
I'm an American and I want to watch the Olympics. What do I do? - sudonim
http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Watch-olympics-streaming-free.html
======
acabal
This exact same thing happened to me today!

I'm in Germany, so I put the Olympics on TV. But I don't yet speak German, so
after an hour I wanted to watch them in English.

I went to the NBC web site, but they geolocate your IP and only stream to US
people. Fine, I'm used to this crap (lots of Youtube videos are blocked in
Germany too) so I just fired up my proxy and tried again. This time I got
through, only to find that they're asking me to log in to a cable provider
first! What the hell!

After scouring the internet I found a huge list of Olympics streaming
broadcasters. Turns out the BBC is broadcasting online too. So I try them--
same thing, blocked outside of the UK! But this time I don't have a proxy in
the UK, so I gave up and watched the damn thing in German.

I get the theory of having to go through a cable provider login to get the US
Olympics. But what if you're a taxpaying UK citizen abroad for a while? You've
paid your tax--but you still can't access the stream!

Wasn't the internet supposed to break through barriers like space and
location? In the year 2012 am I seriously being denied an English-language
broadcast of a global event just because my laptop is currently in Germany?

Sure I can jump through even more hoops and figure out a UK-based VPN or some
crap. But the point is I shouldn't have to do this! We're in 2012 people! Why
even have the internet if we're just going to lock up information according to
where you live?

~~~
mindslight
> _Wasn't the internet supposed to break through barriers like space and
> location?_

The Internet philosophy eschews these things, but the implementation simply
ignores them. Of course the incumbents desire to reimplement their archaic
business models on top of TCP/IP. It's up to us to carry the philosophy and
create higher level protocols that are resistant to such things; fiefdom-based
HTTP certainly isn't.

~~~
TheGateKeeper
It not only ignores them but people purposely place these restrictions on them
for greedy reasons.

Frankly, in my experience it doesn't take a lot to enable multicast and doing
it internet wide _shouldn't_ be that big of a deal so we can handle all the
streaming of live events with little worry - but the "powers that be" want to
restrict everything online and it's frustrating, angering and downright
dangerous attitude to have as a defacto "standard".

~~~
antr
100% agree.

This time the "powers that be" are playing against the US consumer. I hope
that this event sparks some empathy between the US and rest of the World. What
many of the US consumers are suffering with the Olympics (broadcasting delay
and accessibility), is what the RoW suffers when trying to consume US media
(film and TV).

Monetising today's content with an old distribution model is a dead business,
and will only help support the consumption of "pirated" content.

------
OmarIsmail
Sign up for www.unblock-us.com or www.unotelly.com and watch the amazing BBC
coverage on iPlayer. Super super simple setup.

Personally, I prefer www.unblock-us.com

~~~
kristofferR
Just use <http://tunlr.net/> 's DNS servers instead - it's the same type of
service, just completely free and with no signup required.

Primary DNS: 64.250.122.104 Secondary DNS: 199.167.30.144

~~~
nazgulnarsil
how did you use this to watch iPlayer? It seems like it is for giving a US
based DNS for people outside the US.

~~~
mcpherrinm
The DNS resolves supported websites to their hosts, which proxy through the
US. (n.b, not verified but that's a sane implementation of this)

------
jimhirshfield
This won't get you live coverage, but it will get you legal NBC coverage on
your home TV... The broadcast industry does not want American's to know this,
but they are legally obligated to provide the free "over the air" stations on
cable (coax) even if you do not pay for cable service. In other words, do what
I have done: 1\. You need a modern cable-ready TV 2\. Plug the coax into the
wall (assumes your residence had cable installation at one point). 3\. Plug
other end of coax into your TV. 4\. Scan for channels. 5\. Voila: CBS, ABC,
NBC, PBS, and more.

Yes, it's that simple. And this is NOT using the coax as an RF antenna. This
is the cable company providing me with what I am legally entitled to: over the
air stations in a digital age.

The cable companies are trying to fight this, but as of now, it exists. It's
legal. And it works. My son's watching PBS Kids as I type. And we watched many
Olympic events through-out the days today - OK, not live, but still I DO NOT
PAY FOR TV.

~~~
ja27
Are you sure cable providers are required to provide free over-the-air
stations? I haven't heard of that being a requirement and can't find anything
online except vague claims without citations. I've heard of low-cost plans
that provide all the equivalent over-the-air stations, but no legal
requirement to provide those for free.

That said, this certainly does work for some people. It worked for us for a
while after we dropped the TV part of our plan but then one day we couldn't
receive any channels over the coax, so I assume they installed a filter.

~~~
detst
I can't cite a source but I'm quite certain that there is no requirement to
provide these channels to non-customers. The requirement is that they
broadcast those channels in the clear to customers. That means without a
physical filter, non-customers get the channels. Adding/removing filters means
a truck roll and $ so often you get lucky.

~~~
jimhirshfield
I'd agree that if your home never had cable, SOL. And you're right that
there's nothing in it for them to drive a truck around...it's just s/w setting
to turn off your paid subscription. However, see my comment above re ClearQAM,
and link to Fred's post.

