NBC’s Shaun White Double McTwist 1260 Video FAIL

video

by Glynnis MacNicol | 12:53 pm, February 18th, 2010

» 10 comments

Here’s another great example of how NBC is flubbing the coverage of these Olympics. Everywhere I look people are talking about Shaun White’s Double McTwist 1260 which won him the Olympic Gold, yesterday (actually he’d technically already won it…so more of a victory lap?). It sounds awesome. I really want to watch it. And I can’t be the only one because “Shaun White Double McTwist 1260 video” happens to be a major trending topic on Google. Alas, when I search that very term (and some variations) all video links lead back to NBC’s Olympic page (quickly uploaded YouTube clips appear to have already been removed).

So fine. I have to watch this on NBC’s page. FINE. Except that when I get there I discover that NBC is using something called ‘Silverlight” for their videos, meaning I need a Microsoft plugin in order to view anything. Which when I attempt to download on my Mac crashes it. Really NBC? As my smarter, professionally techy friend puts it when I ask him to explain: “I wonder if Microsoft paid them, or if it is more NBC ineptitude.”

Truth be told, I don’t really care. I just want to watch the video (and ideally post it here so that you, too, can behold the Double McTwist awesomeness). No such luck: when I find someone who can actually get to the video they inform me there is no embed code. What is extra infuriating about all this is that I know NBC is not this dumb because they were about a zillion light years ahead of the game when they started posting embeddable clips of SNL in the Fall of 2008. Which as both a blogger and a fan I was happy to watch and go out of my way to embed…advertisements and all. Can someone please explain how in all the gazillion dollars NBC has spent on these Games no one thought to hire an intern to keep an eye on which clips could potentially go viral and then pull them and post them in a usable format with some sort of NBC commercial preroll? I mean, honestly. This is not brain surgery.

** Actually, Brian Stelter does explain NBC’s (totally idiotic) thinking when it comes to livestreaming events, here. You can read the rest of the NYT‘s still-by-still coverage of White here. Also, if anyone out there is able to find a video of this I can actually watch, please let me know. In the meantime here is a video of White’s McTwist from another event. WOW.

UPDATE: Thanks Twitter! I think this is the vid we are looking for!

2010 Vancouver Olympics, Brian Stelter, Double McTwist, NBC, Shaun White, The Internet Stupid, twitter, Vancouver Olympics 2010

Facebook User

why do you think it’s MSnbc?
marcus.lewis

M$ has been pushing their proprietary video delivery system for a while—especially during olympics and live events. However, Silverlight is capable of being installed in Mac and Novell has moonlight which supports Linux OS. You need to have FF2 or FF3 though to get it.
Cactus

What do you expect from a so-called Olympic Broadcaster that can’t even tell the difference between Switzerland and Sweden? http://bit.ly/8X3Jvm
germ

marcus,

Sorry, but it only is able to be installed on a Mac with an Intel Core. I bought my G5 about 2 months before the Intel Macs came out and I can’t upgrade to the Silverlight that NBC uses.
ChrisNH

This is true about the Mac. Thanks to the relatively bulletproof nature of the Mac platform, there are a ton of people who are using pre-Intel Macs. My iMac G5 is one of those, and calls for this ‘Silverlight’ cause my eyes to roll and I go no further. But to the nature of this blog, NBC is (rightly) getting excoriated by viewers. Perhaps the penultimate transgression was seeing King Olbermann vanquish the ‘Lympics so that his anti-everything diatribes could rein supreme. Actually, seeing an enraged Olbermann isn’t a bad thing; it verifies that things aren’t going his (or their) way.
http://soupsoup.tumblr.com Anthony De Rosa

The video you posted was great, but his final run last night was the one that blew me away, with the Double McTwist 1260 with virtually no momentum to catapult him, just sheer will.
http://twitter.com/CRZ CRZ

You’re welcome. ;-)
http://www.sailrabbits.com Magister

@CRZ: Way to go twitter. It’s like magic. (I really should login to my account)
beatgrl

I have the same problem as germ with a pre-intel mac and silverlight. I thought I would solve the problem by hooking up an extra windows machine we have lying around. Ok, success, I thought…

Unfortunately, the use of Silverlight was only the beginning of the massive NBC fail.

As of last night they did not even have any Shaun White highlights available. Plenty of fluffy filler videos, though. All the full replays and live coverage are locked away in the “premium content” section which require a person to have a cable TV account with an NBC partner. GRRRR!! If I had cable, I wouldn’t need to watch online. I would have paid for an temporary account to watch their “premium” Olympics coverage, if that had been an option.

Anyone else notice that the Figure Skating Clips for the men’s short program were raw with no commentary?

I’ve noticed in comments elsewhere (see the Seattle PI) that people watching NBC Olympics coverage are complaining their asses off about commercials every few minutes, delays for the east coast, short changed coverage and annoying commentators so maybe I’m better off, LOL.
jennielynsan

This is great of the best blogs in the field of educational activity. If I don’t came in for a couple of days, there are so many stakes that it’ll make me a couple of hrs just to go through whatever I omitted!! Kudos.

Thanks. great massive info. here keep up Culinary Skills Egg Salad Recipe French Onion Soup Recipe the great work. I cannot really provide a more constructive comment as i’m abit out of my deph but i will be checking back here for further updates.