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Olympics 2004 on Usenet

A couple weeks back I predicted that Bittorrent would be a big way to share coverage of the Olympic games when fans felt their local TV coverage fell short, and I admit I don't see much in the way of bittorrent sites listing olympics videos at this time. But I did notice some action on Usenet, especially the newly formed alt.binaries.olympics. Just a couple days into this year's games, a rip of the BBC's opening ceremonies was floating around along with a few basketball games.

Andy Baio has the full scoop with a link to a sample of Brazillian TV coverage from last night's coverage, along with a full listing of what the usenet group currently has posted.

I knew the demand of fans for their favorite sports would take the Olympics online this year, whether or not the IOC wanted it. But I guessed wrong on Bittorrent being the place to be, it turns out the old school Usenet network is where the action's at this time around.

Personally, with a two-tuner DirecTiVo and season passes with the highest priority set to record any and all Olympics coverage, I'm getting way more coverage than I expected. I've been able to see just about every sport in the games and aside from the same old "triumph over adversity" montages before every event an American is going to win, the NBC coverage has been great.

by Matt Haughey August 24, 2004 in News

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