I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it’s certainly not a trivial matter of just churning out yet another release.

But, I still have to correct you on an important point. You have in fact provided open MMS links for everyone to stream, you just haven’t advertised that fact. I am actually very grateful for this option, since it allowed me to enjoy NBC’s Olympic coverage (which is great by the way) from day one, without ads, without touching Silverlight or even Windows and without restrictions on recording streams. I also know that many others have taken advantage of this situation as well.

There is an important lesson here. The lesson is that there are technical requirements that are hard to satisfy. However, that doesn’t include supporting Linux and other platforms. Instead, that includes DRM and security through obscurity (that is, they do not accomplished their stated goals). I hope that Microsoft is honest with its clients about this point when proposing technological solutions. Maybe you were honest with NBC, maybe you weren’t, but the bottom line is that you’ve cost them a significant amount audience for their ads.

On this note, I hope this conversation has been useful for you, and I anonymously sign off…

Microsoft’s involvement in the NBC Olympics project was one of a technology provider – not designer. We provided the platform (Silverlight), we provided some technology pieces (adaptive streaming, player logic), project coordination and technical consulting – but we didn’t design or implement the website or the player UI. As with every project, we had to work within the requirements and practical limits of the project set by the customer (NBC). Providing open MMS links for everyone to stream was not an option (hence I only mentioned it in a “parallel universe” scenario) that was ever on the table. I won’t go into too much detail, but I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how paranoid content providers are about having clear, unprotected video content available for anyone to stream (or steal). The paradigm still hasn’t changed much in the digital video world like it has in the digital audio world.

If Microsoft wants Silverlight to be available to everyone then Microsoft should write the code. Why are you leaving it up to someone else to write it. You want me to run a closed source media streamer on the OS of my choice then you need to write the code.

Are you an OS company or a software company!

Counting the number of people who are unhappy and their reasons is an objective metric and can be in all seriousness applied to any “parallel universe scenario”.

In your scenario #1, there may be two legitimate complaints: (a) can’t view the content because the technology is not available, (b) the content is delivered in proprietary formats. Thanks to existing open source media players, the number of complaints due to (a) drops through the floor. Complaint (b) is legitimate, however, it does not carry as much weight since these formats have been made usable, through reverse engineering or any other means.

In your scenario #2, Adobe’s support of the Flash plugin for many different platforms mitigates reason (a), although not as much as in scenario #1. Reason (b) still carries the less weight the more people are capable of accessing the video content.

I don’t know if scenario #3 is feasible today. Whether Theora technology is ready for prime time, I’m sure you know better than I. Concerning the complaint you cite, all the more reason to support Ogg/Theora in Windows Media Player, so that this option is open in the future. When it comes to understanding and explaining what needs to be downloaded and installed, Linux and other platform users can take care of themselves.

Hey, it looks like scenario #1 is a clear winner! Now, wouldn’t it have been nice to have this discussion in the design stages rather than after the fact? It would probably have cut down the number of complaints by a factor of 10, or even a 100.

And, lets not forget that any of the alternatives that you’ve outlined, as well as many other possibilities, already eliminate the most vehement complaint that you’ve received so far. That complaint is that NBC and Microsoft throw out a loud and clear message of “WE DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU” message, every time the website displays a “your platform is not supported” message. Now, it may be true that NBC and MS don’t care, but they should. Or, at least, the advertisers who are paying for this whole thing should.

BTW, I’ve once again noticed that you are very concerned about the quality of the user’s experience. The same concerns came out in the comments of Ben Waggoner on another blog, as well as in the discussion of the full screen playback discussion on the Silverlight forum you linked to. This is a great attitude to have. But, how about having your priorities straight?! First, give the user a choice, whether to have the content/feature or not, only then worry about quality. Let the user decide whether to make the quality/feature tradeoff for him or herself.

Finally, I’ve made clear the points that I want to make (although, you have yet to explicitly acknowledge most of them). I’ve even suggested a minimal effort way to address the complaints of users of platforms currently unsupported by the NBC Olympics website, that could be implemented RIGHT NOW. I have no idea whether you are taking these seriously or not. While we are still having this conversation, why don’t you tell me what you intend to get out of it? I’d be happy to oblige, and hopefully at least one of will not have wasted their time on this discussion.

Consider this:

Parallel universe scenario #1:
NBC decided to openly offer mms:// links to all video streams so that anybody with a capable player can view them on their own.

Likely result: Somebody would complain about NBC using Microsoft proprietary format (ASF), protocol (WMS HTTP) and codec (WMA Pro) – all of which have been reverse-engineered in projects like Ffmpeg and Mplayer, but the quality of those implementations leaves something to be desired.

Parallel universe scenario #2:
NBC decided to completely avoid Silverlight and Windows Media, and went with Flash instead, using H.264/AAC and RTMP protocol.

Likely result: Somebody would complain about NBC using yet another proprietary technology.

Parallel universe scenario #3:
NBC decided to avoid Silverlight, Windows Media and Flash – and instead offered all video streams in patent-free, open source Theora video, Vorbis audio, Ogg container and RTSP protocol.

Likely result: The majority of the country would be going, “Huh? I have to download WHAT?” :)

> One thing that I think you may have overlooked is that Web 2.0 has
> changed the rules of the game even when it comes to media delivery.
> Website owners are no longer interested in just supplying a barebone
> video experience that happens in some standalone player application.
> Also gone are the days of sticking a QuickTime or WMP video rectangle
> in a bunch of HTML goo and calling it a day. Video delivery and
> playback on the web have now become a part of a much bigger
> interactive experience.

Sorry, wrong. Web 2.0 has GIVEN websites the ability more cool and funky stuff on their pages. It HASN’T TAKEN AWAY the ability to do simple things that were possible before. And (hello!) the NBC website already does exactly that when faced with a Windows user who hasn’t installed Silverlight. So, I’m sorry, but new rules do exist, but the old rules haven’t gone anywhere.

Given a choice between straightforward video delivery and video + a rich interactive experience, most people would choose the latter. However, a much larger number of people than you’d expect would choose the straightforward video, possibly by necessity or possibly by preference. What the NBC website has done is to completely screwed these people by REMOVING THE FIRST CHOICE.

Now, this conversation could be me just expressing my opinion, but I hope it is more than that. I hope that in its course you realize some of the basic mistakes that were made in the design of the NBC Olympic website and that you will use this understanding, in whatever capacity you have at Microsoft, to influence future decisions to prevent similar mistakes.

Here are the points that I’m trying to make, and I hope that you acknowledge them, or at least show why you disagree.

1. There is no technical problem with delivering high quality streaming video (with or without ads), to most of the platforms currently shut out by the NBC Olympic website (including older Windows, older Macs, Linux and other Un*x variants, OS/2, and many others).

2. As is, the NBC website is genuinely pissing off a large number of people. A lower estimate on this number is thousands, if not tens of thousands of people.

3. The reason they are pissed off is that they know that the site’s video content could have been easily made available to them, with minimal effort from the site’s designers, but instead the designers decided to simply shut them out.

4. Pissed off people are bad for business: (a) they will hate your company, (b) they will not use your products, (c) they will create competing products just to piss you off in return (or just to have something they can finally use), (d) they will not be reached by the advertisers who are sponsoring the video content.

5. A lower estimate of the number of pissed off people is in the thousands if not tens of thousands. Yes, absolute numbers matter (instead of just percentages), because this segment of the population is stuffed with high earning professionals with lots of disposable income.

6. Since pissing people off is bad, it should be avoided in the present and the future.