~~~
detst
Where in there does he, or the link he references, substantiate the following
claim?

    
    
      The broadcast industry does not want American's to know
      this, but they are legally obligated to provide the free
      "over the air" stations on cable (coax) even if you do not
      pay for cable service.
    

If you follow the link trail, you'll find this quote from the FCC:

    
    
      broadcast signals that are subject to mandatory carriage
      must be "viewable via cable on all television receivers of
      a subscriber which are connected to a cable system by a
      cable operator or for which a cable operator provides a
      connection."
    

Which is another way of saying what I wrote above. Bottom line is: if you
aren't paying for cable video service and receiving these channels, you're
benefiting from the cable company not wanting to send out a tech to install a
filter, not some legal requirement.

~~~
jimhirshfield
I'm not trying to win a legal case here, just sayin'... 1\. "The broadcast
industry does not want American's to know..." Opinion. Why would they want
this widely known? 2\. "...legally obligated..." OK, that might be a little
strong, but I stand by the POV that they can not encrypt this signal. The FCC
citations (on Engadget article) make that clear (to me).

It's possible that this works for me (and others) because... I am a subscriber
to my cable company for telephone and internet access (but not TV), and so
they can not send a tech out to disconnect me from their grid because it would
terminate my current services AND they can not encrypt the Clear QAM signal
for the Broadcast TV channels.

Again, I'm not trying to argue some legal case here. But I do think it's more
than just the cable company being lazy and not sending a technician out.

~~~
detst

      I'm not trying to win a legal case here, just sayin'... 1.
      "The broadcast industry does not want American's to
      know..." Opinion. Why would they want this widely known?
      2. "...legally obligated..." OK, that might be a little
      strong, but I stand by the POV that they can not encrypt
      this signal. The FCC citations (on Engadget article) make
      that clear (to me).
    

Agree. Sorry if I'm being pedantic, but this is really nothing more than the
cable companies being compelled to broadcast these "mandatory carriage"
channels without encryption and the impracticality of filtering every non-
subscriber.

    
    
      It's possible that this works for me (and others)
      because... I am a subscriber to my cable company for
      telephone and internet access (but not TV), and so they
      can not send a tech out to disconnect me from their grid
      because it would terminate my current services[...]
    

That's why it works; however, it's not so much that they can't disconnect you
but that they can't practically filter you.

    
    
      [...] AND they can not encrypt the Clear QAM signal for
      the Broadcast TV channels.
    

They can't encrypt but they can filter non-subscribers. If this were always
practical, there's no doubt many companies would aggressively filter.

    
    
      Again, I'm not trying to argue some legal case here. But I
      do think it's more than just the cable company being lazy
      and not sending a technician out.
    

Sure, the impracticality is there but no legal impediments that I know of :)

------
techsupporter
Answer: Get a cable TV subscription. If you don't want to "pirate," or be in a
"grey area," then do what the license rights holder wants you to do and pony
up. I pay for Frontier FiOS TV and can watch whatever events I want as part of
my subscription. In many areas, the local cable company will have you
installed in a day or two and you can go month-to-month. Comcast in Seattle is
offering $29.99/month for the first 6 months, no contract, and that includes
msnbc, CNBC, and Bravo.

To answer the point of "NBC pays the government," they do: for broadcast
spectrum only. All the other channels with Olympics content are not covered by
that payment.

~~~
usaar333
That works.. sometimes.

I tried calling comcast and they don't serve my address (it's a large
apartment building). I specifically told them that I could care less if they
actually installed it; I just wanted an account so I could get the olympics
online. They claimed they couldn't do that though; the service had to be
installable or they could get fined by some entity.

My only legal option is to pay DirectTV something like $800 for a one year
subscription. Not happening..

Can't even get the terrestrial DTV signal due to buildings in my line of
sight.

