10 ms·

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

371 points by sudonim 14y ago

startupmum 14y ago
Get a VPN that gives you a UK IP and watch it on the BBC website. Got tons of results on http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+ip+vpn http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+ip+vpn I use a similar one to access Facebook when traveling to China.
- patdennis 14y ago
  FYI, it's a link to an article, not a question.
frozenflame 14y ago
Ask a friend or family with the required cable package for their login info. A more social than technical hack, but it works very well.
- sudonim 14y ago
  Out of curiosity, is there just an advertisement for 20 seconds at the beginning of a live stream? Or do they have commercial breaks?
  - justjohn 14y ago
    They run every few minutes, it feels kind of random. But they have a very nasty habit of running right at critical moments during the games.
- ConstantineXVI 14y ago
  We have the relevant package; but Insight won't even acknowledge our login to use the app. They can keep their streams and ad-views if they don't want to make it even half-usable.
  - Posibyte 14y ago
    I have roughly the same problem. I spend around $140/mo for internet and cable, of which I receive the full NBC suite of channels. However, the app refuses my provider's login information. When I contacted my provider, they just sent me up to an NBC support clerk who told me essentially "Wow, that really sucks." and that was it. There was no recourse, simply re-acknowledging that I had a problem and they would attempt nothing to fix it. I normally wouldn't be overly concerned about it, probably just a bit flustered, but this is a global event that occurs twice a decade. I feel this should really be something public broadcasters should control, not mega-corporations.
    - ebiester 14y ago
      There are too many people making too much money in the US for it to be handed off to public TV.
    - Spooky23 14y ago
      You might want to verify that your provider doesn't have multiple login schemes. My Time Warner franchise has one account for payment and account services "pay express" and another for service access "my services". The Olympics requires the services credential.
bkor 14y ago
In the Netherlands you can watch it via NOS. They have explanations for how to watch it on your pc, mobile, tv, radio, twitter/fb. See http://nos.nl/os2012/volg-de-spelen/ http://nos.nl/os2012/volg-de-spelen/. To watch on your pc, they partnered with Youtube Live: http://www.youtube.com/user/nosnlsport http://www.youtube.com/user/nosnlsport which gives me: "The uploader has not made this video available in your country. " which is a bit strange (living in the Netherlands). Fortunately it is quite easy to proxy stuff via the UK :)
- maartenscholl 14y ago
  The NOS website has a nice design. The sports and events are very well categorised. They even place a thumbnail of the video stream in the floating menu when you are looking at items further down the page (so you don't miss out on anything while reading the articles). The only thing that's missing are other languages than Dutch, is it possible that it's done deliberately to keep people from abroad out?
  - Gmo 14y ago
    I'm pretty sure they also geo-IP ...
OmarIsmail 14y ago
Sign up for www.unblock-us.com or www.unotelly.com and watch the amazing BBC coverage on iPlayer. Super super simple setup. Personally, I prefer www.unblock-us.com
- roadnottaken 14y ago
  How does this work?
  - vineel 14y ago
    Looks like some sort of proxy. Routing through the UK is an option so BBC iPlayer will allow you to stream the Olympics.
  - OmarIsmail 14y ago
    Are you saying technically under the hood, or just how does a person use the service? Using the service is trivial for anybody on HN. Just a matter of setting your DNS settings to specific servers. That's it. Technically... I'm still trying to figure that one out. I think what they do is handle the IP check from the service, and then pass off the stream to your computer. This would make sense since the stream server would be different than the IP check server. This is great because then only a very limited subset of traffic is flowing through their servers so you get "native" speeds.
    - randomdata 14y ago
      You've got the right idea. I ended up implementing my own proxy for Netflix as you describe. I use dnsmasq to hijack the relevant DNS requests and then I wrote my own https proxy to proxy the API connections. The actual streams come from CDNs of which are not concerned about your country of origin.
- sudonim 14y ago
  Not sure why others downvoted you. I just tried unblock-us.com and it works... basically by changing your DNS servers. I added it to the article as another option. I'm confused because I thought that geo-restrictions were handled by IP address, so I'm not sure how this gets around that.
rwmj 14y ago
Rent a VM in a UK colo (I recommend http://www.bytemark.co.uk/ http://www.bytemark.co.uk/), and use get-iplayer (http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer/html/get_iplayer.html http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer/html/get_iplayer.html) to download programs from the BBC. Edit: Even though I live in the UK, this is how I watch TV because with a bit of scripting it's a lot more convenient than having a TV.
bdz 14y ago
does this work in the us? http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html this is the official european broadcast stream. simply the best, every event in live and you can also replay them. plus there is no commentator here, just the raw broadcast (i hate when commentators talk too much...)
- jameskilton 14y ago
  Negative, "you cannot watch this outside of the European Broadcasting Union".
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago
  Will have to check the TV Licensing info again to be sure we're allowed to watch this; works for me but had to disable ad-blocking to allow the video stream to play (after an interstitial).
- ApolloRising 14y ago
  Just tried from Los Angeles, did not work.
mladenkovacevic 14y ago
That sucks about not being able to get it OTA. I'm in Toronto and with a $20 antenna I can get a solid NBC broadcast from Buffalo. The local CTV channel also has an Olympics program so at any point in time I usually have 2 sporting events to choose from.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
cdcarter 14y ago
What area are you in with no terrestrial NBC affiliate?
- nchaimov 14y ago
  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.
ewang1 14y ago
Use your email and get a temporary pass on NBColympics.com. Although it only lasts 4hrs but I assume you can use a different email after that and it might still work.
- sudonim 14y ago
  Gmail's + syntax doesn't work. So -- email+1@gmail.com, email+2@gmail.com as a strategy doesn't work. I tried that.
  - veyron 14y ago
    http://mailinator.com/ http://mailinator.com/
  - thrownaway2424 14y ago
    Just because this is my pet peeve ... The "+ syntax" does not belong to Gmail, nor was Gmail the inventor of same. foo+bar@domain.net is an ancient tradition, dating back almost to the dawn of SMTP. Of course, the interpretation of the local part is entirely up to the MTA handling it, but foo+bar is pretty widespread. Certainly Sendmail supports it.
    - sudonim 14y ago
      I didn't know that. Now that'll be my pet peeve. Im guessing many people have only seen the + as a gmail hack to sign up multiple times on the same site.
- mikeknoop 14y ago
  You can also move dots around. For example the following all go to the same inbox: myemailaddress@gmail.com my.emailaddress@gmail.com myemail.address@gmail.com etc.
iuguy 14y ago
Funnily enough, I know a lot of British people who use the exact same technique the other way around to watch Hulu and Comedy Central in the US.
kalleboo 14y ago
> 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.
- cjrp 14y ago
  Just a note, that's only for live-streamed things (such as the Olympics). Repeats of shows don't require a license fee. http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/playing_tv_progs/tvlicence/ http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/playing_tv_progs/...
- sudonim 14y ago
  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.
  - kalleboo 14y ago
    I saw that but it read a bit unclear. Some European countries' laws haven't caught up the same way the UK has. For instance, you can legally watch the Swedish SVT's live streams without a licence fee. Other countries have gone further - in Denmark they either implemented or were just debating a law where you have to pay the license fee if you own a PC or Mobile phone that can watch streaming video. All Europeans can legally watch the EBU/Eurovision steams though, I believe. http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html
  - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
    I'm nitpicking but I feel it's worth pointing out that not only do UK viewers of live TV need a license but all taxpayers contribute to the BBC by separate payments from direct taxation. UK ISPs appear to throttle iPlayer traffic so ironically using a proxy might be worthwhile in the UK too.
repsilat 14y ago
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.
- dpick 14y ago
  Telemundo is the spanish channel in the US.
- dglassan 14y ago
  Telemundo is in Spanish
- kalleboo 14y ago
  Presumably Telemundo have spanish commentators talking over everything?
- bcrescimanno 14y ago
  That Telemundo is a Spanish-language channel and, presumably, the author only speaks english.
- sudonim 14y ago
  Sorry - I updated the article, but as the other reply mentioned, Telemundo is a channel in Spanish.
  - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
    Is there a radio broadcast you can listen to for sound whilst watching the images from Telemundo. I've heard of people doing this to choose a superior radio commentary whilst watching sport on TV in the UK.
    - ConstantineXVI 14y ago
      AFAIK, NBC/Telemundo doesn't own any radio stations. And since NBC isn't broadcasting live, even if someone was running a radio broadcast it's highly unlikely they'd be in sync.
rmc 14y ago
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.)
- sudonim 14y ago
  http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/ 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.
  - mattvot 14y ago
    Worth noting that you can legally watch any recorded show online without a licence
- Wilya 14y ago
  According to Wikipedia[0], the UK is actually more like "You need to pay if you have something you use to watch TV". This is quite better than some other countries. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence
- excuse-me 14y ago
  A license is required in the UK to watch "LIVE" TV - this distinction was made (and has been upheld in court) when VCRs were introduced. But has been regarded as applying to the BBC's iPlayer - you can watch the "watch again" (PVR function) but need a license to watch the live stream. The iplayer is only available in the UK - but that's a contractual deal with the BBC, not a legal point - so if you had a VPN that worked in the UK then it's a civil matter between you and the BBC All the BBC radio content is available for free worldwide. Although Americans should be aware that Radio4 contains dangerous levels of sarcasm, satire and irony and might not be suitable for FOX viewers
codequickly 14y ago
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.
- jimhirshfield 14y ago
  See my comment above. You CAN get the OTA channels.
  - codequickly 14y ago
