and acknowledge when they lose. The entire world is also looking at one city for a while and if you follow the coverage you'll inevitably understand that place a little better.
And that's just the sports, there is all sorts of cultural stuff that goes on. Saying the Olympics are all curling and ribbon dancing is like saying the world cup is just a bunch of p
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The Olympics are when distance events aren't just excuses to give sprinters rest
NOTE: above is said with humor and respect.
I can't watch that long ass swim event, though (like 25 laps?)... and am glad when they cut away, but that's only because I don't understand the sport. S
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That's one of the coolest things that NBC is going to be doing.
Since they're doing streaming, they're not limited to the physical channels they have available, so they can do many simultanous events in their entirety (and have the whole things available for on demand).
And because they can do advertising around the video frame instead of having to cut to ads, they can keep the events going end-to-end without interruption.
Re:The Olymp-whats? (Score:4, Informative)
Beijing expects four billion TV viewers for '08 Games [reuters.com]
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Nobody's watching? You better tell the 4 billion people who were planning to do just that...
Historically, the Olympics have gotten low viewership in the West even when we host the Olympics. I think the Beijing estimates are a bit rosy even though they would now of course be higher due to domestic viewership in China.
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Chinese government to citizens: Watch the Olympics or be killed.
?
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Far far simpler. the government controls the media. just make it all olympics all the time and they won't have a choice but to watch.
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just make it all olympics all the time and they won't have a choice but to watch
TVs don't have off switches in China?
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Lies, damned lies and TV viewing statistics: The most watched televised sports events of 2006
Sport/Event/Claim/Verifiable
Football, Italy v France World Cup final, 715.1m/260m
American football, Super Bowl Steelers v Seahawks, 750m-1bn/98m
Winter Olympics, Torino 2006 opening ceremony, 2bn/87m
Football, Champs League Arsenal v Barça, 120m/86m
Formula One, Brazilian Grand Prix, 354m/83m
NASCAR, Daytona 500, n/a/20m
Baseball, World Series game five, n/
The Olympics are Vista and Silverlight only (Score:2)
So it's more of a narrow test even than you might think. To participate you have to have more money than sense. The advertisers should love it.
Until the servers go down, anyway. Microsoft might have some smart folks, but they're no YouTube.
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Re:The Olympics are Vista and Silverlight only (Score:4, Interesting)
Since September 2007, we've had Silverlight 1.0, Silverlight 1.1, Silverlight 2 Beta 1, and two weeks back, Silverlight 2 Beta 2. None of the versions are backwards-compatible, in fact, between 1.0 and 1.1, the computing model had completely changed. code developed for one version isn't operable in others.
Second of all, this is the standard MS release cycle. They do an alpha or CTP. Then they do one or two betas. Then they do one or two RC's, and finally RTM.
The Olympics start on 8-8-08. Today's date is 8-7-08. We're at Ver 2 Beta 2 now. By your words, they need to do an alpha, at least one RC and then release NBCOlympics.com in production. All this in a month.
Gosh, Firefox 3 went through what, 6 RC's in one month. YEAH! DESPERATION!!!!! I SPITE AT THEE MICROSOFT, FROM MY MOTHERS BASEMENT!
I work with Silverlight on a daily basis; you can see some of the work my team did on the Silverlight showcase site (won't point to the exact entry). None of the work, though, was developed on Firefox, nor did we do any of it in my mom's basement.
Trust me when I say this, MS has been _extremely_ aggressive in rolling out new features and versions in Silverlight. We think the only reason they're so aggressive is because of the Olympics; this is a hard production deadline they can't afford to miss. That is why we have versions every month. Hence my supposition of there being panic in Redmond.
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The message I got trying to watch one of the videos:
"Video is currently supported on the following browsers:
- Internet Explorer 6, 7 for Windows (2003, XP SP2 or greater, and Vista)
- Firefox 2 for Windows (2003, XP SP2 or greater, and Vista) and Mac OS 10.4.8+ (Intel only)
- Safari 2, 3 for Mac OS 10.4.8+ (Intel only)
- (coming soon) Firefox 3.x for Windows (2003, XP SP2 or greater, and Vista) and Mac OS 10.4.8+ (Intel only)"
*Disclaimer* I knew it would not work, just curious on what would happen. I run Kubun
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You gotta love Robbin Williams take on Luge:
"What Drunken German Gynecologist came up with this sport? 'I am going to dress myself like a sperm, shove an ice-skate up my ass, and slide balls-first down an ice chute.', 'how will you steer?', 'I will clench my ass and do kegles all the way down'.
