HD Olympic Games Opening Ceremony/Ongoing Coverage: What's Going On??? (1 Viewer)

[Galen_V]

I swear to you, I said the exact same thing! At one point, I was half expecting Al Roker to come out right before the Parade of Nations with a gigantic pair of scissors and yell "Let's have a a parade!"

Doing play by play and color commentary on a scripted event is already an awkward thing to begin with, but neither Couric nor Costas did anything to make the situation any better. However, Costas really went overboard with the sarcasm, to the point that it was more insulting and obnoxious than anything else. I guess he has been away from doing actual work for NBC Sports for so long that his HBO show has started to creep into his broadcasting style. Even tonight, at the very end of NBC's coverage, he seemed to go out of his way to smash Kostas Kenteris for no apparent reason. Hopefully one of the suits at the network sees this as well.

However, what I found more infuriating than the Opening Ceremonies coverage was NBC's coverage today. Instead of showing the 400 IM final live during their 6 hour block from Noon-6pm, NBC decided to show the tape delayed prelims and save the final for the primetime show. While I can understand the desire to have a marquee event like Thorpe on in primetime, you would think that on a Saturday afternoon, when most people are home, that it wouldn't hurt to show it live at 3 pm and then show a tape of it again later! Furthermore, by the time they did show the race, everyone knew who had won (it was all over the news and radio) and any sense of drama was killed before a video of the event could be shown. If this happened on a weekday, I would understand that not many people would watch. But, to not show it live on a weekend when most people on the east coast are home bunkering down because of an impending hurricane/tropical storm? Come on NBC.

 

[Will_B]

Costas reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live performer Joe Piscopo.

I can't take Costas seriously since he doesn't take the Olympics seriously. Is he a sports announcer or something? Save him for when the sports start, in that case. He was out of his depth on the opening ceremonies.

The perfect commentator for the coverage of the opening ceremonies would be NO ONE AT ALL.

 

[andrew markworthy]

I don't think you can blame the Greek TV source. The BBC took the same pictures and I thought the coverage was exemplary. Sorry to hear you guys have had such a rotten time, because the opening ceremony was one of the best. [Okay, the entry of the teams was tedious, but it always is]. The BBC commentator kept his comments to a minimum, explaining some of the less obvious classical references in the opening tableaux, but otherwise keeping quiet.

Incidentally, have you guys got interactive choice of coverage? The BBC digital services are in effect offering five different channels - the 'standard' one (and the only one available to terrestrial viewers) is like a 'best of' magazine programme, but on the alternative channels you can have pretty much continuous coverage from four different arenas. As I'm typing this, my daughter is more or less glued to the continuous coverage of the women's gymnastics. In addition, we can also look up medal tables, the headlines, etc.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

The US has 1 channel doing HD coverage, 1 doing Spanish-language coverage and 5 doing regular coverage. They aren't all round the clock, though.

 

[Michael Harris]

I am sitting here watching the women's road bike race live and complete on USA. What excellent coverage. Contrast that to the coverage of the men's race that was chopped up and tape delayed on NBC's saterday night prime-time coverage. I guess the seemingly less popular a sport is perceived the better the coverage. Counter-intuitive?

NBC is blowing a great opportunity. They have so many outlets they could easily show live coverage on their cable networks and then put a slick highlights program on NBC for primetime which will appeal to the casual fan who is interested in the "story" rather then the events. I know it will never happen but I can dream.

 

[John_Lee]

Thus far, now that we're out of the 'all Opening Ceremony, all the time' phase, I have three HD channels [one local, two dish] showing the exact same thing, the local NBC channel going in and out of coverage, Bravo showing the same thing as the 3 HD channels, one new, nonHD channel showing Oly Tennis, and a little bit on USA.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Annoyingly, we don't have Telemundo here, only Univision. I was wantting to watch the Iraq/Costa Rica socccer game.

 

[George Fogel]

I can understand that the scarcity of HD camera/editing equipment is limiting the number of events included in the HD coverage. I caught the opening day ceremonies on and off on Saturday, and thought that technically, the coverage was wonderful. The placement of commercial breaks was just plain horrible.

Still, the question remains: why is the coverage one day late? The lack of sufficient cameras doesn't explain that.

 

[David Judah]

Click here for a programming grid of all the channels. If you want just the HD listing then click on "NBC HDTV" at the bottom.

DJ

 

[David Judah]

George,

I haven't heard an explanation from NBC why they are delaying it by 24 hrs., but my guess would be they don't have the equipment to run it live and provide the dolby digital track in real time.

On a seperate note, I saw a logo on one of the SD channels that the Olympics were being presented in Dolby Pro-Logic II. I knew they've used the encoders before for other specials, but it's the first time I've seen it listed during programming.

DJ

 

[Michael St. Clair]

I can't believe that even the HDTV commentators talked over Bjork. Yet they clammed up pretty well for the choir at the end.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Ok, I'll bite. Why wouldn't they have the equipment to run it live? They have to record it that way, don't they? I can't see Greek TV handing NBC tapes of the last 24 hours. Hell, CNN could provide live coverage.

If Greece didn't have the quipment don't you think that NBC would provide it?

Glenn

 

[ThomasC]

David Judah said earlier that "it probably boiled down to money they didn't want to spend for what they considered a small audience that are HD capable."

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Nice, Thomas! I've been thinking now that the 24 hour delay is so NBC can weed through the crap, and only show the finals that we are in, or even the prelims that we are in, and just cut out the rest and then broadcast them in 4 hour chunks.

Gee, I'm glad they aren't biased!

Also, (jokingly) trying to figure out how Puerto Rice even got into the Olympics, when they belong to us. Maybe California could send their own team in next time!

Someone needs to do something about this monopolistic broadcasting!

Glenn

 

[Steve Schaffer]

Reason for the 24 hr delay on HD feed:

HD channels are not counted toward an affiliate's Nielsen ratings, so the network decided on the delay in the hopes that most affiliates would run the HD feed on thier HD channels rather than simulcasting an upconvert of the SD programming. The idea is for the HD stuff to be a sort of high-end "highlights" loop that could be watched during offpeak times of day and not detract from the ratings for the regular SD stuff run during primetime.

NBC has promised that the 06 winter games will be broadcast simultaneously in HD and analog with the same content and announcers.

 

[Paul Sandhu]

I didn't like it either. Thats why I watched CBC's feed of the ceremonies. Sure it wasn't HD, but at least it was proper.

They still had a lot of commericals, but only half that of NBC.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Steve that's what I suspected. I'm surprised any network supports HD at all with Nielsen not counting it.

 

[PeteyG]

Steve - that is incorrect. As long as the HD content matches the broadcast content, Nielsen counts it towards the ratings.

I thought the same thing as you did (I also thought it may have to do something with the advertising deal they had with Sony) - my wife works for Nielsen and reconfirmed over the weekend that this was not the case (she was actually working all weekend long b/c of the Olympics and NBC's need for ratings ASAP).

Once again, NBC butchers Olympics coverage. It's so frustrating.

Pete

 

[John Lloyd]

Apparently there are no problems broadcasting HDTV live to Japan and South Korea.

 

[Citizen87645]

That schedule doesn't say if those events are in true HD. Thus far it just looks like my local affilate has been simulcasting the main NBC feed. For instance on Saturday night, the schedule said Opening Ceremony, but I was getting the gymnastics and swimming events, same as the regular broadcast. Maybe my affiliate is messing this up?