NBC Nixes Full-Screen Videos on Olympics Website

Written by Steve Donohue

Tuesday, August 12. 2008 at 12:25 PM EDT 4 comments

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NBC may be generating record Web traffic for its coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, but the size of the video display on NBCOlympics.com has some viewers seeing red.

Microsoft is supplying its new Silverlight Web video platform to NBC for its coverage of the Olympics. While Silverlight has the ability to deliver videos in full-screen mode, NBC is not offering Web surfers on NBCOlympics.com the option to watch videos of swimming, boxing, gymnastics, and other Olympics competition in a full-screen display.

Also, despite NBC plans to offer more than 3,000 videos from Beijing on NBCOlympics.com, the decision to restrict the size of the video interface has sparked a backlash on some Websites, including a Microsoft Silverlight forum.

Some Web surfers are also suggesting workarounds that will allow users to increase the video window. One fix for Internet Explorer users: Press F11 for full-screen mode, zoom the video by 200 percent in the Internet Explorer status bar, and scroll across the bottom of the screen to center the video display.

NBC officials didn’t respond to an inquiry about the lack of a full-screen viewing option on NBCOlympics.com.

While some viewers may not be satisfied with the size of the videos offered on NBCOlympcis.com, the site is generating record traffic with its coverage from Beijing.

NBCOlympics.com generated 199.3 million page views through the first three days of the Olympics, NBC said late Monday. It's expected to surpass the 229.9 million total page views it generated for the entire 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens by the end of Monday.

The Website has delivered 11.1 million total video streams, which is already five times more than the total for the entire Athens Games (2.2 million).

The 4x100m relay race Sunday night, in which the U.S. men’s team beat France while setting a new world record, drew 1.1 million video streams, NBC said. NBC Olympics.com also posted 66.7 million page views and 5.1 million users Sunday.