[cjrleimer]

I am curious to know when Directv will announce their olympic coverage for 2012. This is my first Olympics with Directv, and I am curious to know specifically if they will have the Basketball and Soccer Olympic channels, and if they will have a channel with a mosaic of whats going on.

 

[JoeTheDragon]

I am curious to know when Directv will announce their olympic coverage for 2012. This is my first Olympics with Directv, and I am curious to know specifically if they will have the Basketball and Soccer Olympic channels, and if they will have a channel with a mosaic of whats going on.

likely not not as comcarp / nbc has the rights.

 

[cjrleimer]

likely not not as comcarp / nbc has the rights.

Ok, but I meant to say something like this http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=135115

 

[wmb]

Ok, but I meant to say something like this http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=135115

Thanks for the link. Gives a good indication of what to expect.

If you look at the channels from that page, most are already carried by DirecTV, just remapped into the 750s to make them a block.

They added 2 channels, a soccer channel and a basketball channel. I will be disappointed if they don't add the soccer channel, but not nearly as disappointed as I was in March, when the US men's team gave up a goal to El Salvador in added time and was knocked out of the tournament.

Oh, I have a strange feeling there will be no need for the Mandarin and Korean channels this time around.

 

[maartena]

likely not not as comcarp / nbc has the rights.

They had the rights in 2008 as well.

I am thinking that we can expect something similar in coverage as in 2008, including the soccer and basketball channels.

The press release linked above was from August 2008, only DAYS before the Olympics started. This year the Olympics start on July 27th, so if they announce in similar fashion, we'll see an announcement probably somewhere around the 25th.

I would think there won't be Mandarin/Korean channels this year as the Olympics aren't in China, but other then that.... There isn't any reason to think they won't do something very similar to 2008 with the 2 dedicated soccer and basketball channels, and a dedicated channel range just mirroring the channels NBC uses for the Olympics.

Don't be so gloomy, you'll get all the Olympics you want and more. It's not going to cost any extra permanent bandwidth, not more then the temporary Golf and Tennis channels they have.

 

[trh]

They had all those channels for the 2008 Olympics, but I don't remember that much DirecTV coverage for the 2010 Olympics.

 

[sigma1914]

They had all those channels for the 2008 Olympics, but I don't remember that much DirecTV coverage for the 2010 Olympics.

That's because the Summer games have more events and is bigger than the Winter games.

 

[Eksynyt]

More tape delayed crap coverage for the west coast

 

[JoeTheDragon]

They had the rights in 2008 as well.

I am thinking that we can expect something similar in coverage as in 2008, including the soccer and basketball channels.

The press release linked above was from August 2008, only DAYS before the Olympics started. This year the Olympics start on July 27th, so if they announce in similar fashion, we'll see an announcement probably somewhere around the 25th.

I would think there won't be Mandarin/Korean channels this year as the Olympics aren't in China, but other then that.... There isn't any reason to think they won't do something very similar to 2008 with the 2 dedicated soccer and basketball channels, and a dedicated channel range just mirroring the channels NBC uses for the Olympics.

Don't be so gloomy, you'll get all the Olympics you want and more. It's not going to cost any extra permanent bandwidth, not more then the temporary Golf and Tennis channels they have.

in 08 it was not comcast

 

[ladannen]

More tape delayed crap coverage for the west coast

Yes, but that doesn't have anything to do with DirecTV. Just something that is common west of the Rocky Mountains.
I lived in Hawaii during the 80s and early 90s, and Monday Night Football was tape delayed every week during the football season.
Every Monday night the 6:00 local news would show the score of the game in progress that was to be televised later that evening. They called it "close your eyes time".
Just something we got used to.

 

[bobnielsen]

It would be great if the NBC East DNS feed was opened to all for the Olympics, but I don't see it happening.

In 1964, NASA had Hughes modify the Syncom III satellite to carry narrow-bandwidth B&W television and the only "live" telecast from the Japan Olympics was for the opening ceremony. It was tape delayed on the west coast so as not to interfere with the Tonight Show (since I had worked on that sat, I stayed up all night to watch it). All other NBC coverage was by tapes flown daily from Tokyo. Some news programs on other networks used footage sent via satellite.

 

[maartena]

in 08 it was not comcast

No, but your gloom thinking that Comcast is going to change everything, and not going to give us anything good for the Olympics is quite unjustified.

First off, the broadcast rights (and how NBC is going to handle them) for the 2012 Olympics were set in stone YEARS ago, a long time before the merger was done. Furthermore, in early 2011 they got the rights for 4 more games (2014, 16, 18 and 2020).

Second, Olympics coverage is a whole different beast. The Olympic Committee has very strict rules on availability, and want the games to be accessible to as many viewers as possible. I don't know the exact lettering of any of the contracts of course, but there are provisions in there that the games should be available to as many viewers as possible, and cannot be placed in separate, must-pay-extra-to-get type packages.

