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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?

#211

Post by js2 »

colinmhayes wrote: post #129
js2 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I haven't seen any commercials on the nbcolympics.com streams. They just go to a blank stream during breaks so you can keep the volume on and watch a different stream until it's back.

That's better than the NBC AppleTV app then which forces ads even into obscure events like Women's Weight Lifting 49kg Group B.

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

#212

Post by js2 »

tshaddox wrote: post #207
js2 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

That's what I meant by:

> But some events aren't on any of NBC's channels and can only be found at nbcolympics.com

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

#213

Post by Imnimo »

Even once you find the thing you want to watch, actually watching it on NBC streaming has been a miserable experience. Moving the mouse anywhere over the entire broadcast window brings up video controls along the bottom of the screen, which take 5+ seconds to fade after you stop moving. These controls are very opaque, and obscure the bottom 10th or so of the video. This tends to block things like athlete names/countries, timers, scores, etc. Ads play, but do not pause the underlying broadcast. They will interrupt commentators mid-sentence, and will return to the broadcast in the middle of actual competition (for example, they might try to sneak an ad in between Badminton points, but the ad is longer than the intra-point break).

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

#214

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#215

Post by pfranz »

Brendinooo wrote: post #152
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...

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.

A few years ago I tried to get OTA to watch the Oscars. This was after the 2009 digital switchover. I did some research and bought a couple different antennas, looked online so they could be directed at the intended tower. I got nothing. It may have been because the signal was blocked by a mountain, but I lived near UCLA in Los Angeles at the time.

With streaming and cable as competition there just isn't incentive on the broadcast and receiving side to set up a good enough system for a lot of people.

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

#216

Post by dtparr »

nrjames wrote: post #210
dtparr wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Glad it worked out!

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

#218

Post by cmurf »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #71
bko wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "competition" isn't other broadcasts of Olympics. It's netflix, xbox, twitter and other sports options. It definitely does matter how well they do their actual job, and right now they're failing.

ATT is not comparable to NBC. ATT has a structural monopoly, without which society cannot communicate. NBC is a glorified ad broker, and they could fall off the face of the earth and no one would notice. Of course, they are owned by Comcast, who is in similar position as ATT, so I assume Comcast is just milking these legacy companies for all they are worth. My solution is to simply not watch. If consuming entertainme…

Problem is there are enough millions of people satisfied with this delivery, that NBC will make enough money and keep their anti-competitive monopoly.

Quite a lot of the content is only available with their Peacock app. Free if you have Comcast/Xfinity, but still ads. If you pay maybe you also get ads, not sure. But the app is terribly slow, next to unusable. Click navigation buttons on the remote and its multiple seconds for the UI to reflect input. Netflix, Hulu, HBOMax apps all have reasonable responsiveness, Peacock is atrocious.

I imagine in less than 50 years we'll consider Google a glorified ad broker too.

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

#219

Post by gwoplock »

treesknees wrote: post #204
gricardo99 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

> I have a cheap $20 antenna hanging in a window (you could use a suction cup) and I can get almost 40 TV channels

This doesn't work for everyone. When I put one up, I had to get a $100 directional antenna, a signal booster and mount it in the attic. Even then we had difficulty picking up some stations. Granted our neighborhood is in a big region, a good ways out and in a large depression.

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

#220

Post by DiggyJohnson »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #73
JKCalhoun wrote: post #19

Just let me send you $20 for an Olympics "pass" and give me access to multiple streams so I can pick which events to watch — without commercials. Is that bad business? Because I'm afraid I am sitting out the Olympics this year. :-(

Paying $20 to watch something that should be freely viewable anyway just makes advertisers pay even more to get your attention. They won't ever go away until advertising literally becomes illegal.

Why should it be freely viewable?
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