Make Your Home a Champion Olympics Viewing Platform
Watch a sprint during a cooking marathon or a vault while curled up in bed. Live streaming and mobile apps put viewing in your control
Watching the Summer Olympics on just a TV? Oh, that is so 2008! Olympics fans in the past needed only to learn which major U.S. network got the monopoly on broadcasting, then remain glued to that station for the duration.
This year it’s much more complicated. And much better. Here’s why.
For the first time ever, all 302 events will be broadcast live online in the United States. No longer need you rely on Bob Costas alone to spoon-feed you tightly packaged snippets of Olympic glory. No, the burden is on you now. You’ve got to know the schedule. You’ve got to decide which of simultaneous live events to watch. You’ve got to prepare!
Here’s how.
This year it’s much more complicated. And much better. Here’s why.
For the first time ever, all 302 events will be broadcast live online in the United States. No longer need you rely on Bob Costas alone to spoon-feed you tightly packaged snippets of Olympic glory. No, the burden is on you now. You’ve got to know the schedule. You’ve got to decide which of simultaneous live events to watch. You’ve got to prepare!
Here’s how.
The first-ever mobile app Olympics. Sure, you’ll still want to tune in to NBC’s regular TV coverage to watch the Olympics. But fans with a cable or satellite TV subscription will also want to watch on their tablets and mobile phones. Mobile means you can watch them anywhere and everywhere: in the kitchen, in the bedroom, outside on the deck — anywhere.
NBC offers mobile apps, including one for watching the live coverage. However, these come in only iOS (Apple iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch) and Android flavors. So if your phone and tablet are not iOS or Android, make sure you recycle them responsibly and go buy new ones. This is the Olympics we’re talking about here!
Kidding.
The normal NBC site for Olympic coverage will show you a mobile-phone-optimized version if you visit on any mobile device capable of surfing the web. However, the best experience, and the streaming live coverage, will be on iOS and Android phones and tablets.
NBC has two mobile apps each for both platforms. One app is called the NBC Olympics Application, which gives you TV listings, medal counts and roundups of past coverage. The second app is the really good one. It’s called the NBC Olympics Live Extra app, and it’s your best source for live video of every Olympic event. It will not only show live streams of events as they’re occurring, but will let you watch replays of events after they’ve happened, in some cases from multiple angles.
If you have the hardware, download both phone and tablet apps, and both the NBC Olympics and NBC Olympics Live Extra apps.
NBC offers mobile apps, including one for watching the live coverage. However, these come in only iOS (Apple iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch) and Android flavors. So if your phone and tablet are not iOS or Android, make sure you recycle them responsibly and go buy new ones. This is the Olympics we’re talking about here!
Kidding.
The normal NBC site for Olympic coverage will show you a mobile-phone-optimized version if you visit on any mobile device capable of surfing the web. However, the best experience, and the streaming live coverage, will be on iOS and Android phones and tablets.
NBC has two mobile apps each for both platforms. One app is called the NBC Olympics Application, which gives you TV listings, medal counts and roundups of past coverage. The second app is the really good one. It’s called the NBC Olympics Live Extra app, and it’s your best source for live video of every Olympic event. It will not only show live streams of events as they’re occurring, but will let you watch replays of events after they’ve happened, in some cases from multiple angles.
If you have the hardware, download both phone and tablet apps, and both the NBC Olympics and NBC Olympics Live Extra apps.
Watch mobile-app streaming content on TV too. There’s no substitute for watching Olympic coverage on a giant screen. Sure, you’ll still want to watch the Olympics on TV the old-fashioned way. But this year, you can also use the mobile apps to switch back and forth — on your TV set — between live TV coverage and live mobile-app streaming coverage.
Do this by setting up “mirroring,” or some other method for showing mobile content on your TV.
The benefit is that you can use the mobile live app as a digital video recorder (DVR), which records every single event without any effort on your part. And if you’re not interesting in whatever event happens to be shown during regular programming, you can switch over to the live coverage.
If you have Apple TV, you can use Apple’s AirPlay Mirroring feature to watch mobile content on your big TV. AirPlay Mirroring simply plays on your TV whatever’s on your Mac or iOS device. Here are Apple’s instructions for using it.
People with Android mobile devices have a universe of options for playing mobile content on TVs. For example, some Android gadgets come with HDMI ports, so you can simply plug in the phone or tablet and play directly, as if it were a DVR. In general, the connectivity options on Android devices depend on the device itself, so check with your hardware maker to find out how best to do this.
If you have both Apple TV and Android mobile devices, you can use them together with an app on the Google Play store called AppleTV AirPlay Media Player.
The new online options for watching the Olympics potentially mean hundreds of hours of additional stuff to watch. Remember: Watching the Olympics this year is a marathon, not a sprint. So stay hydrated, remain flexible and go for the gold.
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Do this by setting up “mirroring,” or some other method for showing mobile content on your TV.
The benefit is that you can use the mobile live app as a digital video recorder (DVR), which records every single event without any effort on your part. And if you’re not interesting in whatever event happens to be shown during regular programming, you can switch over to the live coverage.
If you have Apple TV, you can use Apple’s AirPlay Mirroring feature to watch mobile content on your big TV. AirPlay Mirroring simply plays on your TV whatever’s on your Mac or iOS device. Here are Apple’s instructions for using it.
People with Android mobile devices have a universe of options for playing mobile content on TVs. For example, some Android gadgets come with HDMI ports, so you can simply plug in the phone or tablet and play directly, as if it were a DVR. In general, the connectivity options on Android devices depend on the device itself, so check with your hardware maker to find out how best to do this.
If you have both Apple TV and Android mobile devices, you can use them together with an app on the Google Play store called AppleTV AirPlay Media Player.
The new online options for watching the Olympics potentially mean hundreds of hours of additional stuff to watch. Remember: Watching the Olympics this year is a marathon, not a sprint. So stay hydrated, remain flexible and go for the gold.
More: How Bluetooth 4.0 Will Change Remote Control
Outside the U.S., the International Olympic Committee itself will stream events live to dozens of countries on its official Olympics YouTube page, and TV coverage depends on local, country-specific networks. NBC also has promised to show 3-D coverage of the Olympics, generally one day after events take place. These high-definition, 3-D broadcasts will be available to subscribers of Armstrong, AT&T, Blue Ridge, Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communications, DirecTV, Insight, Mediacom, RCN, Suddenlink, Time Warner Cable, Verizo, and WideOpen West.
To turn your home into the ultimate mobile Olympics viewing platform, start with this online NBC schedule.
Make sure you select My Time in the upper-left corner of the page. Now click on the big blue Get Ready button. Once you do that, you’ll see a button for selecting your TV provider, then a second button for entering the user name and password that you use with that provider. (If you don’t know or have a password, you’ll need to contact your TV provider to get one.)
It’s a good idea to spend some quality time with the schedule and click Alert Me for events that you truly do not want to miss. The site will send you an email reminder about a half-hour before each event starts.
Photo courtesy of Ian Patterson