Pretty much all cable outlets, including Time Warner Cable which is what I had in 2008 showed the Soccer and Basketball channels, and back then TWC didn't carry BRAVO in HD yet, but they did for the period the Olympics were on.

People are so afraid that Comcast is going to use the Olympics as leverage to get certain channels launched and whatnot.... but I believe those worries are just not justified.

If all else fails, NBC has already announced EVERYTHING, EVERY match, EVERY event will be broadcast. If you can't find it on your TV set, know everything (yes everything) will be online. Free of charge.

And that last sentence is important: If it is available to everyone, free of charge, online.... there really is no need for Comcast/NBC to get nasty and deny channels to DirecTV for a 3-week event.

So stop worrying about the Olympics. You'll be able to see it ALL live online.

 

[maartena]

More tape delayed crap coverage for the west coast

Yep I absolutely hate that.

But then, NBC's prime time (and other channel's prime time) programming will be tape delayed on the east coast as well. The games are 5 hours ahead of EST, and by the time it is 7:00 PM on the east coast and people got home from work to catch up on the Olympics.... most athletes are already on 1 ear, dreaming about the next day of competition as it is Midnight in London then.

Also, DirecTV has no control over that.

And again as I mentioned in the post above: If you want to watch it live, EVERY event will be available live online.

 

[JoeTheDragon]

No, but your gloom thinking that Comcast is going to change everything, and not going to give us anything good for the Olympics is quite unjustified.

First off, the broadcast rights (and how NBC is going to handle them) for the 2012 Olympics were set in stone YEARS ago, a long time before the merger was done. Furthermore, in early 2011 they got the rights for 4 more games (2014, 16, 18 and 2020).

Second, Olympics coverage is a whole different beast. The Olympic Committee has very strict rules on availability, and want the games to be accessible to as many viewers as possible. I don't know the exact lettering of any of the contracts of course, but there are provisions in there that the games should be available to as many viewers as possible, and cannot be placed in separate, must-pay-extra-to-get type packages.

Pretty much all cable outlets, including Time Warner Cable which is what I had in 2008 showed the Soccer and Basketball channels, and back then TWC didn't carry BRAVO in HD yet, but they did for the period the Olympics were on.

People are so afraid that Comcast is going to use the Olympics as leverage to get certain channels launched and whatnot.... but I believe those worries are just not justified.

If all else fails, NBC has already announced EVERYTHING, EVERY match, EVERY event will be broadcast. If you can't find it on your TV set, know everything (yes everything) will be online. Free of charge.

And that last sentence is important: If it is available to everyone, free of charge, online.... there really is no need for Comcast/NBC to get nasty and deny channels to DirecTV for a 3-week event.

So stop worrying about the Olympics. You'll be able to see it ALL live online.

But I can see comcast saying NO mix channels for you as our cable systems are not setup for it.

 

[mhking]

Yep I absolutely hate that.

But then, NBC's prime time (and other channel's prime time) programming will be tape delayed on the east coast as well. The games are 5 hours ahead of EST, and by the time it is 7:00 PM on the east coast and people got home from work to catch up on the Olympics.... most athletes are already on 1 ear, dreaming about the next day of competition as it is Midnight in London then.

Also, DirecTV has no control over that.

And again as I mentioned in the post above: If you want to watch it live, EVERY event will be available live online.

Not only that -- NBC has dumped Silverlight in favor of YouTube for their streaming technology, so you won't be stuck with some weird or proprietary streaming technology.

 

[John Strk]

What about Universal Sports HD? Is D* ever going to add it? It would be nice to see replays of the events through out the games on that channel

 

[paakoridge]

Does anyone know the depth of the on-demand coverage and availability on DirecTV? For example, if NBC filmed all events in track and field, or at least the finals of events and put them in on-demand, former hammer throwers like me could enjoy this event. It will likely get little or no exposure in the mainstream coverage, as is true with other field events..

 

[sum_random_dork]

More tape delayed crap coverage for the west coast

What I have read we on the West Coast won't see as much tape delayed events. NBC plans to use NBC Sportsnet a lot more and will base a fair amount of coverage there. I would imagine NBC will have more of the packaged stories etc. With the online streaming and Twitter/FB audience now it's much harder than ever to do tape delay and expect people to tune in.

 

[maartena]

But I can see comcast saying NO mix channels for you as our cable systems are not setup for it.

Correct me if I am wrong here.... But isn't it DirecTV themselves that just combine feeds they already receive into a mix channel?

I can't imagine they have to work with Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg and others separately to create the news feed mix channel they have.

If this is the case, I don't think Comcast or NBC has anything to say about that.

Are you trying to find problems where there really are none?

 

[JoeTheDragon]

Correct me if I am wrong here.... But isn't it DirecTV themselves that just combine feeds they already receive into a mix channel?

I can't imagine they have to work with Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg and others separately to create the news feed mix channel they have.

If this is the case, I don't think Comcast or NBC has anything to say about that.

Are you trying to find problems where there really are none?

maybe but what they did in 2010 still has the bad taste left overs.