This year I'm impressed so far with the amount of coverage NBC is providing for the Olympics. Of course, I'm just getting the HD teasers but it looks like there will be LOTS of HD coverage of the events on four channels as well as the Basketball and Soccer channels, all free.

I've also been watching the online broadcasts at the NBC Olympics website and the quality there has been pretty darn good. They even let you follow up to four events as well as providing PIP when you are running the Enhanced version. Apparently they are using Microsoft's Silverlight so this will be a good test of the technology.

Of course, this thread will drum up the biannual debate about US biased coverage by NBC. But it wouldn't be an Olympics without that. So let the discussion begin. Let's see how long this thread will run. I'm betting 5 or 6 pages.

The Olympic Soccer and Basketball Channels...does anyone actually have them? I can't find anything that shows Comcast has picked up these channels here.

I watched US men's soccer on MSNBC but can't find separate channels yet.

I think I'm getting them as a result of a deal Time Warner Cable did with NBC. I usually have no good words for Time Warner but I'm estatic with the amount of cable coverage I'm getting. I just found out I can also get On Demand HD Olympic programming during the Games.

For the Soccer Channel I think they are using the BOCOG pool feed and broadcasting from NYC (heard that this morning). Granted the Soccer channel has shown games while I'm getting ready for work and off to work but I can see where they will come in handy this weekend.

I also noticed today that NBC has pulled Richard Engel, Chief Foreign Correspondent, in to provide in depth reporting in Beijing. It's a treat to see him provide the background for China, especially after all the years he has spent in Iraq. I hope he has the opportunity to enjoy some of the Games while in China. He deserves it.

There are some games that are being shown on NBC, MSNBC and their other networks, but every soccer and basketball game is to be shown on these specially-created channels.

I'm just curious about how many people will have these networks available to them. I'm unlikely to watch any soccer and probably won't watch much basketball.

You'll know if you have the special channels or not by a teaser splash that shows up on the channel or by a program listing on the channel. Right now I have NBC HD, USA HD, CNBC HD, and Universal HD. I also get the basketball and soccer HD channels and an HD on demand channel. I'm looking forward to mouthwatering Olympic coverage (yes, I'll eventually get tired of that word).

But, as you and I discussed on another thread, the darn Opening Ceremonies are delayed until 6:30 CST tomorrow. All those HD channels and I still have to wait until NBC thinks I need to see the program.

At least we have a choice this time to see certain events live or shortly after. But like the Sydney games, the prime time coverage will show events almost 24 hours later and if the event happens late in the afternoon or evening then we'll get prime time coverage almost 48 hours later.

NBC coverage: Event #1, show atheletes walking into the venue, commercial, show atheletes warming up, commercial, spotlight profile on one athelete with soft music in background, commercial, show actual competetion, commercial, post event commentary, commercial. Repeat for two weeks.

And every commercial break will feature a promo for the same new NBC show 'comming this fall on NBC'. Remember the Athens games? Every break was a promo for that new, 'young lawyers in love' NBC fall show. The show bombed. Everyone was sick of it by the time the actual show aired.

And I wish I had a dollar every time they will mention Phelps or the Hamm brothers.

I just hope we get some live events. Looking for a 'wardrobe malfunction' from a beefy athelete.

Still, I love the olympics and will watch as much as I can. (sitting in my recliner wearing my speedos and smog mask while waving the Tibitan flag. NAMASTE'

How can I look for a "teaser splash that shows up on the channel" if I don't know where to find the channel? I have all the NBC-owned networks such as USA and MSNBC and know where to find them. There are no listings for Olympic Soccer Channel or Olympic Basketball Channel. They're not listed. The Olympic listings on the DVR show the other channels but not these.

Years ago I was able to purchase the East Coast feed of all the networks on DirecTV (I live in LA). So I get to watch live Olympic events at 4 p.m. West Coast on the weekends instead of having to wait for the tape delay on the West Coast. One nice perk since I have yet to buy a HD set.

