It's worse now that NBC is broadcasting an HDTV feed. It's gorgeous to watch. The swimmers are gorgeous, the gymnasts are breathtaking, the interstitial shots of Greece are beyond beautiful. But there is, of course, a dark side to all of this. Firstly, while the coverage runs 24/7, they repeat segments all the time. Secondly, and by far the most annoying, is that they run only 5 different commercials. 4 are advertisements for new NBC Fall Shows (Hawaii, Medical Investigation, LAX, and some other show I forget), and only 1 is a third party advert. It's the Sony HDTV ad, and they run that one the most. I've seen it 3 times in a 5 minute period. And those interstitial shots of Greece? They are great the first 10 times. But now...

There's no reason they can't show normal commercials. Even if they are not High Definition Heck the normal HD feed for NBC does this all the time.

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I was in Great Britain during the Sydney Olympics, and got to watch the BBC coverage, which was actually live. As expected, they covered a completely different set of events, spending a large amount of time on a rowing event called the "Coxless Four," which many announcers struggled with, making the expected off-color mistakes. It was interesting watching non-US coverage -- I try to see the Canadian coverage when I can as well. Seems more sport oriented, while the US coverage is more personality oriented. We like to make stars.

Anyway, I'm addicted.

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