~~~
jlgreco
How old is your apartment building that you cannot get cable service? I've
never run into that before.

~~~
usaar333
23 years. Its age is less of an issue than its size. It has 400+ units and
just contracts out TV service to a local San Francisco outfit, Satel:
<http://www.yelp.com/biz/satel-san-francisco>

Satel has a sattelite receiver on the roof that provides for the complex.

The only programming options are:

1\. DirectTV (extremely expensive)

2\. 'Basic' Cable, which gives only a subset of terrestrial broadcasts at only
480p. This service wouldn't qualify for nbcolympics regardless due to no cnbc,
msnbc, etc.

------
rwmj
Rent a VM in a UK colo (I recommend <http://www.bytemark.co.uk/>), and use
get-iplayer (<http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer/html/get_iplayer.html>) to
download programs from the BBC.

Edit: Even though I live in the UK, this is how I watch TV because with a bit
of scripting it's a lot more convenient than having a TV.

------
robomartin
Well, my opinion is that the IOC and broadcasters like NBC are being held back
by ideas from the last century. They are using the Internet as another
broadcasting method and ignoring the potential it offers.

At a very basic level, they could offer live streaming of all events
--advertising free-- for a fee. I would gladly pay, say, US $100 for this
service. Some might only be interested in a subset of events, which means that
there's a possibility to create tiers and capture revenue at various levels.

Here in the US, as has been discussed in this and other threads, NBC has
royally fucked up things beyond all recognition. I finally broke down and
downloaded their app. It's shit. The ads are intrusive TV-style ads. What's
worst, they have some sort of a bug somewhere that is causing videos to end
prematurely.

As and example, I tried watching Archery, Judo and Taekwondo pre-recorded
events (not live). One of them was supposed to be a five hour event. We
watched about fifteen minutes and the stream stopped with a message that read
something akin to "This video has ended". There was no way to watch it beyond
that point. It literally stopped in the middle of the action.

The other moronic thing is the way the video ads are inserted. They seem to be
using a simple timer to determine when to run a video ad. This means that
they'll interrupt your viewing in the middle of a match --just as someone is
throwing a kick-- to run a stupid ad. Unbelievable.

I am hoping that there's widespread dissatisfaction with this and that the
next Olympics, World Cup, etc. see a massive change. I'd really like to see a
true Internet company get the rights and do it right. The IOC could make far
more than what NBC and others are paying for these events by having a single-
point internationally-friendly Internet strategy rather than old-school per
country/region licensing.

Finally, a note to NBC advertisers: I am NOT watching your ads. Stop paying
NBC! We DVR the coverage and are masterfully skilled at fast-forwarding
through your commercials. When I am watching gymnastics I could not care less
about your movie or your insurance offering. So, stop supporting broadcasters,
you are wasting your money in a monumental way.

~~~
svdad
Yeah, I think this is right. And NBC actually did this for the soccer World
Cup, IIRC -- you could buy a package subscription from NBC letting you watch
all the games online.

I have to imagine there's a market for pay-as-you-go subscription to things
like Olympic events, same model as buying movies on Amazon or Google Play. I
know I would pay.

As it is, try getfoxyproxy.org.

------
brudgers
_"I use a service called Vyprvpn which is $14.99 a month. I get it as part of
a bundle with a subscription to Giganews. That’s how I connect with a VPN to
the UK. And you can too."_

So the author ended up paying to watch the Olympics. Illegally, instead of
legally, I would add.

~~~
sudonim
I guess technically I'm paying for VPN service, but I would have been anyway,
so I didn't buy something new.

And, I'm not certain it's illegal. Are you?

Is the legislation specific about where you must reside? What if you're
consuming content but you're not in the UK?

If it is illegal for anyone to consume BBC content at the time of broadcast
without a TV license regardless of location, what if someone outside of the UK
paid for a TV License?

~~~
brudgers
[IANAL] My understanding of copyright is that for events such as the Olympics,
copyrights are often licensed licensed a country by country basis and that the
retransmission of material across national boundaries is a violation. Doing so
violates the author's right to control their work because it bipasses the
arrangements the author has made to control their work. Incidently, this rests
on the same legal principles upon which much of FOS software community
operates (the license terms are merely different).

However, I would recommend speaking with an attorney familiar with such
matters.

~~~
sudonim
I bought a TV License (updated the article) and here's the proof:
[https://img.skitch.com/20120729-8nkr9edjmm4966yt8qm1sfyg5t.p...](https://img.skitch.com/20120729-8nkr9edjmm4966yt8qm1sfyg5t.png)

So, really now it should just be a question of the rights holder allowing me
in the US to watch something broadcast in the UK that I paid for.

------
rmc
_It is illegal if you live in the UK and consume TV to not pay for your TV
license.

Legally, I’m unclear of if an American connecting on a VPN to a live stream in
the UK is breaking the law. I would guess that it hasn’t really come up with
the TV license people yet._

I don't know about the UK law, but nearby Ireland has a similar "TV Licence".
The law there is not "you need a licence to watch TV", but "if you're in
Ireland and you have something that's capable of recieving TV signals, then
you need a TV licence".

 _If_ the UK is similar, then it's not "watch BBC" that requires a licence,
but "owning a TV in the UK". The OP almost certainly does not own a TV in the
UK, so almost certainly not need a TV licence.

 _(NB: There may or may not be terms & conditions on the iPlayer website which
say you may only access it if you are in UK / have a TV licence / etc., which
might make the above the illegal (but not for TV licence reasons). I'm
suprised the Olympics works for them, usually BBC iPlayer stuff uses GeoIP to
block it from non-UK IP addresses.)_

