If you, like many, had trouble with NBC’s online stream on Saturday, it’s probably your own fault. Your computer is outdated, your Internet connection can’t handle it or your settings aren’t correct. That’s what Rick Cordella, vice president and general manager of NBC Sports Digital, said, so we should all take him at his word.
NBC Suggests Live-Stream Problems Are Your Fault
No, really, it’s your fault.
Rick Cordella, vice president and general manager of NBC Sports Digital Media, said from London that extensive troubleshooting so far suggests that the technical problems might be with the bandwidth provided by cable operators, or users’ computers or devices.
Cordella said that tweaking will continue and that he hoped that the problems were resolved on Sunday.
That last line is important. NBC will continue to tweak its player and interface in an effort to smooth out the kinks. It can quietly make changes while maintaining nothing is technically wrong.
Here’s the fun thing about all this: I ran through three browsers and two operating systems -- on different computers -- to see if it was a problem on my own end. The NBC Olympics website slowed each browser to a crawl, eventually crashing them. It was leaking memory like no other.
And when it wasn’t leaking memory, the player spent its time buffering. I wasn’t alone, either, and the complaints were enough to get NBC to look into whatever the problem may be.
The fun part of all this? The app NBC created for the Olympics has been pretty great. I rarely had a problem with it, and it certainly wasn’t causing everything to grind to a halt like the web experience. Same Internet connection, same supplier of the feed (NBC), but a different device and an app instead of a browser.
So it’s our fault the stream doesn’t work. And it’s our fault the Opening Ceremony was delayed. Silly us, unaware of context. Everything that may seem like a technical hiccup or glitch on the other side of the broadcast? The public should probably just take the blame -- because you’ll be blamed anyway.
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