Watching the Olympics via Internet

"Full-Screen" View

Since we don't have a television, we were expecting to miss the Olympics again this year... but didn't want to. We were ready to sign up and pay for Internet video if it was available. It's available... and it's free!! Just visit nbcolympics.com and download the Silverstream plug-in for Firefox. At first we couldn't get Silverstream (Microsoft's version of flash video) to work on the Mac, but after a re-install we are super-hep with a video area of 846 x 480 pixels. For a shared experience, we pump it up to the big screen w/ an lcd projector.

The Olympic Live Control Room

So far, I have not had to watch a single dramatization of an athlete's story. Nor have I had to listen to any kind of commentary during the events (aside from some highlight reels.) We can watch events in their entirety, including the setup and the breakdown and all the slaggage during the proceedings. We can hear the grunts and the splashes. And, since we don't have a t.v., it's been easy to avoid spoilers and watch the events when we can / when we want to. This is important as the boys are enjoying everything from the swim races to judo to pistol shooting to archery to rowing and much more to come.

Highlights view

The navigation on the left breaks everything up into 5 sections: 1) Live Control Room; 2) Navigate by sport; 3) Most watched; 4) As seen on t.v. and 5) Highlights (by day). In the Live Control Room, you can browse through the live and already-archived events and place them into the main window and 3 side-screens to watch 4 concurrently. During a commercial, you are not able to click around and choose a new event. There are commercials but usually only 15-second spots and never interrupt events that you are already watching. They are loud, though, since everything else is so quiet.