"And don't even get me started on two-man luge, I'm going 'fellas, get a room'. 'hard right, hard right, make that turn you fucker, ohh yah'. 'You cost us 1-100s of a second with your thing going 'bbbrrrng' all over t
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Thanks for the clarification.
As for my original post, its been my experience that nobody I know ever watches the Olymics anymore. And it always seems that there are several jokes that go around confirming that nobody watches the "non-exciting" games anyway. So, its just an opinion from my personal experience...but maybe I'm just out of the loop ;)
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I am sick and tired of the Olympics.
At least I don't watch TV anymore, so I can avoid some of the mind numbing crap coming out of this "cultural event".
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From the article:
In that case, all the Linux and Mac users being blocked by Microsoft's dodgy deal with NBC [techcrunch.com] should head over to http://www.nbcolympics.com/ [nbcolympics.com] and make sure they know the decision to block us was a bad one. Bonus points for leaving the site, and never returning, when you hit a lame 'platform not supported' message (I hit one in the Video section).
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will they actually cover the sports this time? (Score:5, Insightful)
The other networks have to turn it into a fucking soap opera giving you a 20 minute tear-jerker biography of the damn athlete before each event. That cuts into time that could be better spent, I don't know, covering the actual Olympics? There are so many sports that don't even make it on television.
Re:will they actually cover the sports this time? (Score:4, Funny)
Tell me about it. [slashdot.org]
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Maybe it's time to jump [youtube.com] on some of those new "sports."
Re:will they actually cover the sports this time? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:will they actually cover the sports this time? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is what I hate. Just show the events and forget the Costas crap "human interest" commentary.
There are essentially three ways to cover the Olympics:
1. Nationalistic Penis Waving
-My Country is better than yours; what a victory for [Country]
2. Human interest pieces
-[Athlete] worked so hard for this victory
3. Technical analysis of the event
-Look at his/her form in [event], the hip rotation generates power, etc etc etc
Of those three, which do you think is the hardest and most expensive to get right?
Hint: hiring knowledgeable & telegenic commentators for hundreds of events is not simple or cheap.
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Unlikely, NBC is famous for the 20 minute biographicals and has exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics in the US through the 2012 games. (So far...)
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I've basically given up watching the broadcasts for exactly that reason. You only get 3 or 4 minutes of actual competition followed by a 15 minute sob story about some athlete having to deal with the deaths of her mother/father/sibling/uncle/pet goat after which they cut back to the studio where the talking head says where they'll be going to some time later but first these 10 minutes of commercials. And good luck getting any time for sports where the Americans are out of competition. Its simply not worth t
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Agreed. I just want to see people compete at the highest level so I can see what something look likes when it's done "the best" it can be done.
If I want to know someones life story I'll check wikipedia.
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> I just want to see people compete at the highest level so I can see what something look
> likes when it's done "the best" it can be done.
If it is indeed "the best".
BBC streamed last olympics online, didn't they? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:BBC streamed last olympics online, didn't they? (Score:4, Interesting)
And the reason people were going to the BBC for online content was.... NBC's coverage sucks.
NBC insists on covering the Olympics "live", in prime time. Problem is - the Olympics are being held in a different time zone. So NBC tapes the events, blocks any "live" coverage that it can, and then presents the taped event in EST prime time as if was live. (That's why so many of the events on TV have *surprise* American winners - they just discard the tapes from events where the Americans lose badly).
Hopefully, if NBC is streaming content, they'll stream really live content from all sports. If not... then broadcasters that do a decent job in other countries will see a large uptick in their traffic.
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it's just a reminder (Score:1, Insightful)
Quality of the video streaming (Score:5, Insightful)
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1. Can you even use BitTorrent for video streaming?
2. We're talking about live video, too.
3. ?
4. Profits
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The server can just send to 1000 people and let them send to the others. The ones that receive the stream last could have a big delay (minutes, but hey, you have to compromise something).
You'd also need a client that knows to prioritize the chunks at the beginning so that the movie flows without interruptions.
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Re:Quality of the video streaming (Score:4, Insightful)
NBC Still Sucks (Score:2)
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couldn't they just use bittorrent?
Not if the goal is video streaming. Bittorrent is all about maximising the use of the upload bandwidth of the peers to distribute chunks of the file. The chunks distributed are spread throughout the file ; once the seed has served a chunk, there is little point it serving it again because one or more peers can now seed it ; instead, it concentrates on uploading unseeded chunks until the full file is available from peers in the swarm. At this point, the seed is no longer required (as long as no peers go offl
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The US (Golf) Open did a great job with their online coverage. Full following of a couple marquee groups, coverage of a couple holes for all players that came by, simulcast of ESPN coverage, all of it in both SD and HD.
