Testing NBC's Olympic live-stream: It works (I think)

(Credit: Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

I got up early this morning, just to try NBC's Olympics live-stream.

That's a lie. I have jet lag. But NBC's traditionally brilliant coverage would have got me up anyway.

That's something of a lie, too. As my colleague Ben Dreyfuss explained on his deeply engaging Twitter feed: "Bob Costas: Here's Bangladesh, which is just overflowing with terrible athletes! #OpeningCeremonies."

Look, I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd see whether NBC's live-streaming was slightly better than its live, steaming nonsense about not showing the opening ceremony live.

Here's my story so far.

Logging on was extremely easy. The only question I had to answer concerned my cable company. I gave the NBC site the name and I was in. Yes, just like that. I didn't have to offer a password. I didn't even have to spell my name out -- which, even after all these years, still doesn't work so easily through QWERTY.

I went straight to the badminton. Not because I necessarily wanted to watch it, but because I thought that if this was being shown in some passable fashion, then there would be hope.

There was. For there was a boy and girl from Denmark with peculiarly tired-looking faces flicking their wrists at... [Read more]