While the NBCOlympics.com isn’t playing host to events scheduled through the 17th of the month, when the Paralympic games officially wrap up, the NBC Universal Sports website is, according to Alan Schwarz of The New York Times’ Rings blog, slated to present 50 hours of live coverage, as well as on-demand footage. In order to watch live coverage, viewers in the US will be required to schedule their days to an early morning routine, seeing as how many events will take place as early as 5 AM ET.
So far, two videos are presented in the Universal Sports archive: one for the opening ceremony held Saturday; the other a highlight reel of the ceremony plus coverage of a portion of Day 1 events. As for software compatibility, video is not presented in Silverlight, nor Flash, but in Windows Media format. Mac users can view coverage through a browser plugin called Flip4Mac. Personal experience shows this option to stutter and flicker at points, but it is a mostly decent delivery.
Another way to watch the Paralympic games up close is through ParalympicSportTV. This is done through Narrowstep, and while video detail isn’t particularly outstanding, the channel is tagged with the IPC (International Paralympic Committee) label, an association which might be of interest to some. If you have trouble viewing content at the main ParalympicSportTV page, an archive has also been established on YouTube. Nearly three dozen clips have been added to the collection so far.
Want extra reading material to go with the IPC’s coverage? The committee president, Sir Philip Craven, has gone ahead and created a blog, to which he has posted daily items for a short time. The broader Paralympic.org website is home to a good amount of news and resource information, too.
Across the Atlantic, the BBC offers a page within its Sport section devoted to Paralympic happenings. Of course, there’s ample focus on competitors from Team Great Britain, but according to BBC News, live streams are being offered “for six hours a day through the red button.” Quite thorough, I think. That is in addition to evening showings on BBC2 and via the BBC’s iPlayer service.