Watch the Olympics with TVTonic

Cheryl
Jul 3, 2008
Updated • Dec 13, 2012
Music and Video
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2

It’s Olympic year and this time we’re heading to Beijing to watch the best athletes in the world battle it out for glory. If you’re lucky enough to actually be going to Beijing for the Olympics, then you’re sure to enjoy yourself. However, if you’re like me, you have to make do with trying to watch it online.

NBC holds the rights to the Games and they’ve gone the online way by tying up with software TVTonic.The tie-up offers users the chance to download videos of Olympic events for free. In addition, you can also watch each event online with TVTonic 12 hours after it finishes, which is fine when you’re halfway around the world and are sleeping during the live event.

There are some drawbacks though. TVTonic works only with WindowsMediaCenter. That means you need to be a Windows Vista or XP user with the MediaCenter installed. Plus, you need a broadband connection or you won’t get good playback on the videos. A third drawback is that online viewing is possible only with Internet Explorer.

Although TVTonic looks promising, I didn’t like all the restrictions it imposed. I’m pretty sure there are plenty of less restrictive ways to get your Olympics fix online. What did you think of TVTonic? Fancy trying it out? What are you doing to watch the Olympics online? Let me know in the comments.

Update: The TVtonic now resolves to a Wave Systems Corp website. I'm not sure how the site is related to the offering, only that it has nothing to offer in terms of streaming tv or sports. I suggest you check out this tv on PC overview for some suggestions when it comes to watching television on the PC.

Update: TVTonic is no longer available.  I suggest you try a TV over Internet service like Sopcast instead.

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Comments

  1. Anonymous said on August 1, 2010 at 12:43 pm
    Reply

    Why not make use of the mplayer.conf?

  2. Mike J said on August 1, 2010 at 2:58 pm
    Reply

    Huh, I have never even seen this “font cache” pane; videos play at once for me, using VLC & XP SP3.

    1. Martin said on August 1, 2010 at 3:39 pm
      Reply

      Mike, in theory this should have only been displayed once to you, at the very first video that you played with VLC. The time this window is displayed depends largely on the number of fonts in your font directory.

      1. Mike J said on August 2, 2010 at 2:30 pm
        Reply

        huh, I lucked out for a change?? Amazing!!
        Apparently VLC keeps this info through version updates, but I didn’t see this message after a fresh OS install about 8 weeks ago, & a new VLC.

  3. myo said on August 1, 2010 at 5:52 pm
    Reply

    yes, yes, i have the same problem. sometimes, VLC crashes when it is playing .mov file.

  4. Kishore said on August 13, 2010 at 2:55 pm
    Reply

    Error:
    Buidling font Cache pop-up

    Solution:

    Open VLC player.

    On Menu Bar:

    Tools
    Preferences

    (at bottom – left side)
    Show settings — ALL

    Open: Video
    Click: Subtitles/OSD (This is now highlited, not opened)
    Text rendering module – change this to “Dummy font renderer function”

    Save
    Exit

    Re-open – done.
    Progam will no longer look outside self for fonts

    Source – WorthyTricks.co.cc

    1. Martin said on August 13, 2010 at 3:10 pm
      Reply

      Great tip, thanks a lot Kishore.

  5. javier said on August 14, 2010 at 1:50 pm
    Reply

    @Kishore, I’ll try your tips, but does this mean it will no longer show subtitles either?
    I do use subtitles, but the fontcache dialog box pops up (almost) everytime I play a file.

    Could this be related to the fonts I have installed? Or if I add/remove fonts to my system?

    I’ll try to do a fresh install also, if your tips does no work. I’ll post back here later…

    /thanks
    /j

  6. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:38 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,

  7. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:39 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,Dont worry, VLC is currently sorting out this issue and the next version will be out soon.

    No probs @ Martin !! Its my pleasure

  8. Ted said on October 22, 2010 at 3:57 am
    Reply

    Try running LC with administrator privileges. That seemed to fix it for me

  9. Evan said on December 8, 2013 at 1:48 am
    Reply

    I am using SMplayer 0.8.6 (64-bit) (Portable Edition) on Windows 7 x64. Even with the -nofontconfig parameter in place SMplayer still scans the fonts. Also, I have enabled normal subtitles and it is still scanning fonts before playing a video. Also, it does this every time the player opens a video after a system restart (only the fist video played).

  10. Mike Williams said on September 6, 2023 at 1:26 pm
    Reply

    Does that mean that only instrumental versions of songs will be available for non-paying users?

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