Olympic Television on the Internet
Readers of this blog know that I do not have cable television, and here in this fjord (Howe Sound, near Vancouver) I have limited opportunity for over-the-air TV broadcasts. Nor am I interested. Nevertheless, the local and current celebration is Olympic 2010 Mania. I have found that the best coverage of the games is not the local authorized television station, but the official website of the Olympic Consortium of broadcasters.
The site where this is available is different for various countries. Here in Canada it is: http://www.ctvolympics.ca/
In the USA it is: http://www.nbcolympics.com/
What is so special about these sites? I find that I am able to watch the television feeds over the Internet, on my computer, in almost-high definition, and in almost real-time. I don’t understand how this possible.
The local authorized broadcaster of the Olympics is the Canadian Television network: CTV. I can watch that broadcast feed complete with the commentary and features. What is better is that I can see the schedule of each event and choose to watch that instead. Those events do not have any colour commentary (or commentary of any kind) but the page is constantly updated with the current stats about the next contestant and the current times and scores. In other words, I see the same data as any commentator would have. I also hear all of the audio captured at the site; so I hear the PA announcements, the sounds of the audience, and often closeup sounds and voices of the competitors.
These streams, or Internet broadcasts, are available for all of today, as well as everything for the previous day.
I said almost real-time because I’ve found that this data falls behind real-time during an event. If there is an Internet gap, there is a freeze, and then the program picks up without missing anything. I can always go back and watch something again.
I said almost HD because the resolution seems variable. When I first begin to watch it is low resolution, but within about 30 seconds it becomes sharper. The technology seems to involve a Microsoft product called, Silverlight. I understand that Silverlight is supported only on Windows PCs and Intel powered Mac computers. Linux users are advised to install Moonlight 3 preview.
No it is not perfect, but it is pretty good. It shows what we may expect from broadcasters and the Internet. In the days when I watched broadcast TV I was accustomed to commercials. The commercial are all here. The difference is that on the Internet they are such a shock that I found the sponsors and their often-repeated messages highly objectionable. I don’t have a warm glow of gratitude for the official Olympic sponsors… on the contrary. I think they’d be more effective being more clever and subtle. Interruption marketing belongs to print and cable, but it may not be as effective in this new medium.
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