Okay, I admit, I’m a hopeless junkie for the athletic excellence of the Olympic games – summer and winter. But Beijing 2008 should have excited even those media and new media junkies the least interested in athletics. NBC’s standard setting closing credits video montage alone was a must see for any video editor. But most significant was how NBC’s multi-platform presentation combined broadcast, cable, Internet, video-on-demand, and pay-per-view while also delivering video as it was captured in Beijing to three screens: TV, PC, and smartphone.

The many promises of digital new media are incalculable. But its gold medal event can’t happen without more advanced technologies. So NBC’s Olympic platforms, while exciting, were only a mild hint of what’s eventually to come: multi-platform “on demand” coverage of Olympics and other events. For now, expect only incremental increases for “real time” online event broadcasts come Vancouver’s 2010 winter games and London’s 2012 summer games. Watching online from Beijing was limited by NBC to favor exponentially more profitable broadcast and cable. Yet despite the Olympic flame being temporarily out, the games’ new media future glows.

Article Tags: Beijing | broadcast | cable | internet | media convergence | NBC | Olympics | pay-per-view | smartphone | Video | video-on-demand

Filed under: Networks, TV, Technology, Uncategorized, Video, Videography