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Streaming video is simply retarded. It burns more bandwidt
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HD feeds wouldn't work out so well, as most people don't have the bandwidth. Bittorrent wouldn't be good for NBC, because think about what happens when the masses start learning how to use bittorrent. You know someone will edit out the commercials and create new torrents that will quickly become more popular than NBC's torrents.
However, it's not hopeless. I think they should create a proprietary, cross-platform P2P based Olympics viewer. A user could simply rank the events they were most interested in, and
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Bittorrent isn't exactly designe for low-latency live broadcasting :).
Have you watched any of the Olympics sample content yet? If you have enough bandwidth, I think it looks pretty darn good.
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I wish the FOSS community, with their huge knowledge, would start a project like this. Blow the big boys out the water and make them compete properly...
Time shifting options (Score:2)
My fiancee is a big fan of the olympics. We'll be out of the country for the first few weeks of August with no intentions of watching any TV. So she's looking into DVR options. I think every minute of coverage will be available somewhere on the internet after we get back. It'll certainly be easier than trying to pick everything to record beforehand. But she's afraid to take the chance that she'll miss something.
So will NBC or others make all of the video available online immediately after the events?
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So will NBC or others make all of the video available online immediately after the events? Will someone else?
Seeing the Olympic is an international event you might be able to foreign websites to view streaming video as long as you don't mind it being in your native language.
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Seeing the Olympic is an international event you might be able to foreign websites to view streaming video as long as you don't mind it being in your native language.
Ummm.. But assuming that all the people on Slashdot have English as their native language there are lots of other countries that speak English that may have it streaming, though some may have IP blocks for US IPs...
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Seeing the Olympic is an international event you might be able to foreign websites to view streaming video as long as you don't mind it not being in your native language.
There, fixed that for you.
Also, consider that if you speak or are learning a second language, it might be a beneficial experience to watch in a foreign language.
You mean OLYMPICS right...with a P? (Score:1)
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No, the olympics are a completely different thing, and most americans can't afford such luxurious name-brand products with the dollar in its current condition.
Thus, china and wal-mart bring us, the OLYMICS!
the 400 lb limited hurdles, the permanent vegitative state skydiving competition, the senior citizen milk run championship! tune in, and see it all on FSPN!
What is this thing? (Score:3, Funny)
A Joke (Score:2, Informative)
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The coverage may be bad, but, hey, be thankful your favourite sport is in the Olympics. Some of us love sports that are ideal [wikipedia.org] candidates, but don't make it in because of stupid IOC politics. :-(
In other news: NBC declares war on our minds! (Score:2)
Spielberg's "Minority Report" might not be a classic, but it was very savvy in it's predictions about technology. In particular, the above quote brings to mind the excessively invasive advertising keyed to individuals via eye-scans. You can tell these NBC bastards have a hard-on for that kind of future.
We're basically in a one-sided war. Advertisers are pulling together intelligence and getting orga
well duh (Score:2)
On Demand too? (Score:1)
if you get CBC... (Score:4, Informative)
they do an outstanding job covering the Olympics, if you can get it.
while they of course emphasize Canadian athletes, they don't cater to them exclusively.
and you get to actually watch complete events. not flip from event to event in a format apparently designed only for those with attention deficit.
I bet CBC even gets some of the smog on screen. what a wonderful place to run long distances...
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I bet CBC even gets some of the smog on screen. what a wonderful place to run long distances...
I was just reading about China's plans to combat pollution.
http://news.google.com/nwshp?q=china%20olympics%20factories [google.com]
Since taking hundreds of thousands of cars off the road hasn't done the trick, they are planning to shut down a whole bunch of industrial factories. It really says something when a country has to turn down its industrial output just to have breathable air.
Stupidest test bed ever - Vista ONLY (Score:1, Insightful)
Last I heard a few weeks ago, the technology NBC will use is supported ONLY on Windows Vista.
If that is still true, this "test-bed" will only be testing that tiny percentage of the market that swallowed the hook and upgraded/bought Vista.
