Mac doesn't want to play Olympic Games
It's not even 11 a.m. on Tuesday in Beijing but I've already got a wealth of Beijing Games streaming video -- including live basketball, field hockey, handball, softball, water polo and wrestling -- to choose from, courtesy of NBCOlympics.com.
I'm not the only one going online. By Monday afternoon, fans had watched streaming video replays of the U.S. men's stunning, come-from-behind victory in the 4x100 relay against France more than 1.1 million times, according to NBC Universal.
But my nephew in San Clemente and his mother (my sister) in Ohio aren't among them. Neither household has been able to access streaming video on NBCOlympics.com.
Nephew Justin's diagnosis: The software required (Microsoft's Silverlight) doesn't work on their Macs. One of Justin's Macs has a G4 PowerPC chip, the other runs Linux. Back in Ohio, the Mac in question has a G5 chip.
"I suspect it's because Silverlight was only developed on x86 chips (like Intel and AMD)," Justin said.
Any other Mac fans out there with this problem -- or, better yet, a solution?
photo credit: a screen grab that shows what Justin sees when he tries to watch NBCOlympics.com streaming video on his Mac.
-- Greg Johnson
I too am extremely annoyed. I cannot watch the streaming video at home because all my Macs are PPC. There is no excuse for not being able to watch streaming video on my Quad-core PowerMac G5 with its 30" Cinema HD display. I do have a couple of Windows PCs in house, but they are older, slower, and run Windows 2000, not one of the supported OS's. There are several portable video players out there and NBC goes with Silverlight.
Posted by: Brett Johnson | August 11, 2008 at 08:47 PM
I share the frustration of my fellow mac users. I am living in Kenya and the coverage here is not great and my Mac is not the newest. It would be really nice if NBC would offer other video formats so they could reach a wider audience.
Posted by: Bill Rowe | August 11, 2008 at 10:34 PM
NBC and Microsoft have always been too cozy: what do you think the MS in MSNBC is all about? When you have that kind of coziness, it's often the customer who is an afterthought to the corporate logrolling. This was not a consumer-oriented choice, and I'm sure it was over the objections of NBC people who knew better.
Posted by: Steve Nelson | August 12, 2008 at 01:31 PM
NBC also picked a fight with Steve Jobs & Apple so they are stuck with Microsoft who owns part of MSNBC with them ... so of course, they're only allowed to use MS technology ... but then NBC is not the smartest bulb when it comes to technology.
Posted by: jbelkin | August 12, 2008 at 06:36 PM
Soooooo... does anyone have a solution or just alot of gripe?
Posted by: shannon | August 12, 2008 at 07:01 PM
I have tried multiple suggestions online, but have not had any luck so far. Will try the cbc.ca someone mentioned above.
Posted by: JasonK | August 13, 2008 at 10:02 AM
same problem here. cannot play olympic video at home with mac. had to wait til work and then it started to screw with my speaker control panel defaults (muted them). from the forums on silverlight i am seeing alot of griping about it being buggy with audio and video cards being outdated. once again MS can't release a product that actually works in the real world, even when they control all of the user hardware and OS software! losers
Posted by: artemis | August 19, 2008 at 06:44 PM
I hate to be the bearer as the saying goes, but there is no solution at this time. Which means forget watching the Beijing Olympics on a Power PC Mac.
Here's the Macworld story:
http://www.macworld.com/article/134935/2008/08/olympics.html?lsrc=mwiphone
Posted by: Michael Fitzpatrick | August 20, 2008 at 11:09 PM