Get Ready for the Internet Olympics at Summer Olympian

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Get Ready for the Internet Olympics

Posted January 8, 2008 at 10:55 AM by Jimmie R. Markham

Section: Beijing 2008, Live Coverage

Prediction: The vast majority of Americans will watch most, if not all, of the live coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games on the internet. That is easier said than done, however, since Beijing is 13 hours ahead of New York. I covered the 2007 Track & Field World Championships live for our partner site TheFinalSprint.com and – since Osaka is 14 hours ahead of Eastern Time – I had to maintain some odd hours during the course of the nine-day event in order to do so. Many mornings I had to wake up somewhere between 2:30 and 4:30 AM so that I could cover the “evening schedule” during which most finals were held. I imagine the Beijing Olympics will be similar. The Chinese certainly aren’t going to go out of their way accommodate Americans’ viewing schedules, I can guarantee you that. So, unless you like your Olympics fed to you in summary form on TV some 12 hours after the events have been held, you are going to have to make some adjustments.

Luckily, NBC, MSN and Microsoft have teamed up to make that a little bit easier for us. They announced yesterday that they will create a “next-generation online experience for Olympic fans across the United States.” What does that mean? Here are the bullets:

• 2,200 hours of live event video coverage, with more than 20 simultaneous live video streams at peak times
• More than 3,000 hours of on-demand video content including full-event replays, highlights, features, interviews and encore packages.
• An “enhanced playback mode” powered by Silverlight that gives users the choice of a high-quality full screen viewing experience that is as good or better than anything on the Internet today
• Unique metadata overlays powered by Silverlight that enable fans to have access not only to high quality video, but also to the wealth of related content including results, statistics, comprehensive bios, rules and expert analysis from NBC’s Olympic digital media team in Beijing
• Live video alerts so fans can stay connected to the events and teams they care most about
• Social networking features that enable fans to share aspects of their Olympic experience with friends

Did you catch that part about “20 simultaneous live video streams at peak times”? That means you’ll have to choose between, say, badminton and table tennis because they might both be happening at the same time. That’s not a bad problem to have, especially when you combine the live coverage with the 3,000+ hours of on-demand video with FULL-EVENT REPLAYS!

Did you also catch that part about “a high-quality full screen viewing experience that is as good or better than anything on the Internet today?” I’ve seen some pretty decent full-screen internet video lately (certainly not enough, but some), so, if the Olympic video I see next summer could be even better than what I’ve seen, that means the internet video age has finally arrived at long last.

Source: [NBC Sports]