Back in the Atlanta olympics (Score:2)
"We have just had a report that other countries are competing in the olympics. Now back to our coverage"
That has pretty well summed up every telecast I have seen in recent times, and what I fear will happen for Beijing no matter how many hours of coverage they stream/broadcast
Bravo? (Score:3, Funny)
YEA!!! Eight hours a day with 20 minutes of action (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't even watch the Olympics anymore thanks to NBC bastardizing it. It's like they swap out the NBC sports division with the staff from Lifetime.
Guess what NBC, I WANT to see the fucking prelim races for ALL of the track and Field events. Not just 1/10th of the final race/event with 10 hours of stories about the F'n athletes that don't even win.
DIE!!! DIE!!! DIE!!! You've killed the Olympics NBC, and your network is in last place for a good reason. Isn't it time for Law and Order Peoria to make it's debut?!?!?!?
At least the Chinese will be all set (Score:1)
Beijing (Score:1)
That's a huge investment.. (Score:2)
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What codec? (Score:1)
Eight days of programming each day on seven channels? That's only 87.5% compression. They can get up to 80% with H.264. Then they could have 8.75 days of programming each day on the same 7 channels!
Skewed Results (Score:2)
NBC wants to use this to discover how people view media. But if the streaming is restricted to Vista, they'll be forced to come to the conclusion that only a small minority of people use their PC's to watch television sports.
All because the vast majority of people are still using Windows XP, not Vista. Somebody at NBC sure isn't thinking straight.
I guess they figure that anyone who watches TV on a computer isn't interested in watching sports to begin with (what is known as a self-fulfilling prophesy in this
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This is probably Microsoft's doing. Some idiot at Microsoft probably thinks that people will upgrade to Vista in order to watch streamed video on their PC that was already shown on television. How do these idiots get in the positions of making decisions at these large corporations?
WTF is Olymics? (Score:2)
Now we can't even spell for posting of stories? Sheesh... Or are we afraid of some potential copyright issues over the term Olympics?
Watchable on DVR (Score:2)
I've always wanted to watch Olympics, but it's just so painful to find the event you want, wait for it to air, watch the boring "human story" of the american athletes who are expected to place 4th or 5th because it isn't US's best event, all to get to a few minutes of events. I tend to give up quickly
Recently, I watched a swimming qualifier after recording it. After getting rid of the crap, an hour of coverge was 15 minutes of a great swimming meet! I even watched a couple of the post event interviews.
Who is being tested? (Score:2)
With the Olympic committee censoring the athletes and their families, dis-allowing blogging regarding the events, only allowing certain networks to cover the event, etc...
The Olympics and China are a perfect match.
Furthermore, NBC Universal(having exclusive rights) are teaming up Microsoft(a convicted monopoly) to bring you internet coverage using Silverlight(closed, proprietary, no Mac or Linux) technology for the coverage of events in (the censored country of) China.
The sheep are their oy
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Microsoft Silverlight Gets a High Profile Win: 2008 Beijing Olympics [techcrunch.com].
NBC got incentivized. After Microsoft failed to gain control of Yahoo to use it as a channel to force Silverlight dominance, the NBC agreement was the fallback.
Not just Silverlight only (Score:5, Informative)
The actual events will require both Silverlight and Vista.
Thereby making absolutely certain that the videos won't be cached, transcoded and redistributed within seconds of their first webcast. You won't be able to archive them or time shift them or view them on the evil Lunix or your otherwise capable crackberry or eee pc. Right? Right? Because Vista's secure media transport and display has been perfected and will never be cracked.
This streamed olympic footage will not be available for fair use, ever. Not even long after even those who participated have ceased to care. Me, I don't care already. If they stream it to an open platform I might watch some of it but Vista alone is too much of a price to pay, let alone Silverlight. I think instead I'll click over to CNN and see if they manage to smuggle out footage of protesters.
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The actual events will require both Silverlight and Vista.
Stop spreading the FUD, it may use Silverlight, but Vista is not a requirement. Silverlight 2.0 is even available for the Mac at http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ [silverlight.net]
Re:Not just Silverlight only (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, really? [nwsource.com]
The Seattle PI reports: "However, there's a catch- this generous helping of everything from taekwondo to equestrian is exclusively available to Windows Vista users."
Now read my post again. Is some part of it not in agreement with the facts?
I think you're deliberately misunderstanding me in order to muddy the issue.
The NBC "Olympics On The Go" service will only be broadcast to users of Windows Vista [arstechnica.com]. You can have the Olympics in "up to HD" but only if you take Vista too. I can only presume they are afraid their servers couldn't handle the load of allowing it to the broad audience of popular operating systems and handheld devices, even though users of that equipment are a much bigger market for their advertisers.