4 ms·

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.

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.
    - techsupporter 14y ago
      NBC, unlike most of the rest of the world, is not putting all, or even most, of its coverage out over-the-air. Many events will only be on pay channels like msnbc, Bravo, NBC Sports Network, and CNBC.
usaar333 14y ago
That works.. sometimes. I tried calling comcast and they don't serve my address (it's a large apartment building). I specifically told them that I could care less if they actually installed it; I just wanted an account so I could get the olympics online. They claimed they couldn't do that though; the service had to be installable or they could get fined by some entity. My only legal option is to pay DirectTV something like $800 for a one year subscription. Not happening.. Can't even get the terrestrial DTV signal due to buildings in my line of sight.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  How old is your apartment building that you cannot get cable service? I've never run into that before.
  - usaar333 14y ago
    23 years. Its age is less of an issue than its size. It has 400+ units and just contracts out TV service to a local San Francisco outfit, Satel: http://www.yelp.com/biz/satel-san-francisco http://www.yelp.com/biz/satel-san-francisco Satel has a sattelite receiver on the roof that provides for the complex. The only programming options are: 1. DirectTV (extremely expensive) 2. 'Basic' Cable, which gives only a subset of terrestrial broadcasts at only 480p. This service wouldn't qualify for nbcolympics regardless due to no cnbc, msnbc, etc.
yoshamano 14y ago
This is not the answer. My grandmother was kind enough to give me her Comcast account info so I can stream through nbcolympics.com Their system is garbage. IE9 and IE9 64-bit come to a screeching halt after 30 minutes of live streaming and have to be killed by task manager. Firefox Nightly x64 (my main browser) does the same thing after ballooning to 600MB of RAM. In Chrome the video starts to skip after 20 minutes when RAM usage hits about 300MB. So far Chrome + AdBlock is the only thing that's been stable so far. Which brings me to why nbcolympics.com is garbage. They've managed to take a YouTube stream, and then surround it on all sides with 2 flash ad banners, commercial breaks during live streams, many many more commercial breaks during replays, and a drunken orgy of Web 2.0 tracking systems and social medias as far as the eye can see. They've taken the most widely used video distribution platform and turned it into a hulking behemoth that destroys web browsers. Ignoring all of that for a moment. NBC also has gaps in what you can watch on nbcolympics.com The opening ceremony wasn't streamed live, or streamed "live" when NBC showed it on TV. I'd have to check, but I don't think you can even watch a reply of it now. I wanted to watch some archery and the USA women's soccer match from earlier. While scrolling through the list I saw a reply link for every event...except gymnastics. NBC decided not to allow replays of that. This just grows the amount of hatred I have for NBC since the 2010 games when they implemented this system and I couldn't get the same Comcast account to authenticate. So I was stuck with tape delay everything while my friends up north were watching everything live through cbc.ca The trial run of NBC's system in 2008 was the best run they've had. No ads, no pay wall system, every event streamed live and available for replay afterward. It worked without a hitch.
gammarator 14y ago
Ah, but that's forcing you to buy something you don't want (a long-term cable TV subscription) to get something you do want (streaming access to the Olympics on the internet--no TV involved). As several posters here have said, clearly there is a value to being able to watch the Olympic events you want, live. There is no reason NBC could not charge a fixed access fee for people who don't have one of the "sponsoring" pay TV services.

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.
  - techsupporter 14y ago
    NBC, unlike most of the rest of the world, is not putting all, or even most, of its coverage out over-the-air. Many events will only be on pay channels like msnbc, Bravo, NBC Sports Network, and CNBC.

usaar333 14y ago

That works.. sometimes. I tried calling comcast and they don't serve my address (it's a large apartment building). I specifically told them that I could care less if they actually installed it; I just wanted an account so I could get the olympics online. They claimed they couldn't do that though; the service had to be installable or they could get fined by some entity. My only legal option is to pay DirectTV something like $800 for a one year subscription. Not happening.. Can't even get the terrestrial DTV signal due to buildings in my line of sight.

jlgreco 14y ago
How old is your apartment building that you cannot get cable service? I've never run into that before.
- usaar333 14y ago
  23 years. Its age is less of an issue than its size. It has 400+ units and just contracts out TV service to a local San Francisco outfit, Satel: http://www.yelp.com/biz/satel-san-francisco http://www.yelp.com/biz/satel-san-francisco Satel has a sattelite receiver on the roof that provides for the complex. The only programming options are: 1. DirectTV (extremely expensive) 2. 'Basic' Cable, which gives only a subset of terrestrial broadcasts at only 480p. This service wouldn't qualify for nbcolympics regardless due to no cnbc, msnbc, etc.

yoshamano 14y ago

This is not the answer. My grandmother was kind enough to give me her Comcast account info so I can stream through nbcolympics.com Their system is garbage. IE9 and IE9 64-bit come to a screeching halt after 30 minutes of live streaming and have to be killed by task manager. Firefox Nightly x64 (my main browser) does the same thing after ballooning to 600MB of RAM. In Chrome the video starts to skip after 20 minutes when RAM usage hits about 300MB. So far Chrome + AdBlock is the only thing that's been stable so far. Which brings me to why nbcolympics.com is garbage. They've managed to take a YouTube stream, and then surround it on all sides with 2 flash ad banners, commercial breaks during live streams, many many more commercial breaks during replays, and a drunken orgy of Web 2.0 tracking systems and social medias as far as the eye can see. They've taken the most widely used video distribution platform and turned it into a hulking behemoth that destroys web browsers. Ignoring all of that for a moment. NBC also has gaps in what you can watch on nbcolympics.com The opening ceremony wasn't streamed live, or streamed "live" when NBC showed it on TV. I'd have to check, but I don't think you can even watch a reply of it now. I wanted to watch some archery and the USA women's soccer match from earlier. While scrolling through the list I saw a reply link for every event...except gymnastics. NBC decided not to allow replays of that. This just grows the amount of hatred I have for NBC since the 2010 games when they implemented this system and I couldn't get the same Comcast account to authenticate. So I was stuck with tape delay everything while my friends up north were watching everything live through cbc.ca The trial run of NBC's system in 2008 was the best run they've had. No ads, no pay wall system, every event streamed live and available for replay afterward. It worked without a hitch.

gammarator 14y ago

Ah, but that's forcing you to buy something you don't want (a long-term cable TV subscription) to get something you do want (streaming access to the Olympics on the internet--no TV involved). As several posters here have said, clearly there is a value to being able to watch the Olympic events you want, live. There is no reason NBC could not charge a fixed access fee for people who don't have one of the "sponsoring" pay TV services.