Review: Online Olympics ambitious, but not TV

updated 5:48 p.m. ET Aug. 11, 2008

NEW YORK - NBC Universal is running an unprecedented 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage on television and the Internet, most of it live online, letting fans track their favorite sports in a way not possible even if they’d gone to Beijing.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC.)

Excited by the prospects, I set my alarm for 4:45 a.m. on Sunday to catch cycling, handball, archery and rowing events on NBCOlympics.com as they happen half a world away in China — 12 hours ahead of New York.

Of course, I ended up hitting the snooze button on my alarm clock for another two hours. Fortunately, some of the events I missed were available later on-demand. And NBC’s enhanced video player brings up to four simultaneous feeds — live, on-demand or a combination — allowing me to keep up.

Although NBC is saving popular sports like gymnastics, swimming and track and field for its prime-time TV coverage, NBC’s online ambition is valiant, one the network has largely pulled off well thus far.

The video isn’t full-screen, but it is crisp, with little stuttering, even during Monday’s workday when Internet traffic tends to rise. You can even see the sweat soaking one of the tennis players.

But the Internet won’t be replacing television anytime soon. At most, it’s good for sneaking in some tennis at work or watching events that are not likely to get more than highlights on TV.

(Disclosure: The Associated Press has an agreement with NBC to distribute video links to the network’s content online.)

Some set-up required
The Internet video is free. I have to watch a 30-second ad before the event, usually for NBC owner General Electric Co. I also need Microsoft Corp.’s Silverlight technology — also free and relatively simple to install, even on my Mac.

Most of the video is restricted to U.S. subscribers of an NBC broadband partner. Cablevision Systems Corp. is the only major provider not to have a deal with NBC, so its subscribers are officially ineligible. But NBC doesn’t verify what you enter and gives you three tries to figure out that subscribers of AT&T Inc. and Time Warner Cable Inc. qualify when using a New York ZIP code (hint, hint).

NBC does check your computer’s Internet Protocol address to make sure you are in the United States, where NBC has the rights to broadcast the games. Elsewhere, you’ll have to go through your country’s Olympic broadcaster. If your region doesn’t have one, some on-demand video is appearing on YouTube in those territories through a deal with Google Inc.

With my computer set up, I was able to watch badminton, judo and soccer, along with the medal ceremony for archery, using NBC’s quad-screen “control room.” I could choose what runs on the four screens and pick which of the four is larger at any given time.

These feeds are broadcast quality, with multiple camera angles, graphics and other gizmos you’d expect from a television production. NBC is simply showing the feed made available worldwide to broadcasters that lack their own cameras.

What I don’t get is on-air commentary. Instead, text commentary appears for a handful of events from partners like Tennis.com. The commentary isn’t as extensive as the chatter you’d find on television, but the basics are there. (It’s wonderful for obscure sports like equestrian, though I’m left to wonder why the horse doesn’t get a medal, too.)

It’s also great for work, where I usually have my sound turned off and might not want to let on I’m not really working.

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