[veggiedude]

I tried to view the NBC content but Safari kept crashing when loading Silverlight video media.
Had to use FireFox.

[macFanDave]

flybynight said:

You call for a free market and nationalization in the same paragraph? WTF?
We are paying for the government to screw up too many things as it is. They need to get smaller, not larger.

You don't know how "free markets" work here in America. Lots of government granted monopolies of the commons, etc. Corporations lease our airwaves from the FCC and yet don't live up to any of the duties they are required to fulfill in exchange for the exclusive use of the frequency bands (and our government has to enforce that.) Drug companies take basic molecules discovered in government labs, take the low-risk step of making a medicine from them, obtaining a long-term patent on that drug and selling it to the taxpaying citizens at exorbitant prices (while citizens of countries where the government does the bidding of the people pay much less.)

Our free markets are not free. Bogus patents and copyrights, monopolies, unenforced anti-trust laws and sweetheart deals to cronies are all ways that the government sides with corporate power to the detriment of the consumers and the workers.

If we nationalized the Olympics, the media coverage would be a real free market, but we Americans would have a hard time recognizing a free market if it bit us on the ass. (The only examples I can think of are Presidential debates and the State of the Union Address where you can choose from many competing networks to see the coverage you like best.)

[MacNano]

With Flip4Mac and Perian installed, Quicktime now plays everything except Silverlight, videos that require "Active-X," and Real Player video and... (I hope I didn't forget any!).
I really wish that we could move toward open source video codecs so that everyone could play any video online with a basic player. We need some standards body to take over this area of computing for the benefit of everybody, like they just did with the PDF format. This proprietary junk makes watching video online VERY DIFFICULT. Want to increase the number of viewers? Make it easy for grandpa and grandma to watch your video on an OLD computer.

[megatrick]

Why do you think it's called MSNBC?

[venividivici]

tmedia1 said:

I couldn't agree with you more! And whats up with the American swimmer Coventry representing Zimbabwe. She lives and works in Austin Texas.

Her residence is in the U.S. but She's originally from Zimbabwe, and she's proud of it. As hard as it may seem to you and many other people, there are plenty of people living in the U.S. that are proud citizens of other countries and are only legal residents of the USA. They will take no time to represent their countries over the U.S.

More than half of professional Soccer, Baseball, Hockey players and coaches are not U.S. citizens by birth.

Non-US-citizens are as proud of their country as you're proud of yours.

p.s. And the term American can be used as:
# An inhabitant of the Americas. More often this is specified as either North American, Central American or South American.
# A person born in, or a citizen of, the United States of America.

[venividivici]

> Our free markets are not free. Bogus patents and copyrights, monopolies, unenforced anti-trust laws and sweetheart deals to cronies are all ways that the government sides with corporate power to the detriment of the consumers and the workers.
[/quote]


True that.


> If we nationalized the Olympics, the media coverage would be a real free market, but we Americans would have a hard time recognizing a free market if it bit us on the ass. (The only examples I can think of are Presidential debates and the State of the Union Address where you can choose from many competing networks to see the coverage you like best.)
[/quote]
And that's not that 'free' The coverage is free but the feed is not. They have access to the same feed, but they do not have access to shooting it or having the cameras in any way they want to.

[Tom_Diola]

And we care about this why ?

Every 4 years for 17 days this happens. . .

[Bernardinho]

The Olympics look great on my iPhone and on my powerPC based Mac! I suppose I'm lucky to live in the UK and have the BBC iPlayer available. That's free TV on demand with no advertising!

[Schneb]

macFanDave said:

I disagree. I want to see the very best athletes in the world compete regardless of their amateur/professional status.

Can't help but agree with pretty much everything you wrote. I would, however, demand that the Olympics media should be open and in a non-proprietary format. Are the Olympics a global exhibition or a corporate thing? The ability to watch your country via the Web should be free and accessible--no matter the platform.

[Lisamacnewton]

Zucker and Ballmer are indeed vindictive playground bullies that are thinking they're squeezing the public to "go M$ and NBC". NBC is floundering and M$ is a bloated pig that's slowly losing ground. They deserve each other. When they realize (after the fact, like always) that what's actually going on isn't quite as planned, then they'll rationalize it away with more BS. What ever.
Isn't it neat to see all those Macs in the "special segments" that NBC sports produced (the gymnastic women in particular) and the iPod earphones hanging out of the swimmers? YAY. Suprised that Microsoft didn't have the editors blur out the logos......

[patschutz]

NBC and Apple need to settle their disagreements. There is so much great content that NBC offers, it is a shame the Itunes store is left out. Also,the software that NBC produced runs only on Vista Premium and Home Premium. NBC definitely needs to add Leopard support!

[Gbreed]

Once again NBC and MS is willing to leave Apple out in the cold. History taught them nothing.

[karlfranz]

I have a Penryn MacBook Pro. I tried to view the video feeds on nbcolympics.com and had to install the MS Silverlight plugin. After doing so, every time I attempt to watch a video Safari completely crashes and goes away. A quick search on Google showed that I am not alone with this problem?leave it up to Microsoft to put out this crap. The ONLY plugin I have ever installed that repeatably can make Safari crash. I'm truly disappointed, but not surprised at the usual third-rate products that MS continues to pass on to consumers.

[trinigianetti]

I'm outside the US. Is there anywhere else I can get streaming video. Or is there a way to spoof the IP address so that I can watch it on NBColympics.com ?