~~~
sudonim
<http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/>

> You must be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record television
> programmes as they're being shown on TV. It makes no difference what
> equipment you use - whether it’s a laptop, PC, mobile phone, digital box,
> DVD/video recorder or a TV set - you still need a licence.

~~~
mattvot
Worth noting that you can legally watch any recorded show online without a
licence

------
iuguy
Funnily enough, I know a lot of British people who use the exact same
technique the other way around to watch Hulu and Comedy Central in the US.

------
jbscpa
I DO have cable TV in the U.S. - Suddenlink

I spent 45 minutes online with the Suddenlink support person and got my
account setup with username and password

ALL SET right?

So, with the Suddenlink support person on the phone I login to the
NBCOlympics.com site and select Suddenlink.

I key in my username and password.

In about a minute the screen pops up and says I am all set to WATCH THE
OLYMPICS LIVE.

Joy!!

Then in about 10 seconds another screen pops up:

"You do not have a subscription to view the requested content. Contact
Suddenlink to upgrade your programming then log back in to view content."

What the heck??

So I ask the very helpful Suddenlink support person still waiting on the
phone: What Up?

She confirms that since I do not have the EXTENDED basic package with optional
add-ons with Suddenlink I do not qualify to WATCH THE OLYMPICS LIVE

BY THE WAY:

Did you read the nbcolympics.com FAQ:

"Q: What is required for accessing Live Extra content? A: You will need to
verify that you subscribe to a cable, satellite or telco video tier that
includes CNBC and MSNBC. There is no additional charge."

I do have CNBC and MSNBC. CNBC is channel 255 and MSNBC is channel 264 (in my
market area)

And yet I cannot WATCH THE OLYMPICS LIVE

In the terms of the Olympics here is my message to NBC LET THE GAMES BEGIN -
THE INTERNETS ALWAYS WIN.

------
kevinburke
I'm in London for the Olympics and have been blown away by the BBC - from the
usability of their website, the lack of commercials, the generally high
quality of commentary and online material, to the 24 hi-definition channels of
Olympic coverage live on TV in the flat we are renting.

I wrote up some instructions about how to use EC2 as a web proxy here -
<http://kev.inburke.com/kevin/how-to-use-ec2-as-a-web-proxy/> \- not sure if
it would work in Amazon's Ireland data center, but worth a try.

~~~
dave84
BBC iPlayer is restricted in Ireland unfortunately. I haven't specifically
checked from Amazon's data centre though, but I'd imagine it has the same
geographical restriction as my home broadband.

~~~
uxp
I just checked. Gives me the same "Not in the UK" error message as trying from
my IP in the states.

------
jamesharker
I'm actually quite surprised to see so many posts on HN discussing ways to
pirate Olympic content. The BBC is restricted to UK IP addresses for a reason.
Every household in Britian pays the equivalent of around $230 per year for the
right to watch live television, whether it be on your phone, laptop or TV. The
BBC has a finite amount of resources to spend on hosting online content & if
the whole World logs on to watch the Olympics it could end up spoiling it for
those of us who've paid for the service. I can understand the Americans
frustration with NBC (or whatever broadcaster is showing the Olympics in your
region) but if you really do want to watch the BBC, the least you can do is
pay for it <https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/pay-for-your-tv-licence/>

~~~
sudonim
Hi James. I now own a TV Licence. I'm in the US. Is it still pirating if I
watch the BBC feed through a VPN?

There's no higher cost of transmission for the BBC - they're sending it to a
UK based IP and then I pay a monthly fee for that transmission to the US.

[https://img.skitch.com/20120729-8nkr9edjmm4966yt8qm1sfyg5t.p...](https://img.skitch.com/20120729-8nkr9edjmm4966yt8qm1sfyg5t.png)

~~~
jamesharker
While it still may not be technically legal, ethically I believe you're in the
clear. Enjoy all of the 24 BBC Olympic channels - you'll probably find BBC
iPlayer quite useful for catching up on the days events as well!

------
kalleboo
> Sure! In fact, if you’re in the UK, you can legally stream every event of
> the Olympics live, and commercial free.

Note that I believe you need to pay the licence fee to legally watch iPlayer
(IIRC it pops up a dialog the first time you run it to confirm you've paid).
So even in the UK you have to "pay for TV" to get this service. It costs
approx £12/month.

~~~
sudonim
Cool - I talk about that at the bottom of the article. But I added a note in
that section that you need to pay for a TV license to stream legally. Thanks.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I'm nitpicking but I feel it's worth pointing out that not only do UK viewers
of live TV need a license but all taxpayers contribute to the BBC by separate
payments from direct taxation.

UK ISPs appear to throttle iPlayer traffic so ironically using a proxy might
be worthwhile in the UK too.

~~~
adamt
The bbc is almost entirely funded by the licence fee. There is a small grant
to cover world service (mainly for political reasons eg providing news in
Arabic) and BBC worldwide makes some money, but the vast majority is from the
tv license.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC#Finances>

I also don't think it's true to suggest ISPs are throttling iPlayer
specifically. The bbc has said it will name and shame any ISP that does.

[http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/broadband/362950/bbc-will-
alert-...](http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/broadband/362950/bbc-will-alert-users-
if-isps-throttle-iplayer)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
From you Wikipedia link BBC income includes "£279.4 million from government
grants;". That's about 6% of the amount taken from license fees, I'd argue
that's not insignificant. Financial information about treasury spend on the
BBC seems quite hard to find however.

On point 2 why would the BBC be spending money to develop a system to indicate
throttling if there wasn't even an "appearance" (as I claimed) that there was
some throttling. Surely they'd want to show at least that there was an
appearance of throttling before starting such a project?

FWIW my own experience with one of the top UK ISPs has been of quite poor
service for iPlayer - significantly lower bandwidth is used for iPlayer
connection than for other streaming sites. That is watching the same show in
low quality on iPlayer I get significantly poorer connection than watching in
higher quality streaming from some other site - this gives the _appearance_
that iPlayer is being throttled.

------
bkor
In the Netherlands you can watch it via NOS. They have explanations for how to
watch it on your pc, mobile, tv, radio, twitter/fb. See
<http://nos.nl/os2012/volg-de-spelen/>.

To watch on your pc, they partnered with Youtube Live:
<http://www.youtube.com/user/nosnlsport>

which gives me: "The uploader has not made this video available in your
country. " which is a bit strange (living in the Netherlands).

Fortunately it is quite easy to proxy stuff via the UK :)

