NBC’s Olympics live streamYou don’t have to go to China to see the summer Olympics in Beijing – and you don’t have to watch the obscure sport you enjoy at 2 in the morning either.
Perkins Miller, NBC’s senior VP of digital media for sports and Olympics said the Peacock Network will have live Web coverage of the entire Games this August. It will also archive 2,200 hours of video: not only every day of the Olympics, but nearly every competition too.
“We’re talking about doing 25 sports online that we aren’t really doing on broadcast,” Miller said.
NBC is using Microsoft’s Web application “Silverlight,” planning the process over the last nine months. NBC and Microsoft have a relationship already, of course sharing the MSNBC brand.
Bill Gates announced the use of Silverlight back in January, but now we know more about what’s happening for the Olympic Games. At its peak, it will host more than 20 live video streams at the same time, plus archive several thousand more hours of highlights, replays and profiles. Gates said fans will also be able to pop up text content for each sport, like statistics, official rules and athlete profiles (maybe even the traditional NBC profiles, with dramatic music)
Miller said in terms of the Olympics, Microsoft is a media and technology company that can contribute more than just software to coverage of the games. Testing of the site’s live streaming will take place during Olympic qualifying rounds, which kicked off earlier this year.
You can’t dodge the ads, though (except with TiVo). Miller said during live streaming of the Olympics, NBC will promote “dynamic ads.” He said the TV network is also trying to head off piracy by “having conversations” with YouTube and similar content sites.