    Thanks for the info. I will try that. I am subscribed to Comcast internet, but not TV. I have my fingers crossed. Hopefully I'll get some ClearQAM coming through the coax.
arkx 14y ago
If you're comfortable with SSH you could also just fire up an EC2 or Linode instance in UK, install a local proxy and tunnel traffic through it. It's way more versatile than signing up for just VPN.
- mocko 14y ago
  Excellent instructions for doing this on a mac with http://www.mikeash.com/ssh_socks.html http://www.mikeash.com/ssh_socks.html I am an Englishman sheltering from the Olympics in NYC (public transport in London was always going to be a mess) and even though I possess a UK TV license I had to tunnel through my machine at home to watch the opening ceremony. It's a shame the BBC can't just sell a stream to people elsewhere in the world but the licenses under which they get the content will prevent it. Otherwise people could get content from the lowest bidder in the world, meaning commoditisation and a massive hit to the content owners who wouldn't get to sell the rights over and over again in different countries.
jsaxton86 14y ago
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?
- cdcarter 14y ago
  By confirming your cable subscription, you confirm you have access to MSNBC, CNBC, and Bravo, where the majority of Olympic events are broadcast. Only a small number of events are broadcast on NBC affiliate stations, mostly only in primetime.
- Hemospectrum 14y ago
  NBC is owned by a cable company (Comcast).
kevinburke 14y ago
I'm in London for the Olympics and have been blown away by the BBC - from the usability of their website, the lack of commercials, the generally high quality of commentary and online material, to the 24 hi-definition channels of Olympic coverage live on TV in the flat we are renting. I wrote up some instructions about how to use EC2 as a web proxy here - http://kev.inburke.com/kevin/how-to-use-ec2-as-a-web-proxy/ http://kev.inburke.com/kevin/how-to-use-ec2-as-a-web-proxy/ - not sure if it would work in Amazon's Ireland data center, but worth a try.
- dave84 14y ago
  BBC iPlayer is restricted in Ireland unfortunately. I haven't specifically checked from Amazon's data centre though, but I'd imagine it has the same geographical restriction as my home broadband.
  - uxp 14y ago
    I just checked. Gives me the same "Not in the UK" error message as trying from my IP in the states.
- robotmay 14y ago
  Rackspace Cloud has servers in London, which may be a better option.
kennywinker 14y ago
As a Canadian, I run into this bullshit all the time. Comedy Central embedded videos, hulu, etc. The whole thing seems like a perversion of the promise of the internet: to connect us all... It's double ironic in the OPs case, given the stated goals of the olympics. Going around via VPN is well within my technical means, but I don't want to support the people who behave this way online, so I usually don't view the geo-walled content, or turn to the pirate bay.
- sbarre 14y ago
  Except this time around, CTV has done a good job of providing Olympic coverage to non-TV people. The iOS app is great, and the web portal is great, and it's free.
  - kennywinker 14y ago
    Yes, but why can't I watch the coverage from whichever country I choose? Canadian coverage focuses on Canadian athletes. Perhaps I'm an ex-pat, and want to watch my home country, or just curious how events are portrayed elsewhere.
    - sbarre 14y ago
      Well, that's a problem with the Olympics in general, not with a given country's broadcaster's implementation of the coverage they have purchased the rights to. Different problems completely... But I agree with your sentiment either way.
- dhughes 14y ago
  Canadian here too. I also tend to do the same I can use a VPN or figure out some way to get around restrictions but then I think why? If I'm blocked I'm not going out of my way to generate ad revenue or support such behaviour, it's called the World Wide Web for a reason.
- LiroXIV 14y ago
  I'm quite glad that even though Bell bought CTV in between Vancouver and London, they're still at least giving us every event streamed even WITHOUT cable/authentication.
brudgers 14y ago
"I use a service called Vyprvpn which is $14.99 a month. I get it as part of a bundle with a subscription to Giganews. That’s how I connect with a VPN to the UK. And you can too." So the author ended up paying to watch the Olympics. Illegally, instead of legally, I would add.
- sudonim 14y ago
  I guess technically I'm paying for VPN service, but I would have been anyway, so I didn't buy something new. And, I'm not certain it's illegal. Are you? Is the legislation specific about where you must reside? What if you're consuming content but you're not in the UK? If it is illegal for anyone to consume BBC content at the time of broadcast without a TV license regardless of location, what if someone outside of the UK paid for a TV License?
  - brudgers 14y ago
    [IANAL] My understanding of copyright is that for events such as the Olympics, copyrights are often licensed licensed a country by country basis and that the retransmission of material across national boundaries is a violation. Doing so violates the author's right to control their work because it bipasses the arrangements the author has made to control their work. Incidently, this rests on the same legal principles upon which much of FOS software community operates (the license terms are merely different). However, I would recommend speaking with an attorney familiar with such matters.
    - sudonim 14y ago
      I bought a TV License (updated the article) and here's the proof: https://img.skitch.com/20120729-8nkr9edjmm4966yt8qm1sfyg5t.png https://img.skitch.com/20120729-8nkr9edjmm4966yt8qm1sfyg5t.p... So, really now it should just be a question of the rights holder allowing me in the US to watch something broadcast in the UK that I paid for.
- Tichy 14y ago
  One difference might be the consequences of the subscription. A subscription to a big media outlet seems rather icky. I don't want to know what crap they'll try to feed you, pretending that it'll be worth your money. Subscribing to a VPN service presumably just expands your choices in a no frills way.
techsupporter 14y ago
Answer: Get a cable TV subscription. If you don't want to "pirate," or be in a "grey area," then do what the license rights holder wants you to do and pony up. I pay for Frontier FiOS TV and can watch whatever events I want as part of my subscription. In many areas, the local cable company will have you installed in a day or two and you can go month-to-month. Comcast in Seattle is offering $29.99/month for the first 6 months, no contract, and that includes msnbc, CNBC, and Bravo. To answer the point of "NBC pays the government," they do: for broadcast spectrum only. All the other channels with Olympics content are not covered by that payment.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  The Olympics, as well as most other major world events, are transmitted via broadcast TV almost everywhere in the world. The whole operation and licensing rights are already paid for by ad space.
  - techsupporter 14y ago
    Almost everywhere, but not in the United States. Whether or not this is right or fair is left as an exercise to the reader; personally, I think it is not. However, the answer to the question is one of three things: subscribe to the required service, be in a grey area, or do not watch. I honestly cannot see why we keep having these debates. OBVIOUSLY the content providers are making money doing exactly what they are now doing. Bypassing the restrictions and consuming the content anyway does nothing to change this situation except on the micro level. The only way to change the status quo is to demonstrate that the content is not sufficiently valuable to a sufficiently large group of people that the mechanism changes.
    - Spooky23 14y ago
      Huh? I'm watching swimming on wnyt in Albany, NY right now OTA.
    - ef4 14y ago
      > Almost everywhere, but not in the United States. No. NBC is broadcasting the Olympics over-the-air all across the US.
acabal 14y ago
This exact same thing happened to me today! I'm in Germany, so I put the Olympics on TV. But I don't yet speak German, so after an hour I wanted to watch them in English. I went to the NBC web site, but they geolocate your IP and only stream to US people. Fine, I'm used to this crap (lots of Youtube videos are blocked in Germany too) so I just fired up my proxy and tried again. This time I got through, only to find that they're asking me to log in to a cable provider first! What the hell! After scouring the internet I found a huge list of Olympics streaming broadcasters. Turns out the BBC is broadcasting online too. So I try them--same thing, blocked outside of the UK! But this time I don't have a proxy in the UK, so I gave up and watched the damn thing in German. I get the theory of having to go through a cable provider login to get the US Olympics. But what if you're a taxpaying UK citizen abroad for a while? You've paid your tax--but you still can't access the stream! Wasn't the internet supposed to break through barriers like space and location? In the year 2012 am I seriously being denied an English-language broadcast of a global event just because my laptop is currently in Germany? Sure I can jump through even more hoops and figure out a UK-based VPN or some crap. But the point is I shouldn't have to do this! We're in 2012 people! Why even have the internet if we're just going to lock up information according to where you live?
- alpine 14y ago
  Yep, we are in 2012, yet just because some things are possible (like access to TV from every source across the globe), doesn't mean to say those things are permissible.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- mindslight 14y ago
  > Wasn't the internet supposed to break through barriers like space and location? The Internet philosophy eschews these things, but the implementation simply ignores them. Of course the incumbents desire to reimplement their archaic business models on top of TCP/IP. It's up to us to carry the philosophy and create higher level protocols that are resistant to such things; fiefdom-based HTTP certainly isn't.
alpine 14y ago
You could offer to pay ~£8k in licence fees for life time access to UK TV. Of course, if you watch and don't pay, you will live in fear of a prison sentence. Luckily, extradition from the US to the UK is less likely than the reverse, so you needn't lose as much sleep as eg Garry McKinnon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon)
jswank 14y ago
For the winter Olympics, I had a VPS provisioned with a Toronto-based provider: setup Apache w/ a password protected mod_proxy. Voila, I could watch live curling and luge in the office. Total cost was less than $30 USD.
truxs 14y ago
Did anybody tried francetvsport.fr ? It seems to work from the webproxy i used but i'm not sure my ip was properly hidden. Anyway, for once french television is not behind, they broadcast all the sports live on their website without any commentary.
jonchris 14y ago
U got high speed Internet and b'ful beaches. Why ask? Watch on net while u Njoy nature.
jimhirshfield 14y ago
