The Olympics on Your PC

When the Olympic flame is fired up in Beijing tomorrow, and the Games begin, many people will realize that they can't watch their favorite athlete or event because of the time zone difference with China. Well this year is the first time ever that most of the events will also be available in high quality HD directly on your PC at any time you like (yes, even at work when your boss is not looking).

NBC had partnered with Microsoft to deliver the 2008 Beijing Summer Games over the internet. At first NBC considered going with Adobe Flash which is considered the industry standard for Web video, but Microsoft was able to convince NBC that their Silverlight technology will deliver better quality to the end user. They plan on streaming most of the events live, and also make them available as on-demand content for your viewing pleasure any time you like.

Thanks to Silverlight, NBC can offer a unique viewing experience not even available on high end TVs. For example, they will offer a picture-in-picture view of two simultaneous events, and, for the real sports junkies, a "control room" mode with four events streaming side by side on the screen.

I can't imagine the complexity involved in delivering such a massive amount of data to so many users in real-time. This drawing (taken form an interesting News.com article) tries to explain it:



It is interesting to see how this "experiment" turns out, and if the masses are ready for Web TV (and if the technology stack is there too).

Don't forget to check out the NBC Beijing 2008 site at NBC Olympics.