~~~
maartenscholl
The NOS website has a nice design. The sports and events are very well
categorised. They even place a thumbnail of the video stream in the floating
menu when you are looking at items further down the page (so you don't miss
out on anything while reading the articles). The only thing that's missing are
other languages than Dutch, is it possible that it's done deliberately to keep
people from abroad out?

~~~
Gmo
I'm pretty sure they also geo-IP ...

------
tlrobinson
A UK-based Linode instance as a proxy works beautifully:
[http://bearsfightingbears.com/how-to-watch-the-olympics-
live...](http://bearsfightingbears.com/how-to-watch-the-olympics-live-from-
the-united-states)

------
kennywinker
As a Canadian, I run into this bullshit all the time.

Comedy Central embedded videos, hulu, etc.

The whole thing seems like a perversion of the promise of the internet: to
connect us all... It's double ironic in the OPs case, given the stated goals
of the olympics.

Going around via VPN is well within my technical means, but I don't want to
support the people who behave this way online, so I usually don't view the
geo-walled content, or turn to the pirate bay.

~~~
sbarre
Except this time around, CTV has done a good job of providing Olympic coverage
to non-TV people.

The iOS app is great, and the web portal is great, and it's free.

~~~
kennywinker
Yes, but why can't I watch the coverage from whichever country I choose?
Canadian coverage focuses on Canadian athletes. Perhaps I'm an ex-pat, and
want to watch my home country, or just curious how events are portrayed
elsewhere.

~~~
sbarre
Well, that's a problem with the Olympics in general, not with a given
country's broadcaster's implementation of the coverage they have purchased the
rights to.

Different problems completely... But I agree with your sentiment either way.

------
bdz
does this work in the us?
<http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html>

this is the official european broadcast stream. simply the best, every event
in live and you can also replay them. plus there is no commentator here, just
the raw broadcast (i hate when commentators talk too much...)

~~~
jameskilton
Negative, "you cannot watch this outside of the European Broadcasting Union".

------
repsilat
Wait, I don't quite get it - the first thing the author says is that he got
"crystal clear" high-def Olympics coverage from someone called Telemundo over
the air. He goes on to conclude that "There is no good way to watch the
Olympics in the United States without a cable subscription".

What did I miss?

Edit: Thanks for the quick answers.

~~~
sudonim
Sorry - I updated the article, but as the other reply mentioned, Telemundo is
a channel in Spanish.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Is there a radio broadcast you can listen to for sound whilst watching the
images from Telemundo. I've heard of people doing this to choose a superior
radio commentary whilst watching sport on TV in the UK.

~~~
ConstantineXVI
AFAIK, NBC/Telemundo doesn't own any radio stations. And since NBC isn't
broadcasting live, even if someone was running a radio broadcast it's highly
unlikely they'd be in sync.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
If there was a radio stream available online you could probably resync using
eg VLC?

------
robomartin
I have a qualifying satellite TV package and that is also broken. I related my
experience this morning here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4305905>

NBC ought to be ashamed. Their online offering is pure crap.

------
damian2000
+1 BBC

The broadcaster of the first public TV signal back in 1936 and still going
strong today.

"On November 2, 1936 the BBC began transmitting the world's first public
television service from the Victorian Alexandra Palace in north London[12]
following alternate daily test broadcasts of the Baird and Marconi systems to
the Radio Show at Olympia at the end of August. It therefore claims to be the
birthplace of television broadcasting as we know it today." --
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_television>

------
utoku
Like most people here, I just don't like the fact that some people are trying
to put digital walls around me.

To buy my nexus 1 phone, I had to use a machine in US. I bought some other
stuff from UK that way, using my machine in UK. But then UK started blocking
other sites, so I had move that machine to Germany.

Someone needs to come up with a research paper, showing the optimum number of
virtual machines needed to access the whole internet (with their locations).
Or better, make a business out of it.

------
ernestipark
Great post. FWIW, the mobile app that NBC has is 10000x better than their
website, and sometimes is even faster and better quality (iPhone). This is a
good example of developing for mobile first... The mobile experience strips
down all the unnecessary cruft and gets you to what you want immediately. As
soon as I logged on to the app, I was able to see all live streaming videos in
a nice interface and get to what I wanted. Can't say the same about the
wesite.

------
frozenflame
Ask a friend or family with the required cable package for their login info. A
more social than technical hack, but it works very well.