This won't get you live coverage, but it will get you legal NBC coverage on your home TV... The broadcast industry does not want American's to know this, but they are legally obligated to provide the free "over the air" stations on cable (coax) even if you do not pay for cable service. In other words, do what I have done: 1. You need a modern cable-ready TV 2. Plug the coax into the wall (assumes your residence had cable installation at one point). 3. Plug other end of coax into your TV. 4. Scan for channels. 5. Voila: CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, and more. Yes, it's that simple. And this is NOT using the coax as an RF antenna. This is the cable company providing me with what I am legally entitled to: over the air stations in a digital age. The cable companies are trying to fight this, but as of now, it exists. It's legal. And it works. My son's watching PBS Kids as I type. And we watched many Olympic events through-out the days today - OK, not live, but still I DO NOT PAY FOR TV.
- illumin8 14y ago
  NBC is only broadcasting Olympic events on cable channels, not on the basic NBC OTA channels...
  - jimhirshfield 14y ago
    I'm watching women's beach volleyball on NBC (Channel 4 in the NYC metro area) as I type this (8:12pm on Sat 28 July)
- Steuard 14y ago
  Do you have a link where I can read up on this? I'm willing to believe you, but it sounds too good to be true.
  - jimhirshfield 14y ago
    See my reply above with link to Fred Wilson's blog post.
- ja27 14y ago
  Are you sure cable providers are required to provide free over-the-air stations? I haven't heard of that being a requirement and can't find anything online except vague claims without citations. I've heard of low-cost plans that provide all the equivalent over-the-air stations, but no legal requirement to provide those for free. That said, this certainly does work for some people. It worked for us for a while after we dropped the TV part of our plan but then one day we couldn't receive any channels over the coax, so I assume they installed a filter.
jbscpa 14y ago
I DO have cable TV in the U.S. - Suddenlink I spent 45 minutes online with the Suddenlink support person and got my account setup with username and password ALL SET right? So, with the Suddenlink support person on the phone I login to the NBCOlympics.com site and select Suddenlink. I key in my username and password. In about a minute the screen pops up and says I am all set to WATCH THE OLYMPICS LIVE. Joy!! Then in about 10 seconds another screen pops up: "You do not have a subscription to view the requested content. Contact Suddenlink to upgrade your programming then log back in to view content." What the heck?? So I ask the very helpful Suddenlink support person still waiting on the phone: What Up? She confirms that since I do not have the EXTENDED basic package with optional add-ons with Suddenlink I do not qualify to WATCH THE OLYMPICS LIVE BY THE WAY: Did you read the nbcolympics.com FAQ: "Q: What is required for accessing Live Extra content? A: You will need to verify that you subscribe to a cable, satellite or telco video tier that includes CNBC and MSNBC. There is no additional charge." I do have CNBC and MSNBC. CNBC is channel 255 and MSNBC is channel 264 (in my market area) And yet I cannot WATCH THE OLYMPICS LIVE In the terms of the Olympics here is my message to NBC LET THE GAMES BEGIN - THE INTERNETS ALWAYS WIN.
Tivs 14y ago
If you have a proxy to connect to in Asia, India, or Africa (easy to find) you can watch the live stream on http://www.youtube.com/olympic http://www.youtube.com/olympic. Simple clean interface with schedule and easy stream selection for the current events happening. It's also commercial free as well as being up to 1080p. You can even change the language of the broadcast.
ryanmarsh 14y ago
Seriously, this is atrocious. I've been trying to watch the Olympics all day and it's been one huge fail.
cabalamat 14y ago
It would make sense for the BBC to run their own VPN-like service so people outside the UK could view their content.
- josephlord 14y ago
  ??? If they wanted to unblock the world they could just do that without a VPN. Their license from the IOC will require them to take measures keep their services to the territory they have rights to (the UK). If they allowed their services to be accessed globally they would only get the rights that they bought globally. If any VPN gets too popular you can expect them to block it too. You may need to factor this into how much you pay for a VPN.
paul9290 14y ago
This Olympics insanity (needing to subscribe to cable TV to watch a over the air broadcast; Comcasts owns NBC Universal) is a great reason why services like http://Aereo.com http://Aereo.com need to thrive! Does anyone here have Aereo and are using it to watch the Olympics?
freedrull 14y ago
Why doesn't he just go to the local sports bar?
- estel 14y ago
  With up to 24 simultaneous events for 12 hours a day across 18ish days, that's a lengthy time spent at a bar that might not even be showing the event you're interested in.
ernestipark 14y ago
Great post. FWIW, the mobile app that NBC has is 10000x better than their website, and sometimes is even faster and better quality (iPhone). This is a good example of developing for mobile first... The mobile experience strips down all the unnecessary cruft and gets you to what you want immediately. As soon as I logged on to the app, I was able to see all live streaming videos in a nice interface and get to what I wanted. Can't say the same about the wesite.
recoiledsnake 14y ago
>I didn’t go out and buy an antenna, but I was able to tune quite a few channels Why not buy an antenna, especially an amplified one? That will run circles around using a shielded coax cable as an antenna. >FAIL. There is no good way to watch the Olympics in the United States without a cable subscription Sorry, that doesn't follow when you didn't even try a TV antenna.
- avolcano 14y ago
  To be fair, not everyone is in a good area for OTA TV. You can check here: http://www.antennaweb.org/Address.aspx http://www.antennaweb.org/Address.aspx to see if you can pick up an NBC affiliate (or Telemundo, if you're okay with Spanish commentary) near you.
  - jimhirshfield 14y ago
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4306953 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4306953
- ja27 14y ago
  We're watching NBC broadcast right now on a pair of rabbit-ears. That works fine for the popular events if you don't mind the delay. As long as we're mentioning various grey-hat techniques to view content from the BBC and others without paying for it, there are sites like thefirstrow.eu that carry streams from the BBC and other international broadcasters. I'm not encouraging you to use those, but it is an interesting situation. NBC can't issue a DMCA takedown on those streams because they don't own that content. If the BBC has no interest in shutting down those streams, they may never be shut down.
- sudonim 14y ago
  Yeah, you're right. I'm not fair to OTA broadcasts and I should have gotten rabbit ears. However, considering the following issues: 1. NBC cut short the open ceremony 2. NBC delayed the broadcast of the swimming 3. Online (from the BBC, and from NBC with commercials) you can get a stream of any event you want. The online option, and the online option from the BBC especially just blows away an OTA broadcast. BBC has something like 24 different streams for live events. Vs. buying rabbit ears which gives me 1 channel. And as for running circles around COAX, the only channels I can't get with COAX are CBS and NBC. Everything else comes through in HD either on it's own or if I'm touching it.
heeton 14y ago
That is the creepiest avatar / drawing I have seen all month.
csense 14y ago
A lot of people don't get particular networks because the US recently (June 2009 [1]) switched to digital TV broadcasting. Essentially, digital TV is a transmission protocol which more efficiently utilizes the available electromagnetic spectrum by transmitting compressed video. The problem is that digital transmission doesn't gracefully degrade like analog transmission does. If you're at the outer part of a transmitter's range, with the legacy analog signal, you might have been able to get an adequate signal with slightly fuzzy picture or static-y sound. But receiving a digital signal is largely a binary affair; you're either in-range and receive it, or out-of-range and you don't. * Another issue is the economics; most people get their TV through cable. So it doesn't necessarily make economic sense for stations to build new transmitters to make their post-digital range equal their pre-digital range, especially if the new dead zones are in low-population-density areas. Online streaming is so technically superior to broadcast -- there's no technical reason you can't get what you want, when you want it; and the maximum number of channels we can support isn't limited by scarce electromagnetic spectrum -- that I foresee traditional broadcast TV being completely replaced within the next 10-30 years. It's still new enough, however, that the social, political, and legal issues still have to be worked out. I.e. FCC requirements to provide broadcast-equivalent service should probably apply to ISP's, but they don't. And companies like NBC should realize it's in their best interest to make content available at reasonable prices "ala carte" online, but they don't. It's particularly interesting to see that recently services like Hulu or Youtube are running pilot programs for producing original content. Essentially the reason NBC et al can get away with offering customers awful service without having their lunch eaten by startups is that they by-and-large have a monopoly on content that people want to see. But if similar content becomes available from other services at lower cost and/or on saner terms, they'll be forced to change their business or die off. In other words, someone needs to do to NBC what iTunes did to the music industry. There are plenty of people in this space; Hulu, Netflix, Youtube, many others. Online video is still a very immature industry because only within the last 10-15 years has bandwidth and decoding horsepower sufficient for streaming video become available to most people. Over time the free market should iron out a more efficient solution to connecting viewers, content producers and content aggregators, but many existing businesses are enormously large and entrenched, so the process will take time. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_terrestrial_television#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_terrestrial_television#... * This isn't strictly true; you might get some artifacts in marginal situations, but these tend to be much more noticeable and much less acceptable than with analog. The "in-range" and "out-of-range" might change over time due to weather.
zaim 14y ago
I'm not in the US but I've been watching the Olympics on YouTube - http://youtube.com/user/olympic http://youtube.com/user/olympic - this is the official Olympics channel. Funny nobody's mentioned this. Is the channel not available in the US?
- spydum 14y ago
  It actually says not available in your country .. just tried it.
- manojlds 14y ago
  Yeah, going to youtube.com brings a top bar with info on what is being streamed and takes you to the official channel. Works awesome here in India.
- djthorpe 14y ago
  Yes, the IOC are streaming the whole olympics on YouTube at www.youtube.com/olympic to 64 countries in Asia and Africa, where there aren't exclusive broadcaster arrangements. It's the full 10 feeds of events and 1 news channel - no ads and full events.
damian2000 14y ago
+1 BBC The broadcaster of the first public TV signal back in 1936 and still going strong today. "On November 2, 1936 the BBC began transmitting the world's first public television service from the Victorian Alexandra Palace in north London[12] following alternate daily test broadcasts of the Baird and Marconi systems to the Radio Show at Olympia at the end of August. It therefore claims to be the birthplace of television broadcasting as we know it today." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_television http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_television
