Okay, here's the best way to watch the Beijing Olympics(in the US):
- On a Mac-mini that's hooked up to a 50" DLP Samsung TV or larger...
- Go to nbcolympics.com and click on "TV & Online Listings".
- Fill out some forms to go through which asks what's your TV provider... it's really BS. Don't choose Cablevision or From the Air and you'll be okay.
- When you are through, choose the Online Listings tab, this will list by sport. Live events will show with the listing, so if there are live events you want to watch, just click on that. Otherwise, click on the sport that you are interested in watching and you will get a listing of the prerecorded events that you can watch, click on one and video will start.
- The Video player requires Microsoft Silverlight, just follow the steps to install it. It works with Mac too.
- Once the video player is working, and the main content (after the ads) is going, you can click the "Enlarge Video" button on the bottom right.
- There is no fullscreen mode, but that's where the Mac's zoom function comes in. Do Cmd-Option-8 to enable zooming if it isn't already, and then Cmd-Option-=(or plus) to zoom in to the desired size, (Cmd-Option-(minus) to zoom out).
- One last step to hide the mouse cursor by pressing shift-Cmd-4 and the moving the cursor away from the center. Curtesy of this article.
- That's it! Perfect! Resolution is pretty good, I'd say on par with analog TV. The selection is MUCH MUCH better than on NBC's TV line up. There's no commentary, which could be good and bad, I personally like it. AND, MOST importantly, No Ads! 'nuff said.