Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics? • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by partiallypro » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #184

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..."

Everyone I know sans maybe one person has cable/satellite. So I don't know what future you're living in.

The problem to me is they aren't showing replays that I feel a lot of people want to see on air, so you can't watch at a bar/restaurant. This to me is the major problem with sports on streaming. People like to watch at bars, but bars often don't have streaming devices on hand or a staff that wants to deal with it.

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

#202

Post by RHSeeger » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #184

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..."

I know many people with cable, but only 1 with a rotary phone.

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

#203

Post by tshaddox » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

jressey wrote: post #127

I love to talk shit on huge broadcasters but using their app for the olympics has been amazing. I just watched 2 days of replays from their app, all with minimal or no commentary, and all with few commercials (like 1/30 minutes). Not only do you get replays for literally every event, but they don't even spoil them with the final scores or results. Edit: It looks like I failed to mention that cable is required so that…

I agree, except for the “few commercials” part. That seems highly dependent on the event. For events with regular short gaps between action, they seem to show a ton of ads.

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

#204

Post by treesknees » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

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…

It's really not that much work. I have a cheap $20 antenna hanging in a window (you could use a suction cup) and I can get almost 40 TV channels.

As far as distribution, I connect my antenna to an HDHomeRun device. I can either stream directly from the device, use a DLNA client on my LAN, or I also have it hooked into Plex server for DVR and live remote viewing.

A basic HDHomeRun device goes for around $100 but I'm sure you can pick up an older model on eBay for less. You could even bridge it into a raspberry pi or some other wifi device so that you don't need to run Ethernet cables around.

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

#205

Post by tyingq » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

I'm using Stremium with Locast. Stremium is a cloud-based DVR service that can take in and record other services like Locast. Still pretty new, and there are occasional bugs, but it's working well for me. Stremium is $5/month for 50 hours of DVR storage and another $5/month for Locast to turn off the subscription nags. Works on Web, Android, AndroidTV, FireTV, and Roku.

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

#206

Post by rel2thr » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

I’ve found that if you sign up for a month of YouTube tv and then use the nbc olympics app, it’s a pretty decent experience. Oh and then you also need peacock to watch some basketball games

At first I tried sling but they didn’t have the full family of nbc networks

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

#207

Post by tshaddox » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #105

criddell wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the NBC Sports app give you pretty much what you are asking for?

No. There is literally no way to pay for an ad-free experience from NBC. The best you can do is subscribe to Fubo or YouTube TV and record everything using their cloud DVR feature, then forward through the ads. But some events aren't on any of NBC's channels and can only be found at nbcolympics.com (which is the same as what's in the NBC Sports app) which feels like about 50% ad content. To be clear: you have to pay…

YouTube TV only lets you see what is broadcast live on a handful of television networks. There is a huge amount of Olympics action that is only available directly from NBC. (You can sign into NBC using YouTube TV as your “cable” provider.)

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

#208

Post by wscott » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

I have a plex lifetime subscription and a TV tuner in the attic with an antenna that can see local TV stations. My server in the basement runs Plex and can connect to the tuner over ethernet.

I told plex to record all Olympic events and to mark the commercials. The result is still a mess, but I have everything NBC broadcasts and a "skip commercials" button pops up for all of the true commercials. I still get all the annoying talking heads and other commercial endorsements that are not commercials, but I can scan forward until the thumbnails match what I want to see. The Olympics every 4 years is one of the main reasons I justify plex.

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

#209

Post by vernie » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #201

standardUser wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Everyone I know sans maybe one person has cable/satellite. So I don't know what future you're living in. The problem to me is they aren't showing replays that I feel a lot of people want to see on air, so you can't watch at a bar/restaurant. This to me is the major problem with sports on streaming. People like to watch at bars, but bars often don't have streaming devices on hand or a staff that wants to deal with it.

Maybe it's a generational thing? I don't know anybody with cable or satellite, not even my parents.

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

#210

Post by nrjames » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

dtparr wrote: post #192

nrjames wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the problem I'm experiencing. The best I've found is fuboTV and it's not great. I don't have cable in my house. I'd be willing to pay NBC $100 for access to all of their live and on-demand olympic coverage (what's available through the website, etc.), but that's not even an option.

Can you not login to the nbc olympics site/app using your fuboTV login and get access to exactly what you're looking for? [0] They also list youtube TV and Sling TV as login options. [0] - Literally asking, as I can see they're available as sign-in TV Providers, but can't test it without a sub.

It appears to specifically be "Sign in with your Cable Provider." They list the providers and fuboTV is not one of them.

EDIT: I was wrong! I used "search all providers" and indeed, fuboTV was listed there, so I signed in with the credentials and it seems to work. Thanks for the nudge!