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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?

#251

Post by asciimov »

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.

Yesterday while watching some random replay it was pausing the stream every 4 minutes to show 1 minute of commercials. (nbc olympics roku app).

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

#252

Post by mousepilot »

TchoBeer wrote: post #230
ezconnect wrote: post #121

The question is why is it so hard to watch the Olympics now that you can't watch it live. It should be as easy as going to a URL and pick what you want to watch.

So much this. Fencing was only played once at 5am EST. Finding somewhere to watch recordings is impossible.

I downloaded the gold metal match from youtube because seemed like an interesting story, the video was very incomplete. It would have been cool to see the entire match.

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

#253

Post by iamevn »

At least it's all in one place. Watching MLS has a huge pain because games are seemingly randomly split between Fox and ESPN and it's a crapshoot which streaming service we need to use each week to watch our team play

I would happily pay someone on the order of $100 to stream a season of MLS at broadcast quality, more if it means less ads.

While stadiums were empty they digitally overlaid ads on the empty seats really poorly so that it didn't quite track camera motion and the ball would just disappear behind the ads whenever it was up in the air. Thanks to exclusivity deals and region locking, I can't just choose a different service when the only product available is garbage.

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

#254

Post by ectopod »

te_chris wrote: post #77
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #70

NBC's Olympic coverage ... the only reason I've ever found to pay for an IP proxy in the UK so that I could watch the BBC coverage instead. ps. I did try to pay for a UK TV license too but they don't seem to have the concept of someone outside the UK paying for this.

Oh that’s gone and got cocked up too. Discovery have paid a fortune for the europe-wide individual streaming rights, so BBC can only broadcast two streams at a time. You can only watch the individual sports streams on Eurosport/Discovery plus. This is a kafkaesque mess though - e.g. PS only has Eurosport app, but to sign up and subscribe, you have to go through discovery+, whose credentials can’t log you in to Eurosp…

I don't understand this. The Olympics are one of the so-called "crown jewels" which are supposedly guaranteed free to watch. The Broadcasting Act 1996 voids any contract which gives a non-free broadcaster exclusive rights.

But I'm not a lawyer. Maybe it doesn't apply to Discovery because they are streaming not broadcasting? Maybe the BBC plays along because they couldn't get any feed otherwise?

Separately, the Olympics gets special legal protection for their IP [1]. The IoC is giving us the middle finger so we should give it right back and repeal this law. Even better, legalize piracy of any sports broadcast which is supposed to be freely available but isn't.

[1]: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1995/32

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

#255

Post by gritty244 »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #143
setpatchaddress wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they can’t even get a feed with ads to people. I should have been able to get the NBC “live” Olympics feeds on Peacock or one of the other NBC apps at the broadcast times. Nope. Not even with ads. No dice. Cord-cutters are SOL (if you don’t want to put up an antenna or don’t have local NBC reception). This is how you handle the Olympics if you want the ratings to nosedive.

This is how Comcast wants it -- they're still a cable company, and even though they've started pushing online, they're still a cable company first and foremost. They don't want to sell you a $20 pass to the Olympics or even a $20/mo subscription to Peacock; they want to sell you a $150/mo triple play and $20/mo home security system add-on (that may or may not actually function), because the company seemingly still th…

Can't you just get a peacock subscription for $5-10/mo?

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

#257

Post by jessaustin »

tshaddox wrote: post #242
jessaustin wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect one could delete the ads shown on NBC Sports app with a pi-hole, but it hasn't seemed important enough to try.

At least on the Apple TV app, I don't think that would be easy. It seems to have ads embedded into the video stream, or at least triggered at specific fixed timestamps in the video stream, and they disable seeking during ad playback, and when you seek across an ad timestamp, they skip you back to the previous ad timestamp, then after the ad finishes they skip you back to the timestamp you seeked to.

Several years ago in the NHL app, poor connectivity with the ad server caused the ads to be skipped. It's possible that this somewhat different app could work the same way...

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

#258

Post by dragonwriter »

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 do not know anybody with cable TV.

AIUI, these things typically described as “if you have cable TV” apply to most cable, satellite, and internet multichannel video programming distributors (so, yes, cable/satellite, but also Youtube TV and similar online services.)

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

#259

Post by weeblewobble »

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..."

45% of American households have cable TV https://www.statista.com/statistics/612660/paid-services-bro...

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

#260

Post by lilibug1 »

Fredvk wrote: post #221

As a german what is being described here seems crazy, we have to pay taxes which pay for state financed Independent media and it is also required that all important sporting events can not be behind paywalls. You can watch a germany focused broadcast of the olympics all day with minimal ads which only play maybe every hour or you can watch live streams of all events online or trough their app. Most streams also have…

Is there any way to watch a replay of German coverage by sport? I've been looking but I can't find anything :(
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