~~~
ConstantineXVI
We have the relevant package; but Insight won't even acknowledge our login to
use the app. They can keep their streams and ad-views if they don't want to
make it even half-usable.

~~~
Posibyte
I have roughly the same problem. I spend around $140/mo for internet and
cable, of which I receive the full NBC suite of channels. However, the app
refuses my provider's login information. When I contacted my provider, they
just sent me up to an NBC support clerk who told me essentially "Wow, that
really sucks." and that was it. There was no recourse, simply re-acknowledging
that I had a problem and they would attempt nothing to fix it.

I normally wouldn't be overly concerned about it, probably just a bit
flustered, but this is a global event that occurs twice a decade. I feel this
should really be something public broadcasters should control, not mega-
corporations.

~~~
Spooky23
You might want to verify that your provider doesn't have multiple login
schemes. My Time Warner franchise has one account for payment and account
services "pay express" and another for service access "my services".

The Olympics requires the services credential.

------
drivingmenuts
I don't watch the Olympics, as a general rule, but I'm pretty sure that, even
if I desired to, I still wouldn't until broadcasters get around to using this
decades technologies to deliver content.

You want them to modernize? Get as many people as you can to stop using cable
for TV.

------
zaim
I'm not in the US but I've been watching the Olympics on YouTube -
<http://youtube.com/user/olympic> \- this is the official Olympics channel.

Funny nobody's mentioned this. Is the channel not available in the US?

~~~
djthorpe
Yes, the IOC are streaming the whole olympics on YouTube at
www.youtube.com/olympic to 64 countries in Asia and Africa, where there aren't
exclusive broadcaster arrangements. It's the full 10 feeds of events and 1
news channel - no ads and full events.

------
JacobIrwin
I'm posting this in all three of the 'Olympics' threads showing up on the
front page of HN:

I live in Berkeley, CA and I was able to get full access to videos, including
streams and highlights, by selecting Xfinity as my service provider during my
initial sign-up/activation on the NBC Olympics website.

Here at my apartment, we have no cable service and an internet provider called
Zoom. So obviously, I wasn't being truthful - but instead was trying to
circumvent this ridiculous corporate stranglehold during my first attempt to
access Olympic footage.

I don't know if it will still work, but it worked for me on Friday and my
credentials have held since - allowing my full access without login each time
I access the website.

------
startupmum
Get a VPN that gives you a UK IP and watch it on the BBC website. Got tons of
results on <http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+ip+vpn>

I use a similar one to access Facebook when traveling to China.

~~~
patdennis
FYI, it's a link to an article, not a question.

------
JumpCrisscross
NBC has to recover (and profit on) its $1.1 billion investment. Fault resides
more with the IOC (or whoever auctioned these rights) for not requiring live
streaming. I presume they assumed this would lower the value of the bids.

------
temptemp123
If you have an european ip, go to
<http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html>

It's the official site of all european broadcasters.

You have access to all the live streams (without commentary) from all the
arenas and all the live streams from all european stations.

Just enter bbc, zdf, ard, etc... in the search box to get the corresponding
live stream with their commentary.

It also works if you are blocked on the broadcasters website (e.g. i can't
watch the zdf live stream, but can watch it here).

They have live streams for each olympics and for some special events.

------
emgreen
I'm a Brit living abroad, and guiltily use one of the (probably illegal)
methods already mentioned to watch the BBC - I feel bad, but I just can't do
without it! One thing to know, it's completely okay to listen to BBC radio
from anywhere in the world, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio>. There's a
sports station for the Olympic Coverage - Radio 5, and I also heartily
recommend Radio 6 for music, and Radio 4 for excellent speech radio, including
news, documentaries, comedies and dramas.

------
arkx
If you're comfortable with SSH you could also just fire up an EC2 or Linode
instance in UK, install a local proxy and tunnel traffic through it.

It's way more versatile than signing up for just VPN.

~~~
mocko
Excellent instructions for doing this on a mac with
<http://www.mikeash.com/ssh_socks.html>

I am an Englishman sheltering from the Olympics in NYC (public transport in
London was always going to be a mess) and even though I possess a UK TV
license I had to tunnel through my machine at home to watch the opening
ceremony.

It's a shame the BBC can't just sell a stream to people elsewhere in the world
but the licenses under which they get the content will prevent it. Otherwise
people could get content from the lowest bidder in the world, meaning
commoditisation and a massive hit to the content owners who wouldn't get to
sell the rights over and over again in different countries.

------
codequickly
I can't get any major networks over OTA, except for channels I wouldn't watch,
ie Telemundo, Univision, HomeShopping,etc. I live about 50 miles from SF. It's
really frustrating, not being able to watch the Olympics. But I'd hate to go
through VPN. Just like my previous viewing of World Cup,I'd have to resort to
non-English channels and learn a little bit of Spanish, although their
coverage is focused more toward Spanish-speaking countries.