drivingmenuts 14y ago
I don't watch the Olympics, as a general rule, but I'm pretty sure that, even if I desired to, I still wouldn't until broadcasters get around to using this decades technologies to deliver content. You want them to modernize? Get as many people as you can to stop using cable for TV.
robomartin 14y ago
I have a qualifying satellite TV package and that is also broken. I related my experience this morning here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4305905 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4305905 NBC ought to be ashamed. Their online offering is pure crap.
numle 14y ago
It's possible to stream the olympics from the BBC iPlayer using a UK proxy only for requesting the page with the player (the flash player itself doesn't seem to care where you're located). I just tested this using a free proxy. Any slow/unstable proxy will work just fine.
ezioamf 14y ago
You can try http://esportes.terra.com.br/jogos-olimpicos/londres-2012/ao-vivo/1970/ http://esportes.terra.com.br/jogos-olimpicos/londres-2012/ao...
tlrobinson 14y ago
A UK-based Linode instance as a proxy works beautifully: http://bearsfightingbears.com/how-to-watch-the-olympics-live-from-the-united-states http://bearsfightingbears.com/how-to-watch-the-olympics-live...
welcomebrand 14y ago
I wonder if folks doing this are also the same ones complaining about people stealing apps and torrenting movies? There's no real difference.
rprasad 14y ago
Pay for it. Broadcasting the Olympics costs NBC lots of money. These deals are how they pay those costs. (And if it wasn't NBC, it would be CBS, ABC, or Fox.) One of the hazards of giving up living television is that...you give up live television. NBC is not obligated to do squat for you if it can't make money from you. It's a business, not a charity. And stop praising the BBC. It's not free. Brits pay a mandatory tax to support the BBC, so it is no different from cable/satellite TV in the U.S.
- dt7 14y ago
  It is different in that if they ever do a bad job, they get a lot more pressure put on them (occasionally from the government - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18512995 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18512995). They are also monitored to make sure they at least try to have no overly political/commercial bias.
- porlw 14y ago
  I wish people would stop harping on about the UK TV licence fee. TV in the US is not free - you pay for it every time you buy something made by a company that spends money advertising on TV. It's practically impossible to opt out of paying for TV in the US. At least in the UK you can opt out if you genuinely don't want to watch anything.
  - cheald 14y ago
    Frankly, I'd rather pay £150/year for all the BBC programming (without commercials, including full online on-demand streaming) than $720/year for my cable company's "basic" package (which I continue to pay for by sitting through advertising for a third of the show's airtime anyway). If we bought that model to the US, I'd be ecstatic.
jamesharker 14y ago
I'm actually quite surprised to see so many posts on HN discussing ways to pirate Olympic content. The BBC is restricted to UK IP addresses for a reason. Every household in Britian pays the equivalent of around $230 per year for the right to watch live television, whether it be on your phone, laptop or TV. The BBC has a finite amount of resources to spend on hosting online content & if the whole World logs on to watch the Olympics it could end up spoiling it for those of us who've paid for the service. I can understand the Americans frustration with NBC (or whatever broadcaster is showing the Olympics in your region) but if you really do want to watch the BBC, the least you can do is pay for it https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/pay-for-your-tv-licence/ https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/pay-for-your-tv-licence/
- temptemp123 14y ago
  All european citizen can watch it on http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html Just enter bbc into the search box.
- sudonim 14y ago
  Hi James. I now own a TV Licence. I'm in the US. Is it still pirating if I watch the BBC feed through a VPN? There's no higher cost of transmission for the BBC - they're sending it to a UK based IP and then I pay a monthly fee for that transmission to the US. https://img.skitch.com/20120729-8nkr9edjmm4966yt8qm1sfyg5t.png https://img.skitch.com/20120729-8nkr9edjmm4966yt8qm1sfyg5t.p...
  - jamesharker 14y ago
    While it still may not be technically legal, ethically I believe you're in the clear. Enjoy all of the 24 BBC Olympic channels - you'll probably find BBC iPlayer quite useful for catching up on the days events as well!
ing33k 14y ago
I'm an Indian and I watch Olympics here http://www.youtube.com/user/olympic http://www.youtube.com/user/olympic
temptemp123 14y ago
If you have an european ip, go to http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html It's the official site of all european broadcasters. You have access to all the live streams (without commentary) from all the arenas and all the live streams from all european stations. Just enter bbc, zdf, ard, etc... in the search box to get the corresponding live stream with their commentary. It also works if you are blocked on the broadcasters website (e.g. i can't watch the zdf live stream, but can watch it here). They have live streams for each olympics and for some special events.
Inversechi 14y ago
You can also buy a UK based VPS ( http://www.lowendbox.com/tag/uk/ http://www.lowendbox.com/tag/uk/) and install some VPN server on there/ Note: Make sure the provider allows TUN/TAP
utoku 14y ago
Like most people here, I just don't like the fact that some people are trying to put digital walls around me. To buy my nexus 1 phone, I had to use a machine in US. I bought some other stuff from UK that way, using my machine in UK. But then UK started blocking other sites, so I had move that machine to Germany. Someone needs to come up with a research paper, showing the optimum number of virtual machines needed to access the whole internet (with their locations). Or better, make a business out of it.
Jaqua 14y ago
If you happen to have PC in virtual - or physical HW then ill recommend using the http://bbc-player.com/ http://bbc-player.com/ which uses the TOR network to give you access to BBC channels. The iPlayer portal is also accessible with it.
calpaterson 14y ago
"ridiculously high standard of TV broadcasting that the BBC provides" Heh, it's good, but this is overstating it a bit.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
emgreen 14y ago
I'm a Brit living abroad, and guiltily use one of the (probably illegal) methods already mentioned to watch the BBC - I feel bad, but I just can't do without it! One thing to know, it's completely okay to listen to BBC radio from anywhere in the world, http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio. There's a sports station for the Olympic Coverage - Radio 5, and I also heartily recommend Radio 6 for music, and Radio 4 for excellent speech radio, including news, documentaries, comedies and dramas.
iamgopal 14y ago
but why they stop from watching anyone anything ? ( they are going to watch the advertise too, so TRP increased right ? whats the problem ? )
JumpCrisscross 14y ago
NBC has to recover (and profit on) its $1.1 billion investment. Fault resides more with the IOC (or whoever auctioned these rights) for not requiring live streaming. I presume they assumed this would lower the value of the bids.
robomartin 14y ago
Well, my opinion is that the IOC and broadcasters like NBC are being held back by ideas from the last century. They are using the Internet as another broadcasting method and ignoring the potential it offers. At a very basic level, they could offer live streaming of all events --advertising free-- for a fee. I would gladly pay, say, US $100 for this service. Some might only be interested in a subset of events, which means that there's a possibility to create tiers and capture revenue at various levels. Here in the US, as has been discussed in this and other threads, NBC has royally fucked up things beyond all recognition. I finally broke down and downloaded their app. It's shit. The ads are intrusive TV-style ads. What's worst, they have some sort of a bug somewhere that is causing videos to end prematurely. As and example, I tried watching Archery, Judo and Taekwondo pre-recorded events (not live). One of them was supposed to be a five hour event. We watched about fifteen minutes and the stream stopped with a message that read something akin to "This video has ended". There was no way to watch it beyond that point. It literally stopped in the middle of the action. The other moronic thing is the way the video ads are inserted. They seem to be using a simple timer to determine when to run a video ad. This means that they'll interrupt your viewing in the middle of a match --just as someone is throwing a kick-- to run a stupid ad. Unbelievable. I am hoping that there's widespread dissatisfaction with this and that the next Olympics, World Cup, etc. see a massive change. I'd really like to see a true Internet company get the rights and do it right. The IOC could make far more than what NBC and others are paying for these events by having a single-point internationally-friendly Internet strategy rather than old-school per country/region licensing. Finally, a note to NBC advertisers: I am NOT watching your ads. Stop paying NBC! We DVR the coverage and are masterfully skilled at fast-forwarding through your commercials. When I am watching gymnastics I could not care less about your movie or your insurance offering. So, stop supporting broadcasters, you are wasting your money in a monumental way.
- svdad 14y ago
  Yeah, I think this is right. And NBC actually did this for the soccer World Cup, IIRC -- you could buy a package subscription from NBC letting you watch all the games online. I have to imagine there's a market for pay-as-you-go subscription to things like Olympic events, same model as buying movies on Amazon or Google Play. I know I would pay. As it is, try getfoxyproxy.org.
JeffJenkins 14y ago
I'm confused. In the iPad app I clicked time-warner cable, that I didn't have service, and I wanted a temporary pass. And then everything just worked. TWC is my ISP, but I have no cable service with them.
JacobIrwin 14y ago
I'm posting this in all three of the 'Olympics' threads showing up on the front page of HN: I live in Berkeley, CA and I was able to get full access to videos, including streams and highlights, by selecting Xfinity as my service provider during my initial sign-up/activation on the NBC Olympics website. Here at my apartment, we have no cable service and an internet provider called Zoom. So obviously, I wasn't being truthful - but instead was trying to circumvent this ridiculous corporate stranglehold during my first attempt to access Olympic footage. I don't know if it will still work, but it worked for me on Friday and my credentials have held since - allowing my full access without login each time I access the website.
mlvljr 14y ago
(may I add a small comment as a (proud) ex-USSR citizen?) In Soviet Russia, we watched Olympics. Good luck to you guys :)
Kelliot 14y ago
The BBC coverage is unbeatable. Really sets a new benchmark for multi sport event broadcasting

