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Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

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Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#181

Post by lotsofpulp »

jessaustin wrote: post #176
lotsofpulp wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do with intellectual property or a less enlightened legal regime. It is just a dying legacy business that has been obviated by the internet trying to milk whatever they can before they are gone.

Yeah, sure, we all wish we were living in the future. In the meantime, someone has to pay for the cameras and streaming. I agree that no one should pay for some of the "personalities" involved in some of the NBC coverage. You've implied that the currently available terms of payment are not appealing to you. However, lots of real people still have subscriptions to cable, satellite, Hulu, Sling, etc.

The only way we get to the future is if sufficient people stop rewarding the unnecessary middlemen. I am just trying to do my part.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#182

Post by vel0city »

gricardo99 wrote: post #170
Brendinooo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this. They showed it live at 7 AM, on broadcast. No accounts or payment required. I know some people have issues getting a signal over the air (live in an apartment, too far from source), but usually when I talk to people about broadcast they just have some weird hangup about buying a $10 antenna and connecting it to their television.

they just have some weird hangup about buying a $10 antenna and connecting it to their television. I think this hang up could be the installation. Where I live you need to mount the antenna at least on an exterior wall, if not the roof to get a clear signal. Then you have to run coax to your TV, through walls, perhaps multiple locations or you can only watch broadcast on that one TV. It’s easily hours of work, includ…

So many homes these days had at one point been wired for cable or satellite. The antenna uses the same cabling and often has one or two big splitters to run to each room. Its pretty trivial to change the "source" side of that to the antenna and disconnect unused rooms.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#183

Post by jazzyjackson »

spookthesunset wrote: post #114
sergers wrote: post #69

In Canada, it's on CBC and tsn networks. CBC comes on free to air cable if u have an antenna, and they have an app for free access even if not a tv subscriber. Plus they have a deal with Amazon Prime, the CBC live streams of events are available though Amazon Prime too.

I wish google would buy the American rights and put it onto YouTube. 4K video for everything. High frame rates. You name it. That or twitch but I don’t think twitch does 4K and it’s client apps aren’t pervasive like YouTube. They don’t even have an Apple TV app.

If Google could just buy the Olympics that’d be great. Apparently global revenue is only a few billion dollars, so really it could be organized and funded by a single wealthy patron to let the world watch sports together.

Edit: but even if it was just YouTube doing something profitable that would be much better than the current situation with NBC. I guess we’ll check back in 2036.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#184

Post by standardUser »

totalZero wrote: post #132

If you have cable TV, you can watch everything at nbcolympics.com/schedule so it’s actually quite accessible. I believe you can watch 30 minutes of content without signing in using your cable account. Also, the author is wrong. NBC broadcast the opening ceremonies at 7am [0]. The author must have seen a rebroadcast. [0] https://sports.nbcsports.com/2021/07/23/when-do-the-tokyo-ol...

I do not know anybody with cable TV. It's like saying "If you have a rotary phone..."

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#185

Post by gruez »

gricardo99 wrote: post #170
Brendinooo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this. They showed it live at 7 AM, on broadcast. No accounts or payment required. I know some people have issues getting a signal over the air (live in an apartment, too far from source), but usually when I talk to people about broadcast they just have some weird hangup about buying a $10 antenna and connecting it to their television.

they just have some weird hangup about buying a $10 antenna and connecting it to their television. I think this hang up could be the installation. Where I live you need to mount the antenna at least on an exterior wall, if not the roof to get a clear signal. Then you have to run coax to your TV, through walls, perhaps multiple locations or you can only watch broadcast on that one TV. It’s easily hours of work, includ…

> Where I live you need to mount the antenna at least on an exterior wall, if not the roof to get a clear signal

Windows work too, depending on how your room is oriented relative to the nearest broadcast tower.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#186

Post by jessaustin »

coldcode wrote: post #117
fireball_blaze wrote: post #51

On the modern Olympics: it helps to remember that it is now an advertising event that happens to have sports competitions.

Hoping the olympics just goes away. Now it's all hyper scientifically prepped professionals competing to get attention in between ads on some idiotic exclusive network. College football is about to become the same thing. No more thrill of victory or agony of defeat, just filler to sell more toilet paper or something.

"...about to..."? What happened to cause this new thing? Do you mean that some of the people who work their asses off and destroy their health in order to generate all the money will get a tiny share of that money? Don't worry there will still be plenty of money left over for Dabo!

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#187

Post by kevinwang »

totalZero wrote: post #132

If you have cable TV, you can watch everything at nbcolympics.com/schedule so it’s actually quite accessible. I believe you can watch 30 minutes of content without signing in using your cable account. Also, the author is wrong. NBC broadcast the opening ceremonies at 7am [0]. The author must have seen a rebroadcast. [0] https://sports.nbcsports.com/2021/07/23/when-do-the-tokyo-ol...

> If you have cable TV, you can watch everything at nbcolympics.com/schedule so it’s actually quite accessible.

This is the site mentioned and linked to in the article as a "site where you can actually watch live. And they have replays… of preliminary matches"

I've also found out to be quite good-- not sure why the author is so negative of it.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#188

Post by secabeen »

giarc wrote: post #78
dairylee wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe one of the reasons for this is that in general the sporting calendar is pretty full and this two week period in July/August is always empty.

But aren't most sporting calendars built around the Olympics? I'm not talking MLB, NBA etc, but all other sports (athletics, swimming, gymnastics etc) have their World Cups and qualifying etc scheduled specifically to prepare for the Olympics.

The US pro sports are the tail that wags the dog.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#189

Post by jazzyjackson »

coldcode wrote: post #117
fireball_blaze wrote: post #51

On the modern Olympics: it helps to remember that it is now an advertising event that happens to have sports competitions.

Hoping the olympics just goes away. Now it's all hyper scientifically prepped professionals competing to get attention in between ads on some idiotic exclusive network. College football is about to become the same thing. No more thrill of victory or agony of defeat, just filler to sell more toilet paper or something.

> just filler to sell more toilet paper or something

This has also bothered me, all the ads I get are toilet paper and insurance. I don’t feel the least bit influenced by them but they must spend gobs of money to make sure I know their name.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#190

Post by echelon »

UncleMeat wrote: post #149
echelon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm miffed that paulg publicly posts criticisms of the CCP, yet it's gotten my account flagged on HN for posting the same things about a half dozen times. Sometimes just questions about what people think the long term outcome will be. The desire is to keep this type of conversation off of HN (flamewar and politics), and admittedly sometimes my tone descends to that level, but it's frustrating that I have kept my mout…

I'd wager that the "complaining about downvotes generates downvotes" effect is a bigger cause at this point.

No, I get that. But I'm pretty confident that this is a flag on my account.

I frequently see "you're posting too fast. please slow down. thanks", even when my posts are 100% upvoted.

"Too fast" can be a handful of posts in a single day. I'm probably close to my limit now that I'm responding to you. I'll have to wait another day before I can post again.

I think it also negatively weights my comments, though I don't have evidence yet.

This flag was placed on my account for the reasons I stated above. I'm not going to mention it anymore because I don't want to get in any more trouble with the mods, but I find it unfortunate that pg can have the freedom to speak up against fascism whereas we cannot.

I've had really good essays on biochemistry topics, finance, and machine learning that I've ultimately had to discard because of this.

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