NBC To Offer Complete Olympics Online — But Only To Windows Vista

[furcalchick]

found this on the interwebs today and i just wanted to get some thoughts on nbc making their online olympics videos vista only. frankly, i don't care that much for the olympics but it looks like a fail.

NBC for the first time will offer complete video of the Summer Olympic Games online, but critics say the plan is barely worthy of a bronze medal.

"NBC Olympics on the Go" will allow consumers to download any event from the games to watch on their personal computers for free, a big step up from the select highlights it offered from the 2004 Athens Summer Games.

But the new service is available only to computers running Microsoft's (MSFT) Vista operating system — a limitation that leaves out millions of Windows XP and Apple (AAPL) Mac users as well as those using mobile devices such as iPods and mobile phones.

And only two flavors of Vista — Home Premium and Ultimate — have the Media Center component necessary for running NBC's software. That eliminates most business notebooks.

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=17&artnum=2&issue=20080623

also, it mentions that nbc has to air the event first (that means having to wait around after their tape delays to watch it), which makes wanting to see the events live a bit of a waste.:(

[tsice19]

Meh. I'd rather watch it on TV anyway.


I don't like the buffering of streaming television.

[airlights]

How lame!

[monke]

It has to be Vista with Media Center.

Wow, NBC, yet another fail. This one just happens to be epic.

Meh, I'm all about the Winter Olympics, not so much the Summer ones.

[The Phazer]

You'll be able to stream it anyway with other OSes

It would appear NBC only have the rights to offer it for a certain length of time, so it needs to have timed expiry DRM. If Apple would licence Fairplay out broadcasters could try doing it with Macs too, but given they don't I don't see NBC have much choice (granted, shutting out XP is weird).

Phazer

[jptelthorst]

This is stupid even if you're a Windows fan. Most people still run XP.

[taylorwilsdon]

This is stupid even if you're a Windows fan. Most people still run XP.

Its a DRM and Licensing issue, not a choice issue. They wouldn't have done this if they didn't have to. Apple is extremely stubborn on working with 3rd parties on the subject of DRM, which I have mixed feelings on, and XP doesn't support the necessary components.

[stagi]

guess I won't be watching

[kresh]

How nice. China, NBC and Microsoft have banded together to make the 2008 Olympics the most draconian event in the Olympics' history!

[The Phazer]

Its a DRM and Licensing issue, not a choice issue. They wouldn't have done this if they didn't have to. Apple is extremely stubborn on working with 3rd parties on the subject of DRM, which I have mixed feelings on, and XP doesn't support the necessary components.

XP does support the necessary components as long as WMP 11 is installed - services such as the BBC iPlayer download service use them.

Which is why shutting out XP users is... odd.

Phazer

[question fear]

It has to be Vista with Media Center.

Wow, NBC, yet another fail. This one just happens to be epic.

Meh, I'm all about the Winter Olympics, not so much the Summer ones.

I have 3 words for you: Women's. Beach. Volleyball.

[Stampyhead]

Its a DRM and Licensing issue, not a choice issue. They wouldn't have done this if they didn't have to. Apple is extremely stubborn on working with 3rd parties on the subject of DRM, which I have mixed feelings on, and XP doesn't support the necessary components.

Why does it have to be DRM'd in the first place? Are they afraid of people selling bootleg copies of the Olympics? Good grief...
I don't personally care about the Olympics anyway so I wouldn't be watching it even if it were universally available. I'm just once again baffled at NBC's prevention of technology...

[jptelthorst]

XP does support the necessary components as long as WMP 11 is installed - services such as the BBC iPlayer download service use them.

Which is why shutting out XP users is... odd.

Exactly. Perhaps Microsoft is trying to make running XP as annoying as possible, to force people to upgrade?

[twoodcc]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

wow, this is very disappointing

[The Phazer]

Why does it have to be DRM'd in the first place? Are they afraid of people selling bootleg copies of the Olympics? Good grief...

It has to be DRMed because NBC's broadcast rights will not extend to giving people permanently ownable copies. Presumably the Olympics has sold the rights to the footage as archive or to be sold as DVD's etc to someone else, probably for large sums of money.

Hence any download service needs to be like a rental system and expire after a few days. Services like these are much more financially plausible for broadcasters than giving permanently downloadable copies (which is very expensive in terms of residuals and buying in third party rights like music etc), so Apple really needs to get out there are start letting people use Fairplay for free/ad funded content if they ever want to have mass Mac support from broadcasters. Apple's product is much more reliable and installed than Microsoft's DRM solutions. Apple just have to let companies buy it!

Phazer

[splashnader]

Didn't Apple and NBC recently have some kind of fallout over the price of downloaded tv shows on itunes. NBC wanted to charge more for the downloads than Apple did, or something like that. I could be wrong, though.

[Michael CM1]

Didn't Apple and NBC recently have some kind of fallout over the price of downloaded tv shows on itunes. NBC wanted to charge more for the downloads than Apple did, or something like that. I could be wrong, though.

No, you're not wrong. NBC threw a hissyfit that Apple, the innovator of downloadable video, wanted to throw their weight around. So instead of negotiating it out, they created...shoot, what's it called? Fungo? Xenga?

If you noticed, Apple caved a little bit with the HBO stuff because their episodes for stuff like The Sopranos sell for $2.99. Meanwhile, about the only way I watch NBC stuff online is through their crappy Web-based stuff (only if I miss a show).

The fact is the providers and the portals need to get to where they're a little more compatible. This means no more DRM on digital audio (it works for Amazon) and possibly a move toward this in the video sector. You remove all of these rights-management things and you'll increase the competition in the industry. Thieves will get around DRM, so stop basing the entire thing based on what the small number of people who steal do. Arrgh!

[The Phazer]

The fact is the providers and the portals need to get to where they're a little more compatible. This means no more DRM on digital audio (it works for Amazon) and possibly a move toward this in the video sector. You remove all of these rights-management things and you'll increase the competition in the industry. Thieves will get around DRM, so stop basing the entire thing based on what the small number of people who steal do. Arrgh!

DRM will have to stay for video, because you can't have rentals without it. And people do not want to pay the amount permament ownership costs.

Phazer