371 points by sudonim 14y ago

Get a VPN that gives you a UK IP and watch it on the BBC website. Got tons of results on http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+ip+vpn http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+ip+vpn I use a similar one to access Facebook when traveling to China.

patdennis 14y ago
FYI, it's a link to an article, not a question.

frozenflame 14y ago

Ask a friend or family with the required cable package for their login info. A more social than technical hack, but it works very well.

sudonim 14y ago
Out of curiosity, is there just an advertisement for 20 seconds at the beginning of a live stream? Or do they have commercial breaks?
- justjohn 14y ago
  They run every few minutes, it feels kind of random. But they have a very nasty habit of running right at critical moments during the games.
ConstantineXVI 14y ago
We have the relevant package; but Insight won't even acknowledge our login to use the app. They can keep their streams and ad-views if they don't want to make it even half-usable.
- Posibyte 14y ago
  I have roughly the same problem. I spend around $140/mo for internet and cable, of which I receive the full NBC suite of channels. However, the app refuses my provider's login information. When I contacted my provider, they just sent me up to an NBC support clerk who told me essentially "Wow, that really sucks." and that was it. There was no recourse, simply re-acknowledging that I had a problem and they would attempt nothing to fix it. I normally wouldn't be overly concerned about it, probably just a bit flustered, but this is a global event that occurs twice a decade. I feel this should really be something public broadcasters should control, not mega-corporations.
  - ebiester 14y ago
    There are too many people making too much money in the US for it to be handed off to public TV.
  - Spooky23 14y ago
    You might want to verify that your provider doesn't have multiple login schemes. My Time Warner franchise has one account for payment and account services "pay express" and another for service access "my services". The Olympics requires the services credential.

bkor 14y ago

In the Netherlands you can watch it via NOS. They have explanations for how to watch it on your pc, mobile, tv, radio, twitter/fb. See http://nos.nl/os2012/volg-de-spelen/ http://nos.nl/os2012/volg-de-spelen/. To watch on your pc, they partnered with Youtube Live: http://www.youtube.com/user/nosnlsport http://www.youtube.com/user/nosnlsport which gives me: "The uploader has not made this video available in your country. " which is a bit strange (living in the Netherlands). Fortunately it is quite easy to proxy stuff via the UK :)

maartenscholl 14y ago
The NOS website has a nice design. The sports and events are very well categorised. They even place a thumbnail of the video stream in the floating menu when you are looking at items further down the page (so you don't miss out on anything while reading the articles). The only thing that's missing are other languages than Dutch, is it possible that it's done deliberately to keep people from abroad out?
- Gmo 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure they also geo-IP ...

OmarIsmail 14y ago

Sign up for www.unblock-us.com or www.unotelly.com and watch the amazing BBC coverage on iPlayer. Super super simple setup. Personally, I prefer www.unblock-us.com

roadnottaken 14y ago
How does this work?
- vineel 14y ago
  Looks like some sort of proxy. Routing through the UK is an option so BBC iPlayer will allow you to stream the Olympics.
- OmarIsmail 14y ago
  Are you saying technically under the hood, or just how does a person use the service? Using the service is trivial for anybody on HN. Just a matter of setting your DNS settings to specific servers. That's it. Technically... I'm still trying to figure that one out. I think what they do is handle the IP check from the service, and then pass off the stream to your computer. This would make sense since the stream server would be different than the IP check server. This is great because then only a very limited subset of traffic is flowing through their servers so you get "native" speeds.
  - randomdata 14y ago
    You've got the right idea. I ended up implementing my own proxy for Netflix as you describe. I use dnsmasq to hijack the relevant DNS requests and then I wrote my own https proxy to proxy the API connections. The actual streams come from CDNs of which are not concerned about your country of origin.
sudonim 14y ago
Not sure why others downvoted you. I just tried unblock-us.com and it works... basically by changing your DNS servers. I added it to the article as another option. I'm confused because I thought that geo-restrictions were handled by IP address, so I'm not sure how this gets around that.

rwmj 14y ago

Rent a VM in a UK colo (I recommend http://www.bytemark.co.uk/ http://www.bytemark.co.uk/), and use get-iplayer (http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer/html/get_iplayer.html http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer/html/get_iplayer.html) to download programs from the BBC. Edit: Even though I live in the UK, this is how I watch TV because with a bit of scripting it's a lot more convenient than having a TV.

bdz 14y ago

does this work in the us? http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html this is the official european broadcast stream. simply the best, every event in live and you can also replay them. plus there is no commentator here, just the raw broadcast (i hate when commentators talk too much...)

jameskilton 14y ago
Negative, "you cannot watch this outside of the European Broadcasting Union".
pbhjpbhj 14y ago
Will have to check the TV Licensing info again to be sure we're allowed to watch this; works for me but had to disable ad-blocking to allow the video stream to play (after an interstitial).
ApolloRising 14y ago
Just tried from Los Angeles, did not work.

mladenkovacevic 14y ago

That sucks about not being able to get it OTA. I'm in Toronto and with a $20 antenna I can get a solid NBC broadcast from Buffalo. The local CTV channel also has an Olympics program so at any point in time I usually have 2 sporting events to choose from.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

cdcarter 14y ago

What area are you in with no terrestrial NBC affiliate?

nchaimov 14y ago
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.

ewang1 14y ago

Use your email and get a temporary pass on NBColympics.com. Although it only lasts 4hrs but I assume you can use a different email after that and it might still work.

sudonim 14y ago
Gmail's + syntax doesn't work. So -- email+1@gmail.com, email+2@gmail.com as a strategy doesn't work. I tried that.
- veyron 14y ago
  http://mailinator.com/ http://mailinator.com/
- thrownaway2424 14y ago
  Just because this is my pet peeve ... The "+ syntax" does not belong to Gmail, nor was Gmail the inventor of same. foo+bar@domain.net is an ancient tradition, dating back almost to the dawn of SMTP. Of course, the interpretation of the local part is entirely up to the MTA handling it, but foo+bar is pretty widespread. Certainly Sendmail supports it.
  - sudonim 14y ago
    I didn't know that. Now that'll be my pet peeve. Im guessing many people have only seen the + as a gmail hack to sign up multiple times on the same site.
mikeknoop 14y ago
You can also move dots around. For example the following all go to the same inbox: myemailaddress@gmail.com my.emailaddress@gmail.com myemail.address@gmail.com etc.

iuguy 14y ago

Funnily enough, I know a lot of British people who use the exact same technique the other way around to watch Hulu and Comedy Central in the US.

kalleboo 14y ago

> 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.

cjrp 14y ago
Just a note, that's only for live-streamed things (such as the Olympics). Repeats of shows don't require a license fee. http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/playing_tv_progs/tvlicence/ http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/playing_tv_progs/...
sudonim 14y ago
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.
- kalleboo 14y ago
  I saw that but it read a bit unclear. Some European countries' laws haven't caught up the same way the UK has. For instance, you can legally watch the Swedish SVT's live streams without a licence fee. Other countries have gone further - in Denmark they either implemented or were just debating a law where you have to pay the license fee if you own a PC or Mobile phone that can watch streaming video. All Europeans can legally watch the EBU/Eurovision steams though, I believe. http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago
  I'm nitpicking but I feel it's worth pointing out that not only do UK viewers of live TV need a license but all taxpayers contribute to the BBC by separate payments from direct taxation. UK ISPs appear to throttle iPlayer traffic so ironically using a proxy might be worthwhile in the UK too.

repsilat 14y ago

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.

dpick 14y ago
Telemundo is the spanish channel in the US.
dglassan 14y ago
Telemundo is in Spanish
kalleboo 14y ago
Presumably Telemundo have spanish commentators talking over everything?
bcrescimanno 14y ago
That Telemundo is a Spanish-language channel and, presumably, the author only speaks english.
sudonim 14y ago
Sorry - I updated the article, but as the other reply mentioned, Telemundo is a channel in Spanish.
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago
  Is there a radio broadcast you can listen to for sound whilst watching the images from Telemundo. I've heard of people doing this to choose a superior radio commentary whilst watching sport on TV in the UK.
  - ConstantineXVI 14y ago
    AFAIK, NBC/Telemundo doesn't own any radio stations. And since NBC isn't broadcasting live, even if someone was running a radio broadcast it's highly unlikely they'd be in sync.

rmc 14y ago

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.)

sudonim 14y ago
http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/ 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.
- mattvot 14y ago
  Worth noting that you can legally watch any recorded show online without a licence
Wilya 14y ago
According to Wikipedia[0], the UK is actually more like "You need to pay if you have something you use to watch TV". This is quite better than some other countries. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence
excuse-me 14y ago
A license is required in the UK to watch "LIVE" TV - this distinction was made (and has been upheld in court) when VCRs were introduced. But has been regarded as applying to the BBC's iPlayer - you can watch the "watch again" (PVR function) but need a license to watch the live stream. The iplayer is only available in the UK - but that's a contractual deal with the BBC, not a legal point - so if you had a VPN that worked in the UK then it's a civil matter between you and the BBC All the BBC radio content is available for free worldwide. Although Americans should be aware that Radio4 contains dangerous levels of sarcasm, satire and irony and might not be suitable for FOX viewers

codequickly 14y ago

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.

jimhirshfield 14y ago
See my comment above. You CAN get the OTA channels.
- codequickly 14y ago
  Thanks for the info. I will try that. I am subscribed to Comcast internet, but not TV. I have my fingers crossed. Hopefully I'll get some ClearQAM coming through the coax.

