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I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

iamnotaprogrammer.com

31–40 of 191 posts

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#31

Wait, I don't quite get it - the first thing the author says is that he got "crystal clear" high-def Olympics coverage from someone called Telemundo over the air. He goes on to conclude that "There is no good way to watch the Olympics in the United States without a cable subscription". What did I miss? Edit: Thanks for the quick answers.

That Telemundo is a Spanish-language channel and, presumably, the author only speaks english.

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#32

What area are you in with no terrestrial NBC affiliate?

It's not clear that he has no terrestrial NBC affiliate. He might well have one that he can't receive with "spare coax cable used as my antenna" instead of, say, an actual antenna.

I can't imagine coax works well as an antenna, considering it's shielded to prevent RF interference.

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#33

Wait, I don't quite get it - the first thing the author says is that he got "crystal clear" high-def Olympics coverage from someone called Telemundo over the air. He goes on to conclude that "There is no good way to watch the Olympics in the United States without a cable subscription". What did I miss? Edit: Thanks for the quick answers.

Sorry - I updated the article, but as the other reply mentioned, Telemundo is a channel in Spanish.

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#34
It is illegal if you live in the UK and consume TV to not pay for your TV license.

Legally, I’m unclear of if an American connecting on a VPN to a live stream in the UK is breaking the law. I would guess that it hasn’t really come up with the TV license people yet.

I don't know about the UK law, but nearby Ireland has a similar "TV Licence". The law there is not "you need a licence to watch TV", but "if you're in Ireland and you have something that's capable of recieving TV signals, then you need a TV licence".

If the UK is similar, then it's not "watch BBC" that requires a licence, but "owning a TV in the UK". The OP almost certainly does not own a TV in the UK, so almost certainly not need a TV licence.

(NB: There may or may not be terms & conditions on the iPlayer website which say you may only access it if you are in UK / have a TV licence / etc., which might make the above the illegal (but not for TV licence reasons). I'm suprised the Olympics works for them, usually BBC iPlayer stuff uses GeoIP to block it from non-UK IP addresses.)

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#35
I can't get any major networks over OTA, except for channels I wouldn't watch, ie Telemundo, Univision, HomeShopping,etc. I live about 50 miles from SF. It's really frustrating, not being able to watch the Olympics. But I'd hate to go through VPN. Just like my previous viewing of World Cup,I'd have to resort to non-English channels and learn a little bit of Spanish, although their coverage is focused more toward Spanish-speaking countries.

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#37

> Sure! In fact, if you’re in the UK, you can legally stream every event of the Olympics live, and commercial free. Note that I believe you need to pay the licence fee to legally watch iPlayer (IIRC it pops up a dialog the first time you run it to confirm you've paid). So even in the UK you have to "pay for TV" to get this service. It costs approx £12/month.

Cool - I talk about that at the bottom of the article. But I added a note in that section that you need to pay for a TV license to stream legally. Thanks.

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#38
To me, the confusing part is why NBC only lets cable subscribers stream the content for free. I would guess that the cable companies are paying them to do that, but that is pure speculation on my part. If I can stream everything online, why would I purchase cable?

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#39

> Sure! In fact, if you’re in the UK, you can legally stream every event of the Olympics live, and commercial free. Note that I believe you need to pay the licence fee to legally watch iPlayer (IIRC it pops up a dialog the first time you run it to confirm you've paid). So even in the UK you have to "pay for TV" to get this service. It costs approx £12/month.

It informs you that you need to be paying the license fee to watch live TV on the iPlayer but there doesn't seem to be any check. In other words even if you are not paying the fee, tell it you are and you should be able to start streaming.

Re: I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do?

#40
post #34

It is illegal if you live in the UK and consume TV to not pay for your TV license. Legally, I’m unclear of if an American connecting on a VPN to a live stream in the UK is breaking the law. I would guess that it hasn’t really come up with the TV license people yet. I don't know about the UK law, but nearby Ireland has a similar "TV Licence". The law there is not "you need a licence to watch TV", but "if you're in Ire…

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/

> You must be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record television programmes as they're being shown on TV. It makes no difference what equipment you use - whether it’s a laptop, PC, mobile phone, digital box, DVD/video recorder or a TV set - you still need a licence.

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