How to watch the Olympics Online for Free
Posted on February 16, 2010 • 3 minutes • 466 words
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If you’re stuck in another country where the olympics aren’t being displayed, or if you’re like me and just don’t have cable, you might be wondering how the heck you can get in on all the Winter Olympics hype. Thankfully there are a few ways you can watch the Olympics online, live and streaming.
CTV Live Olympic Video Feed
[caption id=“attachment_1617” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Click image to enlarge!”]<img src="http://ibackpackcanada.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Watch-Olympics-Live-Online-300x196.jpg" title="Watch-Olympics-Live-Online"> [/caption] Seeing as I live in Canada I cannot confirm if this will work in any other countries. Make sure your computer has Microsoft Silverlight installed, head to the CTV Video section and you should be able to catch the events live. If you look in the photo the green arrow indicates where you’ll end up needing to click. Take a close look at the big arrow, there will be a Red Box there with whatever is currently airing live. I’ve got it on right now, watching Canada rock the rink in Speedskating. Woop! **Update: Just found out if you go to CTV’s Listings they’ll link you up with whatever station is broadcasting the Olympics Live Online. Which is extra handy.
NBC Live Olympic Video Feed
[caption id=“attachment_1618” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Live Olympics Feed for Americans Only”]<img src="http://ibackpackcanada.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/NBC-Live-Olympic-Feed-300x225.jpg" title="NBC-Live-Olympic-Feed"> [/caption]
I just did a quick look to see if I could get connected with NBC’s Live video feed. However like Hulu, NBC has let me down. Turns out they won’t let international viewers take a peek at their intense content. But if you’re in the States, or if you want to bother setting up a proxy, head to the NBC Video Section and give it a whirl.
3rd Party Olympic Streams
I played around with these and had no luck. Just a lot of ads and spam. However according to lifehacker and some of the comments on these 3rd party sites, people have managed to get them to work. I read a post on one of them that their website crashed recently from all the traffic, so it might be a hit and a miss until they sort their website out. If the first two fail you then you should give these a try.
Head to the Pub
If all else fails, find yourself at a sports bar or pub anywhere in Canada or the US and there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find at least one TV with the Winter Olympics playing. Best of luck people, hopefully by the next Olympics, streaming video will be all the rage and we won’t have to fight so hard to figure this stuff out. Unfortunately ’til then, we’ll have to settle with what we’ve got. Which is a couple streams, and some archive videos posted within 30-45 minutes of the event finishing.