~~~
jimhirshfield
See my comment above. You CAN get the OTA channels.

~~~
codequickly
Thanks for the info. I will try that. I am subscribed to Comcast internet, but
not TV. I have my fingers crossed. Hopefully I'll get some ClearQAM coming
through the coax.

------
Tivs
If you have a proxy to connect to in Asia, India, or Africa (easy to find) you
can watch the live stream on <http://www.youtube.com/olympic>. Simple clean
interface with schedule and easy stream selection for the current events
happening. It's also commercial free as well as being up to 1080p. You can
even change the language of the broadcast.

------
paul9290
This Olympics insanity (needing to subscribe to cable TV to watch a over the
air broadcast; Comcasts owns NBC Universal) is a great reason why services
like <http://Aereo.com> need to thrive!

Does anyone here have Aereo and are using it to watch the Olympics?

------
calpaterson
"ridiculously high standard of TV broadcasting that the BBC provides"

Heh, it's good, but this is overstating it a bit.

------
Jaqua
If you happen to have PC in virtual - or physical HW then ill recommend using
the <http://bbc-player.com/> which uses the TOR network to give you access to
BBC channels. The iPlayer portal is also accessible with it.

------
jsaxton86
To me, the confusing part is why NBC only lets cable subscribers stream the
content for free. I would guess that the cable companies are paying them to do
that, but that is pure speculation on my part. If I can stream everything
online, why would I purchase cable?

~~~
cdcarter
By confirming your cable subscription, you confirm you have access to MSNBC,
CNBC, and Bravo, where the majority of Olympic events are broadcast. Only a
small number of events are broadcast on NBC affiliate stations, mostly only in
primetime.

------
numle
It's possible to stream the olympics from the BBC iPlayer using a UK proxy
only for requesting the page with the player (the flash player itself doesn't
seem to care where you're located).

I just tested this using a free proxy. Any slow/unstable proxy will work just
fine.

------
mladenkovacevic
That sucks about not being able to get it OTA. I'm in Toronto and with a $20
antenna I can get a solid NBC broadcast from Buffalo. The local CTV channel
also has an Olympics program so at any point in time I usually have 2 sporting
events to choose from.

------
Inversechi
You can also buy a UK based VPS ( <http://www.lowendbox.com/tag/uk/>) and
install some VPN server on there/ __Note: Make sure the provider allows
TUN/TAP

------
jswank
For the winter Olympics, I had a VPS provisioned with a Toronto-based
provider: setup Apache w/ a password protected mod_proxy. Voila, I could watch
live curling and luge in the office. Total cost was less than $30 USD.

------
truxs
Did anybody tried francetvsport.fr ?

It seems to work from the webproxy i used but i'm not sure my ip was properly
hidden.

Anyway, for once french television is not behind, they broadcast all the
sports live on their website without any commentary.

------
JeffJenkins
I'm confused. In the iPad app I clicked time-warner cable, that I didn't have
service, and I wanted a temporary pass. And then everything just worked. TWC
is my ISP, but I have no cable service with them.

------
ezioamf
You can try [http://esportes.terra.com.br/jogos-
olimpicos/londres-2012/ao...](http://esportes.terra.com.br/jogos-
olimpicos/londres-2012/ao-vivo/1970/)

------
ewang1
Use your email and get a temporary pass on NBColympics.com. Although it only
lasts 4hrs but I assume you can use a different email after that and it might
still work.

~~~
sudonim
Gmail's + syntax doesn't work. So -- email+1@gmail.com, email+2@gmail.com as a
strategy doesn't work. I tried that.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Just because this is my pet peeve ...

The "+ syntax" does not belong to Gmail, nor was Gmail the inventor of same.
foo+bar@domain.net is an ancient tradition, dating back almost to the dawn of
SMTP. Of course, the interpretation of the local part is entirely up to the
MTA handling it, but foo+bar is pretty widespread. Certainly Sendmail supports
it.

~~~
sudonim
I didn't know that. Now that'll be my pet peeve. Im guessing many people have
only seen the + as a gmail hack to sign up multiple times on the same site.