arkx 14y ago

If you're comfortable with SSH you could also just fire up an EC2 or Linode instance in UK, install a local proxy and tunnel traffic through it. It's way more versatile than signing up for just VPN.

mocko 14y ago
Excellent instructions for doing this on a mac with http://www.mikeash.com/ssh_socks.html http://www.mikeash.com/ssh_socks.html I am an Englishman sheltering from the Olympics in NYC (public transport in London was always going to be a mess) and even though I possess a UK TV license I had to tunnel through my machine at home to watch the opening ceremony. It's a shame the BBC can't just sell a stream to people elsewhere in the world but the licenses under which they get the content will prevent it. Otherwise people could get content from the lowest bidder in the world, meaning commoditisation and a massive hit to the content owners who wouldn't get to sell the rights over and over again in different countries.

jsaxton86 14y ago

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?

cdcarter 14y ago
By confirming your cable subscription, you confirm you have access to MSNBC, CNBC, and Bravo, where the majority of Olympic events are broadcast. Only a small number of events are broadcast on NBC affiliate stations, mostly only in primetime.
Hemospectrum 14y ago
NBC is owned by a cable company (Comcast).

kevinburke 14y ago

I'm in London for the Olympics and have been blown away by the BBC - from the usability of their website, the lack of commercials, the generally high quality of commentary and online material, to the 24 hi-definition channels of Olympic coverage live on TV in the flat we are renting. I wrote up some instructions about how to use EC2 as a web proxy here - http://kev.inburke.com/kevin/how-to-use-ec2-as-a-web-proxy/ http://kev.inburke.com/kevin/how-to-use-ec2-as-a-web-proxy/ - not sure if it would work in Amazon's Ireland data center, but worth a try.

dave84 14y ago
BBC iPlayer is restricted in Ireland unfortunately. I haven't specifically checked from Amazon's data centre though, but I'd imagine it has the same geographical restriction as my home broadband.
- uxp 14y ago
  I just checked. Gives me the same "Not in the UK" error message as trying from my IP in the states.
robotmay 14y ago
Rackspace Cloud has servers in London, which may be a better option.

kennywinker 14y ago

As a Canadian, I run into this bullshit all the time. Comedy Central embedded videos, hulu, etc. The whole thing seems like a perversion of the promise of the internet: to connect us all... It's double ironic in the OPs case, given the stated goals of the olympics. Going around via VPN is well within my technical means, but I don't want to support the people who behave this way online, so I usually don't view the geo-walled content, or turn to the pirate bay.

sbarre 14y ago
Except this time around, CTV has done a good job of providing Olympic coverage to non-TV people. The iOS app is great, and the web portal is great, and it's free.
- kennywinker 14y ago
  Yes, but why can't I watch the coverage from whichever country I choose? Canadian coverage focuses on Canadian athletes. Perhaps I'm an ex-pat, and want to watch my home country, or just curious how events are portrayed elsewhere.
  - sbarre 14y ago
    Well, that's a problem with the Olympics in general, not with a given country's broadcaster's implementation of the coverage they have purchased the rights to. Different problems completely... But I agree with your sentiment either way.
dhughes 14y ago
Canadian here too. I also tend to do the same I can use a VPN or figure out some way to get around restrictions but then I think why? If I'm blocked I'm not going out of my way to generate ad revenue or support such behaviour, it's called the World Wide Web for a reason.
LiroXIV 14y ago
I'm quite glad that even though Bell bought CTV in between Vancouver and London, they're still at least giving us every event streamed even WITHOUT cable/authentication.

brudgers 14y ago

"I use a service called Vyprvpn which is $14.99 a month. I get it as part of a bundle with a subscription to Giganews. That’s how I connect with a VPN to the UK. And you can too." So the author ended up paying to watch the Olympics. Illegally, instead of legally, I would add.

sudonim 14y ago
I guess technically I'm paying for VPN service, but I would have been anyway, so I didn't buy something new. And, I'm not certain it's illegal. Are you? Is the legislation specific about where you must reside? What if you're consuming content but you're not in the UK? If it is illegal for anyone to consume BBC content at the time of broadcast without a TV license regardless of location, what if someone outside of the UK paid for a TV License?
- brudgers 14y ago
  [IANAL] My understanding of copyright is that for events such as the Olympics, copyrights are often licensed licensed a country by country basis and that the retransmission of material across national boundaries is a violation. Doing so violates the author's right to control their work because it bipasses the arrangements the author has made to control their work. Incidently, this rests on the same legal principles upon which much of FOS software community operates (the license terms are merely different). However, I would recommend speaking with an attorney familiar with such matters.
  - sudonim 14y ago
    I bought a TV License (updated the article) and here's the proof: https://img.skitch.com/20120729-8nkr9edjmm4966yt8qm1sfyg5t.png https://img.skitch.com/20120729-8nkr9edjmm4966yt8qm1sfyg5t.p... So, really now it should just be a question of the rights holder allowing me in the US to watch something broadcast in the UK that I paid for.
Tichy 14y ago
One difference might be the consequences of the subscription. A subscription to a big media outlet seems rather icky. I don't want to know what crap they'll try to feed you, pretending that it'll be worth your money. Subscribing to a VPN service presumably just expands your choices in a no frills way.

techsupporter 14y ago

Answer: Get a cable TV subscription. If you don't want to "pirate," or be in a "grey area," then do what the license rights holder wants you to do and pony up. I pay for Frontier FiOS TV and can watch whatever events I want as part of my subscription. In many areas, the local cable company will have you installed in a day or two and you can go month-to-month. Comcast in Seattle is offering $29.99/month for the first 6 months, no contract, and that includes msnbc, CNBC, and Bravo. To answer the point of "NBC pays the government," they do: for broadcast spectrum only. All the other channels with Olympics content are not covered by that payment.

ricardobeat 14y ago
The Olympics, as well as most other major world events, are transmitted via broadcast TV almost everywhere in the world. The whole operation and licensing rights are already paid for by ad space.
- techsupporter 14y ago
  Almost everywhere, but not in the United States. Whether or not this is right or fair is left as an exercise to the reader; personally, I think it is not. However, the answer to the question is one of three things: subscribe to the required service, be in a grey area, or do not watch. I honestly cannot see why we keep having these debates. OBVIOUSLY the content providers are making money doing exactly what they are now doing. Bypassing the restrictions and consuming the content anyway does nothing to change this situation except on the micro level. The only way to change the status quo is to demonstrate that the content is not sufficiently valuable to a sufficiently large group of people that the mechanism changes.
  - Spooky23 14y ago
    Huh? I'm watching swimming on wnyt in Albany, NY right now OTA.
  - ef4 14y ago
    > Almost everywhere, but not in the United States. No. NBC is broadcasting the Olympics over-the-air all across the US.

acabal 14y ago

This exact same thing happened to me today! I'm in Germany, so I put the Olympics on TV. But I don't yet speak German, so after an hour I wanted to watch them in English. I went to the NBC web site, but they geolocate your IP and only stream to US people. Fine, I'm used to this crap (lots of Youtube videos are blocked in Germany too) so I just fired up my proxy and tried again. This time I got through, only to find that they're asking me to log in to a cable provider first! What the hell! After scouring the internet I found a huge list of Olympics streaming broadcasters. Turns out the BBC is broadcasting online too. So I try them--same thing, blocked outside of the UK! But this time I don't have a proxy in the UK, so I gave up and watched the damn thing in German. I get the theory of having to go through a cable provider login to get the US Olympics. But what if you're a taxpaying UK citizen abroad for a while? You've paid your tax--but you still can't access the stream! Wasn't the internet supposed to break through barriers like space and location? In the year 2012 am I seriously being denied an English-language broadcast of a global event just because my laptop is currently in Germany? Sure I can jump through even more hoops and figure out a UK-based VPN or some crap. But the point is I shouldn't have to do this! We're in 2012 people! Why even have the internet if we're just going to lock up information according to where you live?

alpine 14y ago
Yep, we are in 2012, yet just because some things are possible (like access to TV from every source across the globe), doesn't mean to say those things are permissible.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
mindslight 14y ago
> Wasn't the internet supposed to break through barriers like space and location? The Internet philosophy eschews these things, but the implementation simply ignores them. Of course the incumbents desire to reimplement their archaic business models on top of TCP/IP. It's up to us to carry the philosophy and create higher level protocols that are resistant to such things; fiefdom-based HTTP certainly isn't.

alpine 14y ago

You could offer to pay ~£8k in licence fees for life time access to UK TV. Of course, if you watch and don't pay, you will live in fear of a prison sentence. Luckily, extradition from the US to the UK is less likely than the reverse, so you needn't lose as much sleep as eg Garry McKinnon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon)

jswank 14y ago

For the winter Olympics, I had a VPS provisioned with a Toronto-based provider: setup Apache w/ a password protected mod_proxy. Voila, I could watch live curling and luge in the office. Total cost was less than $30 USD.

truxs 14y ago

Did anybody tried francetvsport.fr ? It seems to work from the webproxy i used but i'm not sure my ip was properly hidden. Anyway, for once french television is not behind, they broadcast all the sports live on their website without any commentary.

jonchris 14y ago

U got high speed Internet and b'ful beaches. Why ask? Watch on net while u Njoy nature.