I think the teasers were only showing on the HD channels. If you have HD and don't see a teaser screen on USA then you don't have it.

Does Bob Costas ever shut up? My God, I wanted to hear the applause for the US team and he just went on and on about the flagbearer.

And did we have to hear and see Kobe and the Basketball team, don't they get enough publicity?

I agree 100%!!!! At one point during the artistic ceremony, the 2008 women came out in their elabrate costumes and Costas said they should just shut up and enjoy the sights of this show. Then he immediatly started talking about fipping burgers at Burger King.
Shut up you damn fool and let the show speak for itself.

Agreed about GREAT SHOW,

AGREEEEEEEED about Costas

However, remember Katie Couric......same problem when she announced the olypics............Unfortunately, that is what they are paid for. I would love for them to offer a channel without dialogue for the opening and closing ceremonies.

Best,

Drew

I watched the opening of the Beijing Olympics live on al-Jazeera here in Baghdad. I'll take that over Costas any day.

I still can't get over the, (artistic portion) of the opening ceremony. So I went on Youtube to watch it again.
WRONG All the videos have been disabled due to a third party request. Gee, could it be from NBC? Screw NBC!! And the ones you think you can watch on youtube only show a link to another site which is marginal at best. (to many pages and ads to get to the actual video). SPAM!
Anyone know where a person can watch the ceremony again? Whether it's a youtube video or not. I can't get it out of my head, the spectacle and grandure of those 2008 drums at the very beginning with the dramatic countdown. Let it go already NBC. Total butthead!!

I noticed that myself. It probably was NBC who had them pull it. You're going to hate where I'm going to send you but this is the only place I can find any decent video clips - the NBC video page. You have to watch commercials briefly for some of the clips but that just means you get to see the hot guy in the GE commercials over and over again.

And there will probably be a DVD for sale in a few weeks...it is all about the money for NBC remember.

So two questions

does anyone know if there is a link online to the opening ceremony's Drum section?

Does anyone know the name of the guy who was announcing with Bob Costas who was TOTALLY GREAT as far as information, pronounciation of chinese...........and Sets of my gaydar way tons. If he's gay I want an interview with him here on OS...........even if he's not, he is such a great resource I would like to find out more.

His first name is Joshua I think?

Best,

Drew

P.S. Found out he is Joshua Cooper Ramo ..............and am google searching him.........like his brain.............very hot! Don't know about the gay thing, might just be the multicultural experience that makes him not typical bodylanguage and sets off my 'dar.

OK - maybe a silly question from a naive Canuck - but why even on weekends is so much of NBC's coverage tape delayed? And even a bigger question - is it illegal for live Olympic coverage to be shown in the Pacific time zone?

On my digital cable package I get NBC Buffalo and Seattle. At 8:00PM ET last night all of CBC - coast to coast in Canada was showing live Marathon coverage, as was NBC on the Buffalo station. But I guess that 'Live' coverage did not show up until 3 hours later on the Seattle station. For whatever reason the HD signal on the NBC Buffalo station kept freezing last night - so I programmed my PVR to tape the Seattle NBC HD station from 8-11 last night ET. I mistakenly assumed that it would be showing live action like the Buffalo station was when its signal wasn't freezing for whatever reason. I wanted to be able to play back the NBC coverage later - just so that I could contrast NBC's coverage of events like the Hackett 1500m race and of course the quest for Phelps's 8th gold, with that of the CBC coverage I was watching live.

After all - it would have been live at 5:00PM PT on a Saturday - a time of day on Saturdays when there is often live sports coverage being shown on American television in the Pacific time zone. I can only assume that the Phelps 8th gold medal performance - which likely was shown live almost everywhere else on this planet - must have shown up 3 hours later for you poor folks in NBC PT - land. I just fast forwarded through what I had taped from the Seattle station and the end of the 3 hours I taped sure enough only had the first hour of the marathon - which had been live from 7-8PM ET.

