a hshieh blog.

Seriously, NBC? You expect me to install Silverlight to watch Beijing 2008 live? Why are you ruining the experience?

The Beijing 2008 Olympics is the most televised/broadcasted Olympics ever. In fact, if all of the future, current and past footage of the available cameras broadcasting presently to web and television viewers were combined, the total footage would be greater than that all of the footage from past Olympic events combined. China truly made an effort to let everyone experience the Olympics.

But Microsoft has a plan to end all of this, at least for American viewers. My plans to attend Equestrian have been stifled, and hence, I am forced to watch events online, on American television, and on Chinese television, like everyone else. Unfortunately, only the “Olympic Channel” in China has rights to broadcast, so I can only enjoy small snippets allotted to other networks. Of course, NBC has monopoly in the States.

Who would have thought, that when I logged on to the NBC Olympics website, I would be asked to install Silverlight. No, Microsoft, I do not wish to entertain you, and your propriety formats. Silverlight is nice for some things, and with that, I mean very few things. But alas, I wanted to watch Judo, so I installed Silverlight anyway, only to be greeted by shoddy, un-maximisable resolution, and the constant occurence of the “buffering circle.” I understand that servers must be clogged, but when the video is unwatchable, whats the point? Flash is significantly more light weight, and for that matter, significantly more universal. Why pull your Silverlight marketing now, Microsoft, when you could making huge gains just by promoting your own, high quality, non-terrible, video player? I honestly would have preferred an WMV stream over this.

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