jimhirshfield 14y ago

This won't get you live coverage, but it will get you legal NBC coverage on your home TV... The broadcast industry does not want American's to know this, but they are legally obligated to provide the free "over the air" stations on cable (coax) even if you do not pay for cable service. In other words, do what I have done: 1. You need a modern cable-ready TV 2. Plug the coax into the wall (assumes your residence had cable installation at one point). 3. Plug other end of coax into your TV. 4. Scan for channels. 5. Voila: CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, and more. Yes, it's that simple. And this is NOT using the coax as an RF antenna. This is the cable company providing me with what I am legally entitled to: over the air stations in a digital age. The cable companies are trying to fight this, but as of now, it exists. It's legal. And it works. My son's watching PBS Kids as I type. And we watched many Olympic events through-out the days today - OK, not live, but still I DO NOT PAY FOR TV.

illumin8 14y ago
NBC is only broadcasting Olympic events on cable channels, not on the basic NBC OTA channels...
- jimhirshfield 14y ago
  I'm watching women's beach volleyball on NBC (Channel 4 in the NYC metro area) as I type this (8:12pm on Sat 28 July)
Steuard 14y ago
Do you have a link where I can read up on this? I'm willing to believe you, but it sounds too good to be true.
- jimhirshfield 14y ago
  See my reply above with link to Fred Wilson's blog post.
ja27 14y ago
Are you sure cable providers are required to provide free over-the-air stations? I haven't heard of that being a requirement and can't find anything online except vague claims without citations. I've heard of low-cost plans that provide all the equivalent over-the-air stations, but no legal requirement to provide those for free. That said, this certainly does work for some people. It worked for us for a while after we dropped the TV part of our plan but then one day we couldn't receive any channels over the coax, so I assume they installed a filter.

jbscpa 14y ago

I DO have cable TV in the U.S. - Suddenlink I spent 45 minutes online with the Suddenlink support person and got my account setup with username and password ALL SET right? So, with the Suddenlink support person on the phone I login to the NBCOlympics.com site and select Suddenlink. I key in my username and password. In about a minute the screen pops up and says I am all set to WATCH THE OLYMPICS LIVE. Joy!! Then in about 10 seconds another screen pops up: "You do not have a subscription to view the requested content. Contact Suddenlink to upgrade your programming then log back in to view content." What the heck?? So I ask the very helpful Suddenlink support person still waiting on the phone: What Up? She confirms that since I do not have the EXTENDED basic package with optional add-ons with Suddenlink I do not qualify to WATCH THE OLYMPICS LIVE BY THE WAY: Did you read the nbcolympics.com FAQ: "Q: What is required for accessing Live Extra content? A: You will need to verify that you subscribe to a cable, satellite or telco video tier that includes CNBC and MSNBC. There is no additional charge." I do have CNBC and MSNBC. CNBC is channel 255 and MSNBC is channel 264 (in my market area) And yet I cannot WATCH THE OLYMPICS LIVE In the terms of the Olympics here is my message to NBC LET THE GAMES BEGIN - THE INTERNETS ALWAYS WIN.

Tivs 14y ago

If you have a proxy to connect to in Asia, India, or Africa (easy to find) you can watch the live stream on http://www.youtube.com/olympic http://www.youtube.com/olympic. Simple clean interface with schedule and easy stream selection for the current events happening. It's also commercial free as well as being up to 1080p. You can even change the language of the broadcast.

ryanmarsh 14y ago

Seriously, this is atrocious. I've been trying to watch the Olympics all day and it's been one huge fail.

cabalamat 14y ago

It would make sense for the BBC to run their own VPN-like service so people outside the UK could view their content.

josephlord 14y ago
??? If they wanted to unblock the world they could just do that without a VPN. Their license from the IOC will require them to take measures keep their services to the territory they have rights to (the UK). If they allowed their services to be accessed globally they would only get the rights that they bought globally. If any VPN gets too popular you can expect them to block it too. You may need to factor this into how much you pay for a VPN.

paul9290 14y ago

This Olympics insanity (needing to subscribe to cable TV to watch a over the air broadcast; Comcasts owns NBC Universal) is a great reason why services like http://Aereo.com http://Aereo.com need to thrive! Does anyone here have Aereo and are using it to watch the Olympics?

freedrull 14y ago

Why doesn't he just go to the local sports bar?

estel 14y ago
With up to 24 simultaneous events for 12 hours a day across 18ish days, that's a lengthy time spent at a bar that might not even be showing the event you're interested in.

ernestipark 14y ago

Great post. FWIW, the mobile app that NBC has is 10000x better than their website, and sometimes is even faster and better quality (iPhone). This is a good example of developing for mobile first... The mobile experience strips down all the unnecessary cruft and gets you to what you want immediately. As soon as I logged on to the app, I was able to see all live streaming videos in a nice interface and get to what I wanted. Can't say the same about the wesite.

recoiledsnake 14y ago

>I didn’t go out and buy an antenna, but I was able to tune quite a few channels Why not buy an antenna, especially an amplified one? That will run circles around using a shielded coax cable as an antenna. >FAIL. There is no good way to watch the Olympics in the United States without a cable subscription Sorry, that doesn't follow when you didn't even try a TV antenna.

avolcano 14y ago
To be fair, not everyone is in a good area for OTA TV. You can check here: http://www.antennaweb.org/Address.aspx http://www.antennaweb.org/Address.aspx to see if you can pick up an NBC affiliate (or Telemundo, if you're okay with Spanish commentary) near you.
- jimhirshfield 14y ago
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4306953 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4306953
ja27 14y ago
We're watching NBC broadcast right now on a pair of rabbit-ears. That works fine for the popular events if you don't mind the delay. As long as we're mentioning various grey-hat techniques to view content from the BBC and others without paying for it, there are sites like thefirstrow.eu that carry streams from the BBC and other international broadcasters. I'm not encouraging you to use those, but it is an interesting situation. NBC can't issue a DMCA takedown on those streams because they don't own that content. If the BBC has no interest in shutting down those streams, they may never be shut down.
sudonim 14y ago
Yeah, you're right. I'm not fair to OTA broadcasts and I should have gotten rabbit ears. However, considering the following issues: 1. NBC cut short the open ceremony 2. NBC delayed the broadcast of the swimming 3. Online (from the BBC, and from NBC with commercials) you can get a stream of any event you want. The online option, and the online option from the BBC especially just blows away an OTA broadcast. BBC has something like 24 different streams for live events. Vs. buying rabbit ears which gives me 1 channel. And as for running circles around COAX, the only channels I can't get with COAX are CBS and NBC. Everything else comes through in HD either on it's own or if I'm touching it.

heeton 14y ago

That is the creepiest avatar / drawing I have seen all month.

csense 14y ago

A lot of people don't get particular networks because the US recently (June 2009 [1]) switched to digital TV broadcasting. Essentially, digital TV is a transmission protocol which more efficiently utilizes the available electromagnetic spectrum by transmitting compressed video. The problem is that digital transmission doesn't gracefully degrade like analog transmission does. If you're at the outer part of a transmitter's range, with the legacy analog signal, you might have been able to get an adequate signal with slightly fuzzy picture or static-y sound. But receiving a digital signal is largely a binary affair; you're either in-range and receive it, or out-of-range and you don't. * Another issue is the economics; most people get their TV through cable. So it doesn't necessarily make economic sense for stations to build new transmitters to make their post-digital range equal their pre-digital range, especially if the new dead zones are in low-population-density areas. Online streaming is so technically superior to broadcast -- there's no technical reason you can't get what you want, when you want it; and the maximum number of channels we can support isn't limited by scarce electromagnetic spectrum -- that I foresee traditional broadcast TV being completely replaced within the next 10-30 years. It's still new enough, however, that the social, political, and legal issues still have to be worked out. I.e. FCC requirements to provide broadcast-equivalent service should probably apply to ISP's, but they don't. And companies like NBC should realize it's in their best interest to make content available at reasonable prices "ala carte" online, but they don't. It's particularly interesting to see that recently services like Hulu or Youtube are running pilot programs for producing original content. Essentially the reason NBC et al can get away with offering customers awful service without having their lunch eaten by startups is that they by-and-large have a monopoly on content that people want to see. But if similar content becomes available from other services at lower cost and/or on saner terms, they'll be forced to change their business or die off. In other words, someone needs to do to NBC what iTunes did to the music industry. There are plenty of people in this space; Hulu, Netflix, Youtube, many others. Online video is still a very immature industry because only within the last 10-15 years has bandwidth and decoding horsepower sufficient for streaming video become available to most people. Over time the free market should iron out a more efficient solution to connecting viewers, content producers and content aggregators, but many existing businesses are enormously large and entrenched, so the process will take time. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_terrestrial_television#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_terrestrial_television#... * This isn't strictly true; you might get some artifacts in marginal situations, but these tend to be much more noticeable and much less acceptable than with analog. The "in-range" and "out-of-range" might change over time due to weather.

zaim 14y ago

I'm not in the US but I've been watching the Olympics on YouTube - http://youtube.com/user/olympic http://youtube.com/user/olympic - this is the official Olympics channel. Funny nobody's mentioned this. Is the channel not available in the US?

spydum 14y ago
It actually says not available in your country .. just tried it.
manojlds 14y ago
Yeah, going to youtube.com brings a top bar with info on what is being streamed and takes you to the official channel. Works awesome here in India.
djthorpe 14y ago
Yes, the IOC are streaming the whole olympics on YouTube at www.youtube.com/olympic to 64 countries in Asia and Africa, where there aren't exclusive broadcaster arrangements. It's the full 10 feeds of events and 1 news channel - no ads and full events.