------
cdcarter
What area are you in with no terrestrial NBC affiliate?

~~~
nchaimov
It's not clear that he has no terrestrial NBC affiliate. He might well have
one that he can't receive with "spare coax cable used as my antenna" instead
of, say, an actual antenna.

I can't imagine coax works well as an antenna, considering it's shielded to
prevent RF interference.

------
ing33k
I'm an Indian and I watch Olympics here <http://www.youtube.com/user/olympic>

------
welcomebrand
I wonder if folks doing this are also the same ones complaining about people
stealing apps and torrenting movies? There's no real difference.

------
ryanmarsh
Seriously, this is atrocious. I've been trying to watch the Olympics all day
and it's been one huge fail.

------
Kelliot
The BBC coverage is unbeatable. Really sets a new benchmark for multi sport
event broadcasting

------
csense
A lot of people don't get particular networks because the US recently (June
2009 [1]) switched to digital TV broadcasting. Essentially, digital TV is a
transmission protocol which more efficiently utilizes the available
electromagnetic spectrum by transmitting compressed video.

The problem is that digital transmission doesn't gracefully degrade like
analog transmission does. If you're at the outer part of a transmitter's
range, with the legacy analog signal, you might have been able to get an
adequate signal with slightly fuzzy picture or static-y sound. But receiving a
digital signal is largely a binary affair; you're either in-range and receive
it, or out-of-range and you don't. *

Another issue is the economics; most people get their TV through cable. So it
doesn't necessarily make economic sense for stations to build new transmitters
to make their post-digital range equal their pre-digital range, especially if
the new dead zones are in low-population-density areas.

Online streaming is so technically superior to broadcast -- there's no
technical reason you can't get what you want, when you want it; and the
maximum number of channels we can support isn't limited by scarce
electromagnetic spectrum -- that I foresee traditional broadcast TV being
completely replaced within the next 10-30 years.

It's still new enough, however, that the social, political, and legal issues
still have to be worked out. I.e. FCC requirements to provide broadcast-
equivalent service should probably apply to ISP's, but they don't. And
companies like NBC should realize it's in their best interest to make content
available at reasonable prices "ala carte" online, but they don't.

It's particularly interesting to see that recently services like Hulu or
Youtube are running pilot programs for producing original content. Essentially
the reason NBC et al can get away with offering customers awful service
without having their lunch eaten by startups is that they by-and-large have a
monopoly on content that people want to see. But if similar content becomes
available from other services at lower cost and/or on saner terms, they'll be
forced to change their business or die off. In other words, someone needs to
do to NBC what iTunes did to the music industry. There are plenty of people in
this space; Hulu, Netflix, Youtube, many others.

Online video is still a very immature industry because only within the last
10-15 years has bandwidth and decoding horsepower sufficient for streaming
video become available to most people. Over time the free market should iron
out a more efficient solution to connecting viewers, content producers and
content aggregators, but many existing businesses are enormously large and
entrenched, so the process will take time.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_terrestrial_television#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_terrestrial_television#United_States)

* This isn't strictly true; you might get some artifacts in marginal situations, but these tend to be much more noticeable and much less acceptable than with analog. The "in-range" and "out-of-range" might change over time due to weather.

------
heeton
That is the creepiest avatar / drawing I have seen all month.

------
freedrull
Why doesn't he just go to the local sports bar?

~~~
estel
With up to 24 simultaneous events for 12 hours a day across 18ish days, that's
a lengthy time spent at a bar that might not even be showing the event you're
interested in.

------
cabalamat
It would make sense for the BBC to run their own VPN-like service so people
outside the UK could view their content.

~~~
josephlord
???

If they wanted to unblock the world they could just do that without a VPN.

Their license from the IOC will require them to take measures keep their
services to the territory they have rights to (the UK). If they allowed their
services to be accessed globally they would only get the rights that they
bought globally.

If any VPN gets too popular you can expect them to block it too. You may need
to factor this into how much you pay for a VPN.

------
recoiledsnake
>I didn’t go out and buy an antenna, but I was able to tune quite a few
channels

Why not buy an antenna, especially an amplified one? That will run circles
around using a shielded coax cable as an antenna.

>FAIL. There is no good way to watch the Olympics in the United States without
a cable subscription

Sorry, that doesn't follow when you didn't even try a TV antenna.

~~~
avolcano
To be fair, not everyone is in a good area for OTA TV.

You can check here: <http://www.antennaweb.org/Address.aspx> to see if you can
pick up an NBC affiliate (or Telemundo, if you're okay with Spanish
commentary) near you.

------
rprasad
_Pay for it_. Broadcasting the Olympics costs NBC lots of money. These deals
are how they pay those costs. (And if it wasn't NBC, it would be CBS, ABC, or
Fox.)

One of the hazards of giving up living television is that...you give up live
television. NBC is not obligated to do squat for you if it can't make money
from you. It's a business, not a charity.

And stop praising the BBC. _It's not free_. Brits pay a mandatory tax to
support the BBC, so it is no different from cable/satellite TV in the U.S.

~~~
porlw
I wish people would stop harping on about the UK TV licence fee.

TV in the US is not free - you pay for it every time you buy something made by
a company that spends money advertising on TV.

It's practically impossible to opt out of paying for TV in the US. At least in
the UK you can opt out if you genuinely don't want to watch anything.

~~~
cheald
Frankly, I'd rather pay £150/year for all the BBC programming (without
commercials, including full online on-demand streaming) than $720/year for my
cable company's "basic" package (which I continue to pay for by sitting
through advertising for a third of the show's airtime anyway). If we bought
that model to the US, I'd be ecstatic.

------
alpine
You could offer to pay ~£8k in licence fees for life time access to UK TV. Of
course, if you watch and don't pay, you will live in fear of a prison
sentence. Luckily, extradition from the US to the UK is less likely than the
reverse, so you needn't lose as much sleep as eg Garry McKinnon
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon>)

------
mlvljr
(may I add a small comment as a (proud) ex-USSR citizen?) In Soviet Russia, we
watched Olympics.

Good luck to you guys :)

