Free 2008 Olympics video from NBC on MCE

[nerp]

Anyone else notice this little service appear on their MCE boxes? Looks like you can select specific events and it will download them as they happen to your MCE box automatically. The video quality is supposedly going to be decent. It will be free, probably ad supported.

It's called NBC Olympics 2 Go.

It looks really cool, based on my initial impressions. I checked off a bunch of events. It looks like the main area will have daily news feeds and a ticker going. Your chosen content and channels on the side. I'm interested to see how this will look when the Olympics are underway and stuff starts rolling in. Right now you can't watch much more than some Lenovo promotional videos.

http://www.microsoft.com/windo...iacenter/olympics.mspx

I'll post more when I have more time. Hopefully other people install the app and fiddle with this too. I'll make sure to indicate if this thing is a heap of crap or if its a useful way to watch olympic events.

As I poke around this app it really feels like "the future of TV" you hear about. A mix of highly produced recorded content based around live action pumped on demand and automagically in the background to endusers who can customize the content. Meanwhile ads and logos flutter around the screen like butterflies.

The installer does not support 64-bit versions of Media Center. That sucks.

 

[QuixoticOne]

Hmm interesting. The bit about "install the app" scares me a bit; I thought MCE's guide software and the existing
content menus for internet based media would naturally have some capabilities enough to handle something like this.

I'd more likely consider installing an official Microsoft update to MCE than some third party broadcaster originated thing that could likely
be full of added spyware / DRM / who knows what.

Actually I was about to reformat my Vista MCE to switch to Mythbuntu since I found out the hard way that you (incredibly) can't use
another Vista MCE PC as an media extender / guide & schedule controller / live media streaming viewer for your 'main' MCE 'server'.
AFAIK there is a third party application to let you control the record schedule from a remote PC, but it's kind of useless without
being able to use the full live viewing and remote control et. al. functionality remotely IMHO, and I'd rather invest in PCs than
XBOXes or dedicated extenders.

I'll try to check this out first, though, if I don't hear anything too scary about the add-on application.

 

[nerp]

A lot of the extra online content on MCE requires installation of some sort of app. I'm not too worried about this one. The content is free, the app can be uninstalled and I doubt it will do anything illegal, such as look at my files. 🙂

Installing it doesn't seem to affect performance of the machine and I see no extra tasks running or anything. The front end for the service is complex enough that I think the basic MCE interface wouldn't be able to pull off everything it does. The Olympics area is pretty busy, akin to an interactive 24/7 news channel of sorts.

 

[loup garou]

Just installed it, we'll see how well it works. Interface is pretty nice.

 

[QuixoticOne]

Hmm of course the other problem I have is that the guide is useless for me since I've got a HDTV system
and no HDTV channel/subchannel listings correctly appear in the main guide, only analog TV channels.

If this *only* downloads internet based content it shouldn't be a problem, though if it also / mainly schedules the
automatic recording of preselected broadcast content when / where that is available that may be a problem.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
Hmm of course the other problem I have is that the guide is useless for me since I've got a HDTV system
and no HDTV channel/subchannel listings correctly appear in the main guide, only analog TV channels.

If this *only* downloads internet based content it shouldn't be a problem, though if it also / mainly schedules the
automatic recording of preselected broadcast content when / where that is available that may be a problem.

It just downloads content.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Apparently this doesn't support 64-bit Vista (or at least that's what the installer told me when I ran it)...kinda lame. Oh well, that's what the HDHomeRun is for. 😛

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001
Apparently this doesn't support 64-bit Vista (or at least that's what the installer told me when I ran it)...kinda lame. Oh well, that's what the HDHomeRun is for. 😛

Ouch. I'm glad I'm running 32 on my Opteron 180, then. Thanks for pointing this out.

 

[QuixoticOne]

WTH?! It doesn't even relate to the tuner(s) from what a previous poster said.

If Vista64 can talk to the internet and use codecs, it should be all that it needs.

Unless this thing is installing some kernel mode device driver and they didn't bother to digitally sign it
which would make it incompatible with Vista64, but there's no good reason for them to do that...

The only other reason programs are V64 incompatible is if they use really obsolete 16 bit installer programs,
but usually newer programs wouldn't have that problem.

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001
Apparently this doesn't support 64-bit Vista (or at least that's what the installer told me when I ran it)...kinda lame. Oh well, that's what the HDHomeRun is for. 😛

 

[nerp]

I started watching some of the swimming and track and field time trials. The video quality is quite good and the service behaves quite well with the MCE interface and remote. I'm pretty pleased so far.

And wow. Those pole vaulter women have nice butts. 🙂

 

[QuixoticOne]

I just installed it after a bit of fighting with browser permissions / settings to get it to work.
Any idea how to move some of your recording storage to a different drive letter (file server share to be specific)
once you already have it stored on a local disc? I was running out of space before this, and now I'll definitely need more.
Can you specify multiple storage locations to be used in concert like C:, D:, E:? I've never noticed that option.