The countdown to the 2018 Winter Olympics is upon us. With less than a few weeks until the Olympics Opening Ceremony on Friday, February 9th in PyeongChang, South Korea, excitement is in the air. Which teams will take home the gold, silver, and bronze? Watch the Winter Olympics from the comfort of your own living room with the NBC Sports VR app and find out.
Full Olympic Coverage
NBC and Intel have joined forces to provide the Olympics first-ever live and on-demand VR sports coverage that can be easily viewed on an app. Viewers who download the NBC Sports VR app will get to view 30 Winter Olympic events in 360-degrees, across 50 hours of virtual reality coverage.
“The Olympic Games is a unique opportunity to bring people from around the world together to build camaraderie and cheer for their favorite athletes,” said James Carwana, Vice President and General Manager of Intel Sports Group in a statement. “We are enabling a truly immersive experience, where fans get closer to the action than ever before, allowing them to feel like they are sitting in the stands for a front and center view of history being made.”
Get the best seats in the house by using your VR controller to teleport to awe-inspiring vantage points while you watch alpine skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. There will be 3 to 6 strategically placed, heavy duty, 4K, stereoscopic VR cameras powered by Intel’s 5G connectivity, including a fleet of drones shooting events and VR viewing experiences from above.
Viewers using the NBC Sports VR app will see sweeping and immersive viewing perspectives of their favorite winter sports and beautiful snowy landscapes of South Korea. They’ll also get clear audio that picks up the sounds of the audience and the action in real-time. With 1TB of data being processed per hour, Intel’s True VR system and Intel Core processors will be working overtime to stream 3D and virtual reality coverage to millions of VR headset users.
“The Olympics have long been an opportunity to showcase emerging media technology,” said Gary Zenkel, President of the NBC Olympics said. “With the help of Intel’s industry-leading virtual reality technology, NBC Olympics will deliver a transformative experience that will bring to Olympic fans an entirely new perspective on the speed, thrills, and excitement of an Olympic Winter Games.”
Don’t miss the action while you’re away, get on-demand post-event highlights and clips so you can play and replay your favorite Winter Olympic moments. See who set record-breaking speed skating times and which teams took home medals by accessing the live leaderboards. Do you want to know more about post-event stats? You can view it all from the app live or in replay mode.
Compatible VR
You can get the NBC Sports VR app for the Samsung Gear VR. While Google Daydream, Windows Mixed Reality, Google Play, and Microsoft app store users will have to go here for the NBC Sports app page until they direct a link. If you don’t have a headset you can still use the app on an Android or iOS smartphone or tablet, it just won’t be as convenient as wearing a VR headset to view it in full 360.
Live and On-Demand Schedule
Watch the PyeongChang Winter Olympics with the NBC Sports VR app by checking out the live and on-demand schedule here. Watch history unfold as Olympians compete from Sunday, February 18th (a day ahead of the actual Winter Olympics) to the 25th on the app.
Will you be watching the 2018 Winter Olympics through the NBC Sports VR app? If you do, let us know all about it in the comments section!