The 2012 Olympics are in full swing. NBC in the US and the BBC in the UK are steaming every event online. NBC even developed apps so you can watch events on your iPhone or other mobile device. The BBC has an iPlayer app for Roku devices so UK viewers can stream the games on their TVs. It’s Olympic nirvana, unless you’re a cord-cutter in the US. NBC requires a cable subscription to access their streams. And the BBC iPlayer is not available in the US. So what’s a cable dumper to do? Unfortunately their are no easy answers. But all is not lost. Here are some tips for watching the Olympics online without a cable subscription.
- Roku owners, go into the Channel Store, scroll down to International, find Caribcast TV, and add it to your Roku channels. Once in the channel, click on CVM TV. CVM is a Jamaican TV network that is providing live Olympic coverage. The picture quality isn’t great, and the sound doesn’t work (at least for me). But it’s acceptable if you want to watch events on your Roku.
- You can go to WWITV.com which is a portal for online TV stations from around the world. Click on the sports category and you’ll find a list of international sports channels. You can explore these channels and see who is broadcasting Olympic events. To get started, try YS MBC, a South Korean sports channel that is broadcasting the games.
- Highlights of events are available on nbcolympics.com.
- If you live in the New York City area, you can subscribe to Aereo, a service that streams live over the air broadcasts to your computer and mobile devices. This will give you the live NBC broadcast, but you still won’t be able to access NBC’s online events without a cable or satellite subscription.
Watching the Olympics via cable or satellite is without a doubt the way to go. But cord-cutters who use these tips won’t be left out.