damian2000 14y ago

+1 BBC The broadcaster of the first public TV signal back in 1936 and still going strong today. "On November 2, 1936 the BBC began transmitting the world's first public television service from the Victorian Alexandra Palace in north London[12] following alternate daily test broadcasts of the Baird and Marconi systems to the Radio Show at Olympia at the end of August. It therefore claims to be the birthplace of television broadcasting as we know it today." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_television http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_television

drivingmenuts 14y ago

I don't watch the Olympics, as a general rule, but I'm pretty sure that, even if I desired to, I still wouldn't until broadcasters get around to using this decades technologies to deliver content. You want them to modernize? Get as many people as you can to stop using cable for TV.

robomartin 14y ago

I have a qualifying satellite TV package and that is also broken. I related my experience this morning here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4305905 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4305905 NBC ought to be ashamed. Their online offering is pure crap.

numle 14y ago

It's possible to stream the olympics from the BBC iPlayer using a UK proxy only for requesting the page with the player (the flash player itself doesn't seem to care where you're located). I just tested this using a free proxy. Any slow/unstable proxy will work just fine.

ezioamf 14y ago

You can try http://esportes.terra.com.br/jogos-olimpicos/londres-2012/ao-vivo/1970/ http://esportes.terra.com.br/jogos-olimpicos/londres-2012/ao...

tlrobinson 14y ago

A UK-based Linode instance as a proxy works beautifully: http://bearsfightingbears.com/how-to-watch-the-olympics-live-from-the-united-states http://bearsfightingbears.com/how-to-watch-the-olympics-live...

welcomebrand 14y ago

I wonder if folks doing this are also the same ones complaining about people stealing apps and torrenting movies? There's no real difference.

rprasad 14y ago

Pay for it. Broadcasting the Olympics costs NBC lots of money. These deals are how they pay those costs. (And if it wasn't NBC, it would be CBS, ABC, or Fox.) One of the hazards of giving up living television is that...you give up live television. NBC is not obligated to do squat for you if it can't make money from you. It's a business, not a charity. And stop praising the BBC. It's not free. Brits pay a mandatory tax to support the BBC, so it is no different from cable/satellite TV in the U.S.

dt7 14y ago
It is different in that if they ever do a bad job, they get a lot more pressure put on them (occasionally from the government - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18512995 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18512995). They are also monitored to make sure they at least try to have no overly political/commercial bias.
porlw 14y ago
I wish people would stop harping on about the UK TV licence fee. TV in the US is not free - you pay for it every time you buy something made by a company that spends money advertising on TV. It's practically impossible to opt out of paying for TV in the US. At least in the UK you can opt out if you genuinely don't want to watch anything.
- cheald 14y ago
  Frankly, I'd rather pay £150/year for all the BBC programming (without commercials, including full online on-demand streaming) than $720/year for my cable company's "basic" package (which I continue to pay for by sitting through advertising for a third of the show's airtime anyway). If we bought that model to the US, I'd be ecstatic.

jamesharker 14y ago

I'm actually quite surprised to see so many posts on HN discussing ways to pirate Olympic content. The BBC is restricted to UK IP addresses for a reason. Every household in Britian pays the equivalent of around $230 per year for the right to watch live television, whether it be on your phone, laptop or TV. The BBC has a finite amount of resources to spend on hosting online content & if the whole World logs on to watch the Olympics it could end up spoiling it for those of us who've paid for the service. I can understand the Americans frustration with NBC (or whatever broadcaster is showing the Olympics in your region) but if you really do want to watch the BBC, the least you can do is pay for it https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/pay-for-your-tv-licence/ https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/pay-for-your-tv-licence/

temptemp123 14y ago
All european citizen can watch it on http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html Just enter bbc into the search box.
sudonim 14y ago
Hi James. I now own a TV Licence. I'm in the US. Is it still pirating if I watch the BBC feed through a VPN? There's no higher cost of transmission for the BBC - they're sending it to a UK based IP and then I pay a monthly fee for that transmission to the US. https://img.skitch.com/20120729-8nkr9edjmm4966yt8qm1sfyg5t.png https://img.skitch.com/20120729-8nkr9edjmm4966yt8qm1sfyg5t.p...
- jamesharker 14y ago
  While it still may not be technically legal, ethically I believe you're in the clear. Enjoy all of the 24 BBC Olympic channels - you'll probably find BBC iPlayer quite useful for catching up on the days events as well!

ing33k 14y ago

I'm an Indian and I watch Olympics here http://www.youtube.com/user/olympic http://www.youtube.com/user/olympic

temptemp123 14y ago

If you have an european ip, go to http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html It's the official site of all european broadcasters. You have access to all the live streams (without commentary) from all the arenas and all the live streams from all european stations. Just enter bbc, zdf, ard, etc... in the search box to get the corresponding live stream with their commentary. It also works if you are blocked on the broadcasters website (e.g. i can't watch the zdf live stream, but can watch it here). They have live streams for each olympics and for some special events.

Inversechi 14y ago

You can also buy a UK based VPS ( http://www.lowendbox.com/tag/uk/ http://www.lowendbox.com/tag/uk/) and install some VPN server on there/ Note: Make sure the provider allows TUN/TAP

utoku 14y ago

Like most people here, I just don't like the fact that some people are trying to put digital walls around me. To buy my nexus 1 phone, I had to use a machine in US. I bought some other stuff from UK that way, using my machine in UK. But then UK started blocking other sites, so I had move that machine to Germany. Someone needs to come up with a research paper, showing the optimum number of virtual machines needed to access the whole internet (with their locations). Or better, make a business out of it.

Jaqua 14y ago

If you happen to have PC in virtual - or physical HW then ill recommend using the http://bbc-player.com/ http://bbc-player.com/ which uses the TOR network to give you access to BBC channels. The iPlayer portal is also accessible with it.

calpaterson 14y ago

"ridiculously high standard of TV broadcasting that the BBC provides" Heh, it's good, but this is overstating it a bit.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

emgreen 14y ago

I'm a Brit living abroad, and guiltily use one of the (probably illegal) methods already mentioned to watch the BBC - I feel bad, but I just can't do without it! One thing to know, it's completely okay to listen to BBC radio from anywhere in the world, http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio. There's a sports station for the Olympic Coverage - Radio 5, and I also heartily recommend Radio 6 for music, and Radio 4 for excellent speech radio, including news, documentaries, comedies and dramas.

iamgopal 14y ago

but why they stop from watching anyone anything ? ( they are going to watch the advertise too, so TRP increased right ? whats the problem ? )

JumpCrisscross 14y ago

NBC has to recover (and profit on) its $1.1 billion investment. Fault resides more with the IOC (or whoever auctioned these rights) for not requiring live streaming. I presume they assumed this would lower the value of the bids.

robomartin 14y ago

Well, my opinion is that the IOC and broadcasters like NBC are being held back by ideas from the last century. They are using the Internet as another broadcasting method and ignoring the potential it offers. At a very basic level, they could offer live streaming of all events --advertising free-- for a fee. I would gladly pay, say, US $100 for this service. Some might only be interested in a subset of events, which means that there's a possibility to create tiers and capture revenue at various levels. Here in the US, as has been discussed in this and other threads, NBC has royally fucked up things beyond all recognition. I finally broke down and downloaded their app. It's shit. The ads are intrusive TV-style ads. What's worst, they have some sort of a bug somewhere that is causing videos to end prematurely. As and example, I tried watching Archery, Judo and Taekwondo pre-recorded events (not live). One of them was supposed to be a five hour event. We watched about fifteen minutes and the stream stopped with a message that read something akin to "This video has ended". There was no way to watch it beyond that point. It literally stopped in the middle of the action. The other moronic thing is the way the video ads are inserted. They seem to be using a simple timer to determine when to run a video ad. This means that they'll interrupt your viewing in the middle of a match --just as someone is throwing a kick-- to run a stupid ad. Unbelievable. I am hoping that there's widespread dissatisfaction with this and that the next Olympics, World Cup, etc. see a massive change. I'd really like to see a true Internet company get the rights and do it right. The IOC could make far more than what NBC and others are paying for these events by having a single-point internationally-friendly Internet strategy rather than old-school per country/region licensing. Finally, a note to NBC advertisers: I am NOT watching your ads. Stop paying NBC! We DVR the coverage and are masterfully skilled at fast-forwarding through your commercials. When I am watching gymnastics I could not care less about your movie or your insurance offering. So, stop supporting broadcasters, you are wasting your money in a monumental way.

svdad 14y ago
Yeah, I think this is right. And NBC actually did this for the soccer World Cup, IIRC -- you could buy a package subscription from NBC letting you watch all the games online. I have to imagine there's a market for pay-as-you-go subscription to things like Olympic events, same model as buying movies on Amazon or Google Play. I know I would pay. As it is, try getfoxyproxy.org.

JeffJenkins 14y ago

I'm confused. In the iPad app I clicked time-warner cable, that I didn't have service, and I wanted a temporary pass. And then everything just worked. TWC is my ISP, but I have no cable service with them.

JacobIrwin 14y ago

I'm posting this in all three of the 'Olympics' threads showing up on the front page of HN: I live in Berkeley, CA and I was able to get full access to videos, including streams and highlights, by selecting Xfinity as my service provider during my initial sign-up/activation on the NBC Olympics website. Here at my apartment, we have no cable service and an internet provider called Zoom. So obviously, I wasn't being truthful - but instead was trying to circumvent this ridiculous corporate stranglehold during my first attempt to access Olympic footage. I don't know if it will still work, but it worked for me on Friday and my credentials have held since - allowing my full access without login each time I access the website.

mlvljr 14y ago

(may I add a small comment as a (proud) ex-USSR citizen?) In Soviet Russia, we watched Olympics. Good luck to you guys :)

Kelliot 14y ago

The BBC coverage is unbeatable. Really sets a new benchmark for multi sport event broadcasting