Sunday, August 12, 2012

NBC's Olympic coverage -- a slick feature, but ...

I like the ability to watch two events at a time, as shown here. The audio and video streams are independent of each other, and the user can swap the large and small screens with a single click.


There is a menu listing the currently available live streams below the right hand screen, and the user can switch among them with a single click.

There is buffering time whenever you make a change and the two streams compete for bandwidth, but it is a welcome feature with a well-designed user interface.

My gripe is with the advertising. When an ad pops up in one screen, the other stops and displays the message shown below.


I guess stopping the video preserves bandwidth for the HD commercial and forces the you to pay attention, but there is a major glitch -- it pisses the viewer off. I may never buy a Coke again, and, if I do, it surely won't be in one of their special Olympic Games cans.

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