I guess I can sort of buy into the argument on weekdays that NBC wants their neatly packaged 'big events' to be on Prime time in all time zones. But on weekends too? Seems to me American networks don't tape delay the 8:00ET NCAA Saturday night football games. NBC certainly does not tape delay their 8:00PM ET NFL Sunday night games. Why on earth tape delay live Olympic coverage at the same time.

I just don't get it.

Just a follow-up to my last post.

Gold
Silver/Silver

The rest of the world knows what that means - and has for a few hours now. They certainly know what that means in one certain country. NBC ET viewers will at some point tonight - 3 hours before their west coast friends. Do you guys have to avoid all live media if wanting to be surprised by any of the events you are watching? And doesn't that get frustrating. I know I get frustrated when watching some of CBC's stuff if I know the result before watching it because it got mentioned during a sportscast I was watching to get Jays highlights or something. But at least that is the exception rather than the rule. It was a full 12 hours before the men's 100m sprint was shown for the first time on NBC. CBC showed it live and then packaged it up nicely with interviews etc later on in prime time.

I imagine if you guys actually want to be surprised and not know the results before watching - you really must have to try to avoid all live sports reports, like Sportscenter on ESPN for the duration of the games. I would find that so frustrating.

Did anyone else find it demeaning for the NBC cameras to focus only on Michael Phelps, during the playing of the national anthem? I mean, there were 3 other guys in the 4x100m Medley Relay. Why not pan across to see Aaron's, Jason's and Brenden's faces? Why zoom into only Michael's face? Come on NBC, quit being so one-sided.

The most classless thing I have ever seen is NBC trying to sell the Michael Phelps DVD during the broadcast.

That is SHAMELESS.

It's no different than when, right after the World Series/Super Bowl/Stanley Cup/NBA finals ends, they run ads for the winning team's merchandise, DVDs, etc.

Yes, it is more than a little annoying that we West Coasters have to avoid cable TV and the internet for several hours each day for fear of hearing/seeing results. There's no way to avoid seeing Olympic results no matter what site you're visiting or which channel you turn to. And it's ridiculous that we have to wait past midnight -- and in the case of the other night, until 1 a.m. -- to see events "live" when they're actually live on the East Coast but tape delayed for the West. I don't know what the problem is with actually showing these things truly "live" on the West Coast when they're going on at 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. That's prime time! It makes no sense at all but it seems NBC wants to alienate the entire country rather than just the East Coast. In fact, I think NBC would find that their ratings would actually increase in the West by showing things at 10 p.m. rather than 1 a.m.

You make a good point about how they'd never tape delay football or other sports in the U.S. I have no idea why the Olympics should be any different.

You are right, but those are all technically professional sports.

For me it would also be different if were an NBC review of the Olympics with a specific highlight of Michael Phelps. But this specifically is to sell Michael Phelps versus Team USA... so to me that crosses the line a bit.

It just seems a bit classless and outside the spirit of the Olympics.

As I understand it, local stations make a lot of their ad money during the afternoon and early evening because all of the ads are theirs, not the network's. Stations would rather show Oprah or Jeopardy or Seinfeld reruns and keep all of the ad money, instead of showing the Olympics and having much of the ad time be network time. That may be part of the reason for the delay in the west.

The networks might show some events live (Super Bowl, Oscars) but they're one-night events. Something where local stations would lose two weeks of ad revenue might not go over so well. Stations that are affiliates (not actually owned by the network) might even opt to show their own local programming anyway.

LOL, NBC acknowledging that us Americans are losing sleep, watching the games. I was up until 2 am, watching the US/Germany Water Polo match. Only to get up at 630am. That's after staying way late sat. night and then watching all day sunday.

I can't even take a nap during my lunch hour, because I'm watching whatever's on during the noon hour.

Yeah, I'm tired.

I tell ya -- al-Jazeera Sports is the way to watch. It's a Costas-free zone.

While I haven't been glued to the set during these games, I have watched a fair amount of coverage. Much to my surprise, I have seen very few of those schmaltzy personal profiles. Seems to be alot more coverage of events, even ones not involving an American team or athlete.

As for the lack of videos on YouTube and the selling of a Phelps video, NBC paid a ridiculous amount of money for the rights to air these games so I guess they've got to make it back somehow.

Do they really refer to it as al-Jazeera Sports?

A while back a local comedian who does all kinds of sports-related impersonations and stuff on the local sports-talk station did a bit, "The NFL on al-Jazeera" broadcasting the first Eagles-Cowboys game in the post-T.O. era. Of course, it was filled with stereotypical jokes.

It's "al-Jazeera 2", which shows a lot of sports, mainly soccer, in addition to the Olympics. Team Handball is incredibly popular in this part of the world, and that gets a lot of coverage, although I just don't get that sport at all. Racing, particuarly Formula 1 is also VERY popular.

Iraqis are sports fanataics, and al-Iraqiyyah has been covering the games heavily.

I'm enjoying the coverage on nbcolympics.com more than actual tv. The picture quality is exceptional, and I can watch the events when I want (I don't a VCR, DVR, Tivo, etc.). I really like the events when they just have cameras and no commentators. You get to hear the sounds from the crowd, the athletes, and the announcers at the event. It's like being right there in the stands.

Hey Penn Stater:
What do you do in Baghdad? U.S. military? civilian? Just curious.
Jim
A fellow Penn Stater

Did NBC ever show a replay of the men's basketball final (USA vs. Spain)? I know it was supposed to air live on CBC and NBC at 2:30am EST on Saturday night, but I assumed it would be re-run on Sunday. I've been flipping channels much of the day (NBC, CBC, CBC Newsworld, TSN) but haven't seen it. I've seen the men's volleyball (which took place last night, as well) replayed multiple times, but what happened to the basketball gold medal and bronze medal (Argentina vs. Lithuania)?! I'm quite disappointed I didn't get to see that match.

I watched it live and don't think there was a replay.

Anyone planning to get the DVD of the Opening Ceremony? I wonder if it'll be like what NBC showed. With all that editing and things missing like the Athlete's Oath and the Olympic flag coming into the stadium. Plus all the countries that were glanced over.

I was watching the NBC and CBC coverage of the Closing Ceremonies and noticed that NBC had edited some parts out (CBC may have edited some parts out, too), but would hope that the DVD coverage would include more, rather than less.

This is so funny, it deserves it's own folder, but I'll put it here for now.

Here are the top nine comments made by NBC sports commentators at the Summer
Olympics that they would like to take back:


1. Weightlifting commentator: "This is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her
snatch this morning during her warm up and it was amazing."

2. Dressage commentator: "This is really a lovely horse and I speak from
personal experience since I once mounted her mother."

3. Paul Hamm, Gymnast: "I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and
father."

4. Boxing Analyst: "Sure there have been injuries,and even some deaths in
boxing, but none of them really that serious."

5. Softball announcer: "If history repeats itself, I should think we can
expect the same thing again."

6. Basketball analyst: "He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn't like
it. In fact you can see it all over their faces

7. At the rowing medal ceremony: "Ah, isn't that nice, the wife of the IOC
president is hugging the cox of the British crew."

8. Soccer commentator: "Julian Dicks is everywhere. It's like they've got
eleven Dicks on the field."

9. Tennis commentator: "One of the reasons Andy is playing so well is that,
before the final round, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them... Oh
my God, what have I just said?"

Tealsea, that was great. Loved all of them. I'm sure they would be even more funny hearing them live. Like #8 the best.

Seems like NBC as own the olympic coverage forever. Does anyone know how many years NBC still has on their contract? Personally, I think the time is way overdue for another network to take over.

Refering back to my post before the olympics started, concerning NBCs coverage and their autumn shows. The Christian Slater show won't fly. Every commercial break had the promo for this.
And in my same post I said I wish I had a dollar everytime NBC said Mike Phelps. Thankfully, I'm now have